The STEM Center at SHSU

The STEM Center will increase both the quality and quantity of STEM graduates from Sam Houston State University.

Sam Houston State University
Established: 2017

http://www.shsu.edu/academics/science-and-engineering-technology/stem-center/

Profile submitted by Brian Loft

Vision and Goals

Our STEM Center will increase the number and quality of students who earn a STEM degree from SHSU. We will accomplish this by increasing the preparation of incoming STEM majors so that performance in first-year courses is increased, by using more effective teaching techniques in STEM courses at all levels, and giving students the means to engage in research at an earlier point in their college careers.

Specifically, the STEM Center will (1.) design free summer mini-courses for students to increase their preparation for traditionally difficult first-year STEM courses, (2.) educate, train, and motivate STEM faculty to incorporate more effective active learning techniques in their classrooms, and (3.) design coursework to encourage more frequent rigorous research at the undergraduate level.

Center/Program Structure

The Director (PI of the grant) is a former chair of the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics and is currently a member of the Academic Affairs executive staff.

The Assoc. Director (a Co-PI) is a mathematician
Two Asst. Directors (both Co-PIs) are a chemist and an engineer.

These three faculty members receive 2 months salary (or 2 semester course releases annually) in compensation.

Our Educational Data Specialist (a faculty member in Chemistry Education) receives the same compensation.

Our Director of Institutional Effectiveness is also a CoPI. She is a full time executive staff member and receives no additional compensation for her involvement in the STEM Center.

There are funds to hire a full-time Program Manager to serve as administrative assistant, graphic designer, webpage development and maintenance, as well as assisting in recruiting of students and faculty.

Are there advantages of being structured this way?
Our STEM Center is almost entirely faculty driven. We feel it is important to have faculty involvement at all stages of the development and design of this STEM Center.

We have formed a college advisory committee to assist with curriculum development and faculty recruitment. This committee will meet no more than twice each semester, and will be charged with helping promote the goals and objectives of the STEM Center as well as assist with recruiting participating faculty and students, and assist with any curricular challenges we encounter.

Are there particular challenges that result from this structure?
Having to hire a program manager has been a time-consuming process. Were our center part of a college (or division such as Academic Affairs) from the start, administrative duties could have been performed from day one rather than having to wait months for the hiring process to complete.

Also, faculty are busy.... so busy with their own research and teaching that taking part in the design of such an ambitious center often is not the first priority. Fortunately, the PI/Director has a half-time administrative position.

Funding

Our STEM Center is funded for 5 years from the NSF. Beyond the funding period, little funding will be necessary to sustain the initiatives.

How has this funding structure influenced the undergraduate STEM education programming the center offers?
At first we planned on funding a local, 5-year pre-REU within our college. The reviewers (rightfully) saw this as unsustainable and nontransferable to other institutions. Instead, we will develop a course for 2nd-year students to learn more about interdisciplinary undergraduate research. Had the reviewers not forced us to delete the pre-REU component from our original proposal, this course probably would not have been developed.

What are the specific advantages of having a center funded in this way?
Answering only to the PI will be nice, rather than to the dean or the provost. While there are restrictions on spending and finding that come with NSF-funded projects, for the most part we are given autonomy in transferring our vision from the proposal to a concrete center.

What are the challenges?
Unsustainability. When the finding runs out, we will either need to seek additional finding sources or continue the work o the objectives with much less (almost no) financial support.

Has this funding structure has changed over time?
We just received funding in Fall 2017.

Description of Programming

As was mentioned above, there are three components which will allow the STEM Center at SHSU to accomplish its goal of producing more and better STEM graduates:

Summer mini-courses

Several 2-3 week mini-courses will be designed for incoming students majoring in STEM disciplines. These courses will provide first year students with both (1.) content knowledge designed to prepare them for success in courses traditionally difficult for our students and (2.) skills necessary for success in the university environment. Based loosely on the semester-long Frameworks and Foundations courses designed by the Dana Center's Mathways Project (DCMP), these courses will be freely available to students and held close to the start of the Fall semester.

Starting with our precalculus course in year 1, we will develop new courses in later years in calculus, college algebra, and general chemistry.

Support active learning

There are several evidence-based teaching techniques that are more effective with STEM students than traditional lectures. Inquiry-based learning (IBL) in mathematics and statistics courses or Process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) in chemistry are two examples. Several studies have indicated that more active learning in classrooms benefit students -- and in particular struggling students -- more than more lecture-based, passive learning.

The STEM Center at SHSU will educate and train faculty to use more active learning in their STEM classrooms. In addition, financial stipends will be provided to encourage the use of active learning through all four years of STEM curricula.

Undergraduate research

In order to encourage more students to be involved in research as undergraduates, the STEM Center will develop a new course, Introduction to STEM Research, to be available as an elective to all students in STEM majors. This course will not only expose second- or third-year students to the interdisciplinary nature of STEM research, it will also require each to find a research mentor and begin the process of developing a research project.

Team taught through our college, this course will be cross-listed across several departments, eliminating the need to find a certain minimum number of students to enroll in each department. While perhaps a considerable time commitment is necessary during its development, because it is team-taught and repeated each Fall the burden on instructors will hopefully be minimal.

Successes and Impacts

It's too soon to tell... stay tuned for our first annual report. We hope to increase the passing rate of first year STEM courses, in particular increase the number of As and Bs earned in first year chemistry and mathematics courses for STEM majors. We hope to see a marked improvement in learning outcomes in sequel courses (for example, students who complete a calculus I course using active learning will be more likely to do well in calculus II). Marked increases in one-year retention rates will be realized as well.

Evaluation and Assessment

How does your center demonstrate its value, both in terms of assessing its own programming and responding to external evaluation?

Elements Contributing to Success

Supplemental Materials