NSF Awards: 1832388
The United States’ ability to maintain competitiveness in the global market and to address grand challenges faced by the world in the future will require a strong, diverse STEM workforce. Therefore, efforts are needed now to accelerate improvements in the quality and effectiveness of undergraduate education in STEM fields. The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is committed to increasing academic access and success for historically underrepresented students by undertaking a range of curricular and mentoring reforms. The challenge for UTSA is to harness the strengths of first generation and underserved students’ experiences and employ these experiences as resources that can lead to innovation and discovery enterprises in STEM. The overall goal for this project is to develop new methods of instruction and associated curricular change with an explicit focus on the intersection of academic literacy and content competencies. This goal will be achieved through the application of evidence-based teaching approaches, coaching of STEM faculty to improve student learning, and by providing student mentoring and professional development experiences. The overall goal will be accomplished by successfully completing the following tasks:
- Develop and improve undergraduate STEM students’ integrated understanding of academic literacy and core competencies;
- Create interdisciplinary professional development lesson study groups of instructors to engage in sustainable instructional and curricular change;
- Align STEM curricula between lower and upper division courses;
- Develop a near-peer mentoring program for sophomore and junior level STEM students;
- Provide research opportunities and professional development activities for STEM students; and
- Evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of the institutional curricular redesign.
Andrew Walton
Doctoral Fellow in Culture, Literacy, & Language
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome!!!
I'd like to introduce our team here at The University of Texas at San Antonio. We have Dr. Juliet Langman and Dr. Jorge Solis as our Principal Investigators. We also have Hector Castrillon Costa, Lina Martin Corredor, Nguyen Dao, and myself, Andrew Walton, as Graduate Research Assistants on our project Transforming STEM Undergraduate Education through Academic Literacy, Mentoring, and Professional Development.
Thank you so much for stopping by and watching our video as we are extremely pleased to share with you the progress of our research. We are currently in year 3 of this project that builds on UTSA’s and the NSF’s dedication to increasing diversity in the STEM workforce. This plan is an integrated approach to increase the number of undergraduate underrepresented minorities who graduate from the UTSA Colleges of Engineering and Sciences. This program will increase the diversity of the STEM workforce specifically in South-Central Texas, by harnessing the strengths of UTSA’s student body. It is expected that the program will benefit STEM undergraduates at UTSA by increasing their retention rates, critical thinking skills, professional knowledge, self-efficacy, graduation rates and professional and workforce preparedness.
Please leave feedback, questions, and comments as we are happy to reflect, learn, and grow.
Bernard Yett
Mesut Duran
Professor of Technology
--A nice project with multiple strengths like coaching of STEM faculty and near pear strategy. I was wondering if any research data is available to share about the student retention rate?
Nguyen Dao
Graduate Research Assistant
Hi Dr. Duran,
I'm afraid we cannot share this information here. But here is the graduation rate of our school: https://www.utsa.edu/ir/content/dashboards/student-graduation-rates.html
I hope this helps :)
Best regards,
Mesut Duran
Professor of Technology
Thanks in any way, Nguyen. --Mesut
Brian Gane
Interesting project and I really like the focus on near-peer mentoring! I'm curious about how your project defines academic literacy and how it differs from core competencies and/or other disciplinary literacies (e.g., STEM, science practices, etc.).
Nguyen Dao
Graduate Research Assistant
Hi Brian,
Academic literacy is defined as the language of schooling, or more explicitly, the set of language practices, both oral and written) required to develop and display proficiency or expertise in a particular discipline (Gee, 2012; Langman & Thomas, 2017; Schleppegrell, 2004). In the case of STEM, academic literacy involves not only words, but the complex multimodal language of graphs, charts, formulas and diagrams, as well as the language used to talk about these conceptual tools.
Teaching academic literacy explicitly as a component of teaching content can help university students struggling with STEM content to make connections with previously learned materials and real-world applications (Schleppegrell, 2010; Wolf et. al, 2016). Therefore, our project, with a focus on academic literacy, highlights the functions for which language is used in the classroom and beyond. A core component of developing proficiency in a STEM field is the ability to engage in the functions of defining, describing, explaining, and analyzing complex content in the STEM areas, through the interpretation and use of appropriate language. In this sense, the focus on academic literacy does not differ from the core competencies that are expected from our STEM (under)graduates, but rather compliments them.
Brian Gane
I see, thank you for the helpful explanation. Have you found that this explicit focus on literacies allows participating students to more effectively make connections across courses they are taking or have taken?
Lawanda Cummings
This is an exciting peer-to-peer model to build community and STEM identity. I am curious about the breakdown of URM representation at UTSA and whether those integrated models provide an easier entry point into the STEM community.
Nguyen Dao
Graduate Research Assistant
Hi Lawanda,
Please find here the link to our school's student demographics: https://www.utsa.edu/ir/content/dashboards/student-demographics.html. I hope this helps :)
Also, there have been several models designed to transform university-level STEM education focus on a shift to problem-based learning, just-in-time mathematics, and connection to application, all of which align with the LA-STEM framework (e.g., Cukrova, Bennett & Abrahams, 2018; Klinbeil & Bourne, 2015). The teaching Excellence Framework in the UK (Cukrova, Bennett & Abrahams, 2018) promotes a focus on scaffolding students to independent learning activities through a project-based learning approach that entails careful attention to the academic literacy components associated with developing knowledge and displaying knowledge (Bunch & Kibler, 2015). These points are also true for Hispanic students attending HSIs. The lack of fit between the type of preparation of students, the expectations of faculty, and the connection of coursework to past mathematics experience and future workplace experience, leads to undesirable retention rate.
Our project combines a redesign of the curriculum, in particular with respect to pedagogical approaches taken in the classroom that connect past experiences, current content and future applications related to STEM literacy, with a strong wrap-around model of mentoring and advising for undergraduates. Therefore, those integrated models do provide an easier entry point into the STEM community :).
Jorge Solis
Associate professor
Part of our aim for this project is to identify and support culturally sustainable pedagogical practices inclusive of the cultural and linguistic resources that URM students bring to classroom. In this respect, listening to students and university STEM faculty has been a rewarding and insightful experience.
Neela White
Project Director
Great work! I enjoyed learning about your project. I'm not sure if this was addressed, but did the COVID-19 pandemic/virtual learning have any implications on aspects of your project, such as peer-to-peer mentoring?
Jorge Solis
Associate professor
Thanks Neela. Yes we started and designed our project before COVID but had to adjust our lesson study meetings and interactions accordingly in 2020-2021. There have been challenges such as creating interactive activities and reading how ideas are communicated live. However, zoom meetings have offered other benefits like ease of attending meetings and recording conversations. Overall, however, its been difficult disentangling how this work has affected students engagement given that overall again most students are faring much worse academically.
Neela White
Project Director
Thank you for your response, Jorge. I wish you and your team the best on this project.
Julie Brown
Great work, team! I really appreciate the focus on near-peer mentoring and have seen this model work well for enhancing learning in UF's undergraduate STEM courses. I'd love to know more about your lesson study model - do mentors and students engage in this together, or is this a pedagogical tool for mentors? Thanks!
Jorge Solis
Associate professor
Thank you Julie! see below for some work that has been presented recently. However, please email us and I'd be happy to send you conference paper and more information. We adapt our lesson study approach to tertiary contexts by examining this context differently than K-12 contexts but also looking specifically at academic literacy and how learning is organized interactively. email LASTEM@utsa.edu
Langman, J., Solís, J., Dao, N., Martin-Corredor, L., Walton, A. & Costa, H. (2021). Poster: Engaging faculty in curricular change in a tertiary engineering context: examining faculty engagement in lesson study. AERA Annual Meeting. Virtual conference.
Langman, J., Solís, J., Dao, N., Martin-Corredor, L., & Garza Garza, K. (2021). Paper: Translanguaging for stem learning: exploring tertiary learning contexts at a hispanic-serving institution. Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Convention. Virtual Conference.
Langman, J., Solís, J., Dao, N., Martin-Corredor, L., Walton, A. & Costa, H. (2020). Paper: Challenges and opportunities for supporting stem teaching and learning during covid-19. World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS) International Conference. Virtual conference.
Langman, J., Solís, J.L., Martin-Corredor, L., & Dao, N. (2020). Paper: Adapting lesson study to support tertiary STEM student success: Examining faculty and teaching assistant roles. Symposium: Implementing lesson study for professional development in higher education, Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (SIG: Lesson Study). Virtual conference.
Dao, N., Martin-Corredor, L., Langman, J., Solís, J., and Gonzalez, I. (2019). Poster: Building student success: academic literacy in stem lesson study at the tertiary level. Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), Portland, OR., November 15.
Langman, J., Solís, J., Millwater, H., Joseph, J. Martin-Corredor, L., and Dao, N. (2019). Paper: Building student success: engaging in stem lesson study at the tertiary level. World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS) International Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, September.
Eric Hamilton
This is a great approach to competence formation in students by focusing on pedagogical development of the teachers. The presentation is clear and understandable. Well-done, and thank you for sharing.
Hector Castrillon Costa
Doctoral Fellow in the Culture, Literacy & Language Program
Thanks so much for stopping by and watching our video.
Alexander Rudolph
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Thank you for your work! I am curious if you have any measures of your outcomes yet and what they show.
Jonee Wilson
Lina Mallerly Corredor
Ph.D. Candidate & Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you Alexander and Jonee for your interest in our work.
Some of our measures include pre and post lesson implementation questions, as well as test grades using specific questions related to topics addressed during our collectively designed lessons. In particular, we look into student efficacy and sense of belonging using pre and post course surveys (i.e., at the beginning and end of the semester). Additionally, we conduct student interviews and collect student surveys asking questions such as "how prepared do you feel to use this information as an engineer in the future?".
I hope this helps! Please, let us know if you have additional questions.
Jonee Wilson
Yes, thank you! I had a similar question as Alexander. What are some of you measures, particularly in terms of student efficacy and the development of marketable skills?
In addition, I wonder what specific practices are the teachers implementing? I ask this because on our project we are focusing on instructional practices in the K-12 setting and I'm sure that we could learn from you based on what you all are observing in the context of higher ed classrooms.
Thanks again for sharing this important work!
Lina Mallerly Corredor
Ph.D. Candidate & Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you Alexander and Jonee for your interest in our work.
Some of our measures include pre and post lesson implementation questions, as well as test grades using specific questions related to topics addressed during our collectively designed lessons. In particular, we look into student efficacy and sense of belonging using pre and post course surveys (i.e., at the beginning and end of the semester). Additionally, we conduct student interviews and collect student surveys asking questions such as "how prepared do you feel to use this information as an engineer in the future?".
I hope this helps! Please, let us know if you have additional questions.