Author(s):
Need: Community colleges serve as critical pathways to higher education for students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) professions. However, community college students have low degree completion rates, including first generation, low income, and students from historically marginalized communities, who are less likely than their peers to complete STEM degrees and transfer to four year institutions (Velasco et. al, 2024). Student success within introductory STEM courses may be particularly important for student persistence in STEM. Entry level courses such as general chemistry and math pre-requisites for STEM pathways often serve as barriers or “weed out” courses for aspiring STEM students. Guiding Questions: The STEM Inclusive Excellence Program (STEP), funded by the National Science Foundation (IUSE project #2142377) seeks to address inequities in STEM student access and achievement at Skagit Valley College (SVC) and to facilitate improvements in STEM student achievement. The project seeks to understand to what extent the STEP model for faculty professional development can lead to sustainable changes in inclusive teaching practices within introductory STEM courses, and the impacts of culturally responsive pedagogy and high impact practices for student success. Additionally, this project will examine the impacts of restructured, accelerated pre-college math pathway for STEM student access and success, and specifically if these reforms are effective for removing barriers for underrepresented STEM student populations.Outcomes: The project model for equity focused professional development uses a community of practice approach to support STEM faculty engagement and learning as faculty discuss equity focused principles, inclusive pedagogy and the use of high impact practices to support student success. Tenured, tenure track and adjunct faculty from six different academic and workforce STEM departments at Skagit Valley College (SVC) have participated in the equity focused community of practice and have collaborated with our project team to integrate high impact practices such as peer mentoring and project-based learning within STEM courses. The number of SVC faculty using peer mentoring and project-based learning within their STEM courses has tripled within two years.Math pre-requisites are significant barriers for STEM student access at community colleges. To increase STEM student achievement in math, the SVC math department implemented a restructured, pre-college math pathway to reduce the amount of time students spend in pre-college math and accelerate the transition to college level pre-calculus. Preliminary results indicate a greater number of students are completing college level math within the first year (45 credits) of enrollment.Broader impacts: The STEM Inclusive Excellent Program (STEP) seeks to gain a better understanding of mechanisms contributing to student success in STEM degree pathways at two year institutions, focusing on the impact of inclusive teaching approaches and accelerated pre-college math pathways within STEM. The models employed by this project will be useful for other community and technical colleges and contribute to the national discussion about broadening participation in STEM fields.
Coauthors
Brian Brady, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon, WA; Roxanne Hulet, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon, WA; Charles Stevens, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon, WA; Grant Blume, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Gabriel Mast, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon, WA
