Adopt/ Adapt STEM-ESS Practices

Guidance

The STEM-ESS Model contains links to examples of evidence-based practices for each strategy area. These practices originated at 2-year and 4-year institutions that are part of a growing network that is striving to establish evidence-based student-serving practices in their STEM programs.

Excelencia in Education has compiled a database of evidence-based practices, called the Growing What Works Database, that is regularly updated. Many of the STEM related examples in the Growing What Works Database have been included in the STEM-ESS Model and our STEM-ESS Practices.

During STEM-ESS Planning, we encourage you to consider evidence-based practices as candidate solutions to adopt and adapt within your institution, if there is alignment to your priorities, strengths and opportunities, and challenges that you want to address. Or you could insert a task to search for and further explore evidence-based practices.

Assuming you have identified an evidence-based practice, that looks promising to bring into your institution, it could be implemented with existing funds and resources or as a research project, if new knowledge will be generated as part of the implementation.

Example of an Evidence-based Practice that could be implemented with existing funding

Culturally Responsive Instruction Professional Development for CIS Faculty, e.g. ESCALA Educational Services Certificate in College Teaching and Learning at HSIs

Example using the above Evidence-based Practice in a research funding proposal

• Examine Literature about Culturally Responsive Instruction in HSIs, STEM, and CIS

• Work with your Institutional Research to understand your current student demographics, and disaggregated data about enrollment, retention, completion of your targeted students (e.g. women, Hispanic, other underrepresented groups) in STEM and CIS

• Create Research questions and hypothesize outcomes and impacts of introducing Culturally Responsive Instruction

• Develop a Logic Model

• Train Computer Information Systems (CIS) Faculty in Culturally Responsive Instruction

• Identify exercises for faculty to introduce culturally responsive instruction into their CIS classes

• Establish baseline and collect disaggregated quantitative data: pass, fail, drop rates across multiple cohorts of CIS students

• Collect demographic data and qualitative pre/post data from multiple cohorts of CIS students to determine impacts to:

  • STEM self-efficacy

  • Confidence

  • Teamwork

  • Improved Relationship and sense of belonging