From Gateway to 'Pathway': Mentoring-the-Mentors to provide Academic and Motivational Support for Struggling STEM Majors

This paper reports the results of the first two years of a 5-year USDOE project designed to increase the graduation rates of students transferring from two-year (state) community colleges to major in computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering (CS). The initial two years of the project focused on the design and piloting of academic support components to improve student success rates in mathematics and computer science gateway courses that provide a foundation for subsequent success in upper division CS courses leading to an undergraduate degree. Working in collaboration with state colleges, this paper overviews the design and piloting of the project mentor support model including the project gateway course refinement component that provides the setting for mentor utilization. Discussed is the role of the mentor component in relation to other key project components. Lower division undergraduates across the spectrum of ethnicities continue to struggle with gateway mathematics courses (Bressoud, 2014, 2015; Saxe & Braddy, 2015) required for degrees in computer science and engineering. The continued poor performance of large numbers of state college and university entering undergraduates especially those from underrepresented groups can be related to issues documented across national and international assessments of educational progress, namely National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2016) and TIMSS (Martin, et al., 2016) studies which reported that students in K-12 schools continue to perform below the proficient level in both mathematics and reading. In particular, the NAEP report indicated that only 37% of all high school seniors were prepared for college reading and only 27% for mathematics. And, for Hispanic students, their overall performance was even bleaker, with only 12% proficient in mathematics and 25% in reading. The recent PISA study indicated that US performance in mathematics was lower than the overall OECD average, and for top performing 15-year old students, only 6% scored at proficiency level 5 and above (Kastberg, 2016). For community (and/or state) college students, specifically, research by Bailey, et al., (2010) indicated that up to two thirds of entering students were underprepared for college level work. also indicates that The ramifications resulting from poor achievement outcomes in mathematics is that thousands of potential jobs in computer science and engineering will go unfilled as many students are unable to complete a rigorous degree in engineering and most other STEM fields. The problem of not filling available engineering and high-tech jobs is further exacerbated by the large numbers of retiring engineering professionals and those in national defense research-based laboratories. The general under-preparedness of underrepresented minority students (URMs) to complete either an AA degree, a BS degree, or both, is an ongoing challenge for post-secondary institutions (Hyde & Mertz, 2009; National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine [NASEM], 2016). Many students who do enroll in STEM courses do not complete those courses because they are uninteresting, do not actively engage the learner, are too hard, and not particularly relevant (Eagan, et al., 2014; President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [PCAST], 2012). In addition to their academic under-preparedness, they also face challenges associated with college life, matriculating from one institution to another, and for many who are the first member of their family to enter college (FTIC), they are unable to receive guidance about what to expect and how to address the many issues that arise across the academic, socio-psychological, and financial aspects of college attendance. Of equal importance is the fact that many URMs entering college are placed in remedial and/or developmental programs for mathematics and reading with the sad realization that these programs have not, in general, been effective in preparing them for academic success. This, in turn, has led to many dropping out of college (and STEM degree programs) before they ever enroll in regular college courses (National Academy of Engineering [NAE], American Society of Engineering Education [ASEE], 2014; National Research Council [NRC], 2011). In addressing these issues, two state colleges and a local university, all of whom are designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions, are collaborating on a multi-part intervention designed to address the barriers faced by URMS (specifically Hispanic or Low Income FAPSA) in completion of a Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering. The broad goals of the collaborative are to increase representation of Hispanics or low-income students in computer science careers, provide necessary course-specific academic support especially for gateway mathematics courses and introductory computer science courses across all three institutions. Project leadership is provided by a research-intensive university that has experienced a rapid increase in the number of Hispanic and low income minority students who either are directly enrolled at the university or who transfer from the two-local state colleges The two feeder state colleges have more than 100,000 students whose demographics are represented as follows: 65% Hispanic, African-American, low income, or first time in college. Both state colleges have openadmission policies as directed by Board of Regents. This policy results in a large number of students entering college who, without sufficient proficiency in both mathematics and reading, are immediately assigned to remedial or developmental courses (e.g., intermediate algebra, math ‘boot’ camp) for which no credit is awarded, thus delaying their efforts to obtain an AA or AS degree. Faculty acknowledge and research supports the fact, that such remedial courses at both the community college and university levels do little to prepare students for the more challenging courses in mathematics (and English/language arts) that follow (Chen, 2009; Ganga, 2018; Xu, 2016). In effect, students are bogged down with a full semester of remediation (i.e., as they usually take more than one remedial course, i.e., reading) that actually delays their enrollment in regular-level college classes for at least one semester, thus increasing their time toward graduation, and often resulting in many dropping out of college, and/or exiting a STEM degree program. While approximately 45% of the State College students transfer to the local university, many are still under-prepared for upper division mathematics, computer science, and physics associated with attainment of a bachelors degree in science or engineering. Specifically, this paper addresses how the partnership is (a) providing participants, who are working toward completing the requirements for an AA degree, with course-specific academic support for gateway mathematics courses, (b) providing participants course-specific mentoring support offered by the University’s engineering majors for the same gateway courses, (c) working with math faculty across all three institutions by forming a learning community that is addressing issues involving curricular coherence across the gateway courses which, in turn, provides an additional academic support for project participants who are enrolled in courses taught by the faculty, and (d) refining the gateway mathematics courses with an emphasis on core concepts, curricular coherence and curricular alignment that supports student conceptual understanding. Project Intervention Gateway Mathematics Course Curricular Refinement The mathematics partnership includes faculty, department chairpersons, and chairpersons who are collaboratively engaged in the process of curricular refinement of the gateway mathematics (e.g., College Algebra, Pre-Calculus-Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus with Analytical Geometry) courses which required, in part, for the AA and for the BS degree programs in computer science and engineering (see Figure 1). Addressing Curricular Coherence The process used in addressing the task of determining the curricular coherence within each of the gateway courses consisted of several strategies. The first strategy involved addressing the project’s initial Curricular Framework Guide as a fluid document that would initially support faculty as they pursued identifying what the task involved, what was needed in order to determine conceptual coherence within a gateway course, what were the major learning issues for students enrolled in each course, and what constitutes meaningful learning in mathematics (Bransford, et al., 2000; Saxe & Braddy, 2015). The discussions were focused and lively, with faculty building upon a range of experiences and backgrounds, including their sharing of institutional course syllabi. There faculty noted similarities and differences in the identified topics, time-frame allocated for teaching each cluster of topics, and the instructional sequence used in teaching the math topics. Faculty also detailed the learning issues facing their students in each of the courses. Determining Conceptually-Relevant Learning Outcomes For Each Course Faculty were divided into three math focus groups (leaving College Algebra for the end) where they specifically addressed main learning outcomes for the course, the core ideas upon which each course is grounded, and the supporting concepts that make up the core idea(s). This approach builds upon a theoretical framework resulting from the work of numerous groups (i.e., Mathematical Association of America [MAA]) and individuals, such as Bransford et al., (2000) who, in his National Research Council commissioned book, How People Learn, provided recommendations based on extensive work addressing learning and teaching in mathematics. Guiding their discussions were a series of questions