Motivating Academics for Growth, Innovation, and Collaboration in STEM: a Regional Faculty Learning Community in South Alabama

This project aims to serve the national interest by transforming STEM faculty understanding of effective instructional practices, which could ultimately improve student success in undergraduate STEM education. The project aims to enhance STEM faculty engagement with the STEM education research literature and effective STEM teaching practices through an intensive summer workshop and an ongoing regional STEM faculty learning community. Project activities aim to engage STEM faculty from the University of South Alabama and their STEM instructor colleagues at Bishop State, Coastal Alabama, and Mississippi Gulf Coast community colleges. Project efforts are intended to build capacity across these campuses for future efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education. This project plans to create and sustain Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) across multiple institutions in the Gulf Coast region to help develop a shared vision for improving equitable STEM education across three local community colleges and the University of South Alabama. An additional goal of the project is to increase STEM faculty’s knowledge of research about Evidence-Based Instructional Practices, which could improve STEM teaching and student success in STEM courses. The project aims to engage up to 30 faculty participants across the four institutions in one of three discipline-based FLCs and a week-long summer institute. The FLCs will be tasked with creating an annotated bibliography, built as a searchable database, that may be shared with other STEM faculty across the participating institutions and STEM departments for broader impact. The outcomes of the project will be gauged by assessment of changes in STEM Faculty participants knowledge of and comfort with STEM education research literature. Further, the project aims to build capacity for future undergraduate STEM education reform efforts and development of grant proposals. This project has the potential to have a lasting impact on STEM teaching and learning in the Gulf Coast region and contribute to greater understanding of how STEM faculty across community colleges and a 4-year institution can increase their engagement with evidence-based STEM teaching practices. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.