HSI Pilot Project: CollaborAIte: Empowering Faculty to Enhance Belonging, Retention, and Collaborative Learning Skills through AI Literacy Education

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 Pilot Project aims to empower STEM faculty and uplift underrepresented students in STEM education through AI literacy and inclusive collaborative learning environments. The emergence of Generative AI technology poses both exciting teaching opportunities and unique challenges for STEM faculty. However, despite its significance, there is a critical knowledge gap in understanding AI literacy’s role in higher education, including how to develop appropriate curricula for students without a specialized AI background, particularly at institutions serving underrepresented minority students. While demand for a diverse and skilled STEM workforce is high, underrepresented minority students in STEM often grapple with challenges related to retention, graduation rates, and equitable access to educational opportunities. These challenges hinder the diversity and preparedness of the future STEM workforce, highlighting a critical need for transformative interventions. Through comprehensive training and tailored support to STEM faculty on AI literacy and collaborative learning pedagogies, the CollaborAIte program aims to equip faculty with the necessary knowledge and instructional approaches to integrate AI literacy and collaborative learning effectively into their STEM courses, enhancing collaborative learning skills, opening up STEM pathways, and fostering a sense of belonging. The specific aims of the CollaborAIte project are to develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive faculty development program—CollaborAIte Institute—that enhances AI literacy and promotes collaborative learning. CollaborAIte Institute will engage faculty through AI curriculum, collaborative learning, inclusive and asset-based pedagogy training curriculum, and hands-on workshops. The research team will conduct in-class pilots to evaluate the effectiveness and pedagogical impact of integrating inclusive AI literacy and collaborative learning into STEM curricula at San José State University. The project will employ a mixed-methods approach, including surveys, interviews, and classroom observations, to assess the effectiveness of these interventions. We expect these CollaborAIte-enhanced learning experiences will increase students’ motivation for STEM courses, foster a sense of belonging, and enhance student knowledge in AI literacy, especially in applying AI to solve real-world problems in the STEM field. In addition, we expect this will increase the faculty’s confidence in integrating AI and collaborative learning into their courses. We anticipate an enhancement in both student learning and persistence in STEM majors, as demonstrated by improved grades and retention rates. We will synthesize the findings , create AI Literacy Open Educational Resources (an online repository), and disseminate evidence-informed strategies to further the effective cultivation of AI literacy in STEM education. CollaborAIte aims to advance both AI and STEM education at Hispanic-Serving Institutions, addressing critical societal challenges such as the lower retention and graduation rates for Latinx students and the underrepresentation of minorities in the STEM workforce. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. 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.