HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: SedimentSketch, teaching tool in and beyond the sedimentology classroom to provide equitable and inclusive learning for Hispanic students

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2 project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing the effectiveness of undergraduate geoscience education at an HSI, Texas A&M University. The project aims to strengthen student academic experiences through the development and classroom implementation of a novel intelligent sketch-based tutoring system. SedimentSketch, a visual, personalized, and dual language tool, will combine new curricular materials and sketch recognition algorithms to improve student learning through sketching exercises and automatic, instantaneous feedback. Hispanic student performance indicators are markedly different from students of other ethnicities, with Hispanic students consistently having lower GPAs at graduation. The goal is to improve Hispanic students' GPAs and time to graduation. The proposed SedimentSketch tool can transform the higher-education geoscience curriculum for HSIs by enabling geoscience students to interact with the material and receive helpful feedback instantaneously outside of class and by cultivating a more inclusive learning environment. An outcome of the SedimentSketch application will be to help close the gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students' GPAs and improve retention in geoscience courses. SedimentSketch will be the first teaching tool in sedimentology that provides novel learning experiences to students as well as the flexibility of remote access to lab materials. The educational materials will be based on the PI’s sedimentary rock collections and materials from public sources, e.g., the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), and will include videos, games and interactive exercises. Overall, the project will improve career trajectories for Hispanic students by enhancing their learning and exposing them to an innovative tool for hands-on learning activities for real-life scientific and industry applications of sedimentology. Additionally, SedimentSketch will be a great tool outside of the HSI environment to accommodate students with special needs, improve learning and accessibility, and can be used for outreach. 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.