Development and Excellence through Learning Technology Acceleration Program

This project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing STEM education to better prepare the future STEM workforce. Doña Ana Community College, which supports growing technology-driven industries in the southwest Borderplex region plans to offer the Development and Excellence through Learning Technology Acceleration Program. The significance of this project is that it will strengthen lower-level mathematics outcomes by enhancing preparation in courses that play an important role in student progression and continued pursuit of STEM degrees. This Track 1 ITYC project plans to implement an AI-supported three-stage approach. First, Readiness Scholars (first-year students) are provided diagnostic review and placement preparation. Subsequently, Progression Scholars who have completed the readiness program engage in accelerated course pathways that merge prerequisite and general education mathematics into a single semester. Then, Emerging Scholars will engage in AI-scaffolded problem solving to promote mathematical reasoning. By drawing on emerging research on best-practice approaches with AI, this project aims to investigate how this staged progression and curricular innovation influences student mathematics identity, semester-to-semester retention, and degree completion. The project serves the ITYC program by advancing knowledge on a potentially transformative approach that focuses on student success in undergraduate mathematics courses at two-year colleges, thereby increasing opportunities for students to thrive in STEM coursework and contribute to an innovative and technologically skilled workforce. Project goals and scope include implementing the AI-supported tiered student development framework to strengthen mathematics learning for incoming students, and to develop faculty expertise in novel approaches to mathematics instruction. This project will contribute to emerging research examining whether adaptive feedback, formative assessment, and problem-based learning can strengthen foundational and higher-order knowledge while supporting student interest in mathematics. With its three-tiered student model designed to improve placement, streamline progression, and support academic development, the project aims to support student persistence. The research component plans to use mixed methods to examine outcomes including validated surveys, institutional analytics, focus groups, and longitudinal tracking. Project deliverables include revised surveys, course designs, and AI integration protocols that will be publicly shared, enabling adoption by peer institutions. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and openly accessible curricular materials. The NSF IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) Program seeks to accelerate and advance knowledge about the impact of emerging and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges. 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.