De-Siloing STEM: Creating an Online Multidisciplinary Community of Practice for Students and Practitioners Lisa B. Elliot, Ph.D. Rochester Institute of Technology, National Technical Institute for the Deaf Conference for Academic Research in Education, Las Vegas NV January 31, 2017 For Your Consideration How do you: Regularly communicate with students? Coax shy or isolated students to participate in class discussions or activities? Foster professional awareness and identity for your students or create connections between course content and real world topics? Create opportunities for multi- or interdisciplinary inspiration for your students? Overview Who we are Rationale for the project Describe the online community Socialization activities Research activities Q & A Who We Are Deaf STEM Community Alliance Only Alliance specifically for D/HH students Supported by the National Science Foundation, HRD #1127955 Ongoing project (started Sept 2011) Now in our 6th year NSF Logo Campus Partners Rochester Intitute of Technology Logo Cornell Univeristy logo Camden County College logo RIT is the lead institution for this project, with Camden County College and Cornell Univeristy as partners. The Narrow STEM Pipeline Barriers to Success in STEM Prior to Postsecondary Education Lower Entrollment in STEM Majors: 28% Bachelor's Degree, 20% Associate Degrees Lower Retention (Within 6 years): 48% leave Bachelors, 69% leave Associate's Lower Graduation Rates at All Degree Levels: 13.4% Bachelor's Degrees, 13.8% Associates Degrees Fewer STEM Professionals (Chen 2016) DHHVAC Model Barriers & Strategies Student Preparation: Remote Tutoring, Remote Mentoring, & Using Google+ Hangouts Socialization: Remote Mentoring, Peer-to-Peer Interaction, Using Google+ Private Community and Facebook Secret Groups Assessible Media: Accessible STEM INformation Using Website, Google+ Private Community, Facebook Secret Group and Google+ Public Page Goal and Objectives Goal: Create a model virtual academic community to increase the graduation rates of postsecondary Deaf and Hard of Hearing STEM majors in the long term. Iterative and Incremental (Cockburn, 2008) Interative: testing what works and revising what doesn't Incremental: building model in stages instead of all at once Objecives 1. Document and disseminate a description of the process of creating a model VAC for replication 2. Increase the GPAs and retention rates of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students in STEM majors Model Infrastructure Deaf and Hard of Hearing Virtual Academic Community (DHHVAC) Google Suite for Education (Enterprise) Account: @dhhvac.org Website: www.dhhvac.org YouTube Video Library: www.youtube.com/user/dhhvac Recruting Strategies Students: Tutors, Individual contacts, Disability Services Offices Mentors: Recommendations from administration, Alumni association, Individual contacts Tutors: Department chairs, Individual contacts, Professional development training session Importance of Social Networks Opinion and behavior more similar within groups (Burt, 2004) Regulators of behavior (Easly and Kleinberg, 2010) Image of a three circles with arrows pointing to each other Resource for social capital (Burt, 2004) Resource for innovation (Burt, 2004) Image of stick figures of different colors all connected together by lines and standing in circles Socialization Mentoring by Deaf and Hard of Hearing STEM Professionals Private All-Community Social Media Platform Groups Remote Mentoring in the DHHVAC Image of a male staff member sitting at a table with a female mentor Mentorship Functions Support (Ensher, Heun, and Blanchard, 2003): Career development (academic and vocational), Personal development Role modeling Image of a male mentor standing with a male student Benefits Individual: Intergenerational continuity, Future collaborative relationship development, Number of colleagues in field increases Insitutional: Alumni mentors maintain relationships with alma mater, Increased academic performative within a cohort, increased retention rates within underrepresented populations, Increased graduation rates Student-Mentor Matching Considerations Student major and mentor occupation Student request based on interests or projects Demographic similarity Communication preferences (e.g., knowledge of sign language, preference for using voice) Technology preferences (e.g., email, Hangouts, FaceTime) Socail Medai in the DHHVAC Image representing social media including computers, YouTube logo, twitter, follow, share, like, and more Social Media Platforms 2012: Google+ 2015: Facebook Social MEdia Functions Mitigate social isolation All-Community interaction: STEM articles of interest, share student schedules, announcements (events, internships, scholarships) Remote Mentoring: Open forum for mentors to provide one-to-many mentoring in forms of information sharing (e.g., pictures of work), job opportunities, and offers for assitance Socialization: Lessons Learned to Date Somone to faciliate engagement: Encourage through personal contact Frequest posting (3 - 10 posts per week) Critical mass of participants Started Google+ Private Community with approximately 25 participants (January, 2013) Activity increased with approximately 55 participants (September, 2013) Current membership: 76 Started Facebook Secret Group with approximately 13 participants (October, 2015) Activity increased with approximately 20 participants (November, 2015) Current membership: 34 Platform reputation is important Impact on Students Creating social capital: I thought there was a lot of potential in getting more resources to help me along with getting more connected in academic life I also liked the idea of pairing up a student with a mentor Resource for innovation: ...there was a really nice Facebook group that always kept it updated with new sciences and technologies that I found interesting a lot of times. It exposed me to interesting topics that I would not have thought about in my daily very busy life and it would just make me pause for a moment and do some more research on the topic if I was interested in it. Research Activities Social Media Engagement Content Participation Timing STEM Identity Conclusions Underrepresented populations benefit from positive role models Students can benefit from either direct or indirect mentoring Intergenerational cooperation and support can further BOTH personal and institutional objectives The DHHVAC is a model that attempts to implement this solution For Your Consideration How do you: Regularly communicate with students? Coax shy or isolated students to participate in class discussions or activities? Foster professional awareness and identity for your students or create connections between course content and real world topics? Create opportunities for multi- or interdisciplinary inspiration for your students? Image of sign language form of thank you Contact Information Deaf STEM Community Alliance http://www.dhhvac.org or lisa.elliot@rit.edu Select References Cockburn, A. (2008). Using both incremental and iterative development. Crosstalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering, (May 2008), 27-30. Dawson, P. (2014). Beyond a definition: Toward a framework for designing and specifying mentoring models. Educational researcher, 43, 137-145. Ensher, E., Heun, C., & Blanchard, A. (2003). Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research. Journal of vocational behavior, 63, 264-268. Ensher, E., Thomas, C., & Murphy, S. (2001). Comparison of traditional, step-ahead, and peer mentoring on Proteges’ support, satisfaction, and perceptions of career success: A social exchange perspective. Journal of business and psychology, 15, 419-438. Evans, R.R., & Forbes, L. (2012). Mentoring the Net generation: Faculty perspectives in health education. 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