Category of Work
Presentation
Title of Conference/Lecture Series
The National Conference to Advance POGIL Practice
Abstract
Student sense of community and belonging are two key factors that affect student persistence in STEM higher education. On average, nearly half of STEM majors leave their program, most within the first two years of study. To address this at Lewis, strategies from learning communities are being incorporated to provide a sense of community and belonging that may be absent from a typical education experience: community events that provide students with an opportunity to interact outside of the classroom and establish connections, seminar courses that promote STEM identity development and career exploration, and specialized tutoring and mentoring services that build academic skills, STEM identity, and motivation in addition to growing student understanding of content knowledge. These non-content specific factors are key to student success4 and persistence yet are not usually formally addressed in a standard STEM program. The Chemistry and Physics departments at Lewis already have many of these components in place. With modifications and additional training for staff, we hope to strengthen the sense of community, belonging, and STEM identity for our students to improve retention.
Presentation Date
Summer 6-27-2023
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Bixby, Teresa J. and Werner, Alec, "Designing a Departmental Program to Improve Belonging and STEM Identity" (2023). Chemistry Department Faculty Conferences. 2.
https://digitalcommons.lewisu.edu/chemistry_faccons/2
