An Elective Mathematics Readiness Initiative for STEM Students

This paper reports on the longitudinal results of an online elective mathematics readiness initiative for undergraduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at Boise State University. This initiative was put in place in summer of 2010, and over five years has involved 766 total users. It utilized an online commercial system for mathematics learning, focusing mainly on the content associated with preparation for Calculus and preparation for Pre-Calculus. Funding to enable the initiative was derived from the National Science Foundation under a Science, Talent Expansion Program grant. The licenses were issued to students who elected to participate and who then had 77 days of learning available to them. Incentives for participation were provided, including bookstore awards ($100 to$200) if a certain threshold for learning was achieved by the student. These thresholds included from 15 to 20 hours of learning, to 95% completion of course content. This paper reports on the methodology for recruiting students to the initiative, on the longitudinal results of students in subsequent mathematics as a function of effort put into their online mathematic review, on adjustments made to the initiative over time as we learned more about student behavior and motivation, and on student retention of this subset of students in STEM majors

The Idaho Science Talent Expansion Program: Improving Freshmen Retention for STEM Majors

During summer of 2010, we conducted a series of freshman orientation programs that were held for new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors at Boise State University. Approximately 320 students were advised in this manner, during seven summer orientation sessions. This was a significant change from previous years, which used a college-specific approach to advising, thereby limiting various retention programs and opportunities designed and promoted by the College of Engineering to engineering majors. The motivation for these changes was a Science Talent Expansion Program award from the National Science Foundation, and the fact that the retention rates for freshmen engineering majors is approximately 10% higher as compared with science and mathematics majors. The grant proposed to (1) integrate the science and mathematics majors with the engineering majors during summer orientation, (2) expand student learning community offerings to STEM majors, (3) create a General Sciences course for STEM students who are underprepared in mathematics, and (4) offer an elective, non-credit bearing mathematics online review course, free of charge, to students entering the university in STEM majors. An underlying and important rationale for widening the advisement base to include all STEM majors in an inclusive manner is the fact that many freshmen are unsure of their major. Therefore orientation materials were prepared that emphasized the commonalities between majors and the underpinning courses and their prerequisites. The results of these four activities, to date, will be presented together with strategy revisions planned for summer 2011