Heather Thiry

What Experiences Help Students Become Scientists?: A Comparative Study of Research and Other Sources of Personal and Professional Gains for STEM Undergraduates

In this study of curricular and co-curricular learning in STEM disciplines at four liberal arts colleges, comparative analysis of 62 interviews with graduating seniors demonstrates that out-of-class experiences fostered many intellectual, personal, and professional gains. Undergraduate research, in particular, helped to shape science identities and socialize students into the scientific profession. The findings suggest that participation in authentic, independent work with adequate guidance is critical to student learning and development in experiential contexts.

The Benefits of Multi-Year Research Experiences: Differences in Novice and Experienced Students’ Reported Gains from Undergraduate Research

This mixed-methods study explores differences in novice and experienced undergraduate students’ perceptions of their cognitive, personal, and professional gains from engaging in scientific research. The study was conducted in four different undergraduate research (UR) programs at two research-extensive universities; three of these programs had a focus on the biosciences. Seventy-three entry-level and experienced student researchers participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews and completed the quantitative Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment (URSSA) instrument. Interviews and surveys assessed students’ developmental outcomes from engaging in UR. Experienced students reported distinct personal, professional, and cognitive outcomes relative to their novice peers, including a more sophisticated understanding of the process of scientific research. Students also described the trajectories by which they developed not only the intellectual skills necessary to advance in science, but also the behaviors and temperament necessary to be a scientist. The findings suggest that students benefit from multi-year UR experiences. Implications for UR program design, advising practices, and funding structures are discussed.

Supporting the Retention and Advancement of Women in the Atmospheric Sciences: What Women Are Saying

AmerICAN meteOrOLOGICAL SOCIetY | September 2013| 1313 PB AFFILIATIONS: AvAllone—Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado; HAllAr—Storm Peak Laboratory and Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Steamboat Springs, Colorado; THiry—Ethnography and Evaluation Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado; edwArds— South Dakota State University Extension, Aberdeen Regional Center, Aberdeen, South Dakota CORRESPONDING AUTHOR : Linnea Avallone, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, 600 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0600 E-mail: linnea.avallone@lasp.colorado.edu

Learning to love computer science: peer leaders gain teaching skill, communicative ability and content knowledge in the CS classroom

This paper describes the benefits of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), an NSF-sponsored program in the sciences, to peer leaders serving in the Computing Alliance for Hispanic Serving Institutions (CAHSI). Beyond the benefits to students enrolled in the PLTL courses, survey findings show the majority of peer leaders report increased self-efficacy in teaching computer science, improved content knowledge, and better communication and leadership skills following a semester of leading PLTL. Results from this diverse group of leaders indicate no differences in gains between underrepresented minority and majority students, suggesting the program may provide a path for improving retention of underrepresented groups in the field.

The Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Supporting Hispanics at Critical Transition Points

Hispanics have the highest growth rates among all groups in the U.S., yet they remain considerably underrepresented in computing careers and in the numbers who obtain advanced degrees. Hispanics constituted about 7% of undergraduate computer science and computer engineering graduates and 1% of doctoral graduates in 2007--2008. The small number of Hispanic faculty, combined with the lack of Hispanic role models and mentors, perpetuates a troublesome cycle of underrepresentation in STEM fields. In 2004, seven Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) formed the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI) to consolidate their strengths, resources, and concerns with the aim of increasing the number of Hispanics who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in computing areas. To address barriers that hinder students from advancing, CAHSI defined a number of initiatives, based on programs that produced promising results at one or more institutions. These included the following: a CS-0 course that focuses on adoption of a three-unit pre-CS course that uses graphics and animation to engage and prepare students who have no prior experience in computing; a peer mentoring strategy that provides an active, collaborative learning experience for students while creating leadership roles for undergraduates; an undergraduate and graduate student research model that emphasizes the deliberate and intentional development of technical, team, and professional skills and knowledge required for research and cooperative work; and a mentoring framework for engaging undergraduates in experiences and activities that prepare them for graduate studies and onto the professoriate. CAHSI plays a critical role in evaluating, documenting, and disseminating effective practices that achieve its mission. This paper provides an overview of CAHSI initiatives and describes how each addresses causes of underrepresentation of Hispanics in computing. In addition, it describes the evaluation and assessment of the initiatives and presents the results that support CAHSI’s claim of their effectiveness.

How do I get From Here to There? An Examination of Ph.D. Science Students' Career Preparation and Decision Making

Drawing on developmental networks theory, this qualitative research study explores the professional preparation and career decision-making processes of doctoral students in the sciences. The study is based on 95 semi-structured interviews with informants at three research universities in the United States. Though many students were interested in non-academic career tracks, they were largely unaware of the breadth of their choices or how to best prepare for these careers. Unable to cultivate networks in non-academic careers, many students turned to peers to fill the career development gap. Due to their lack of knowledge about career options, among other factors, students often delayed selecting and preparing for careers until the end of their graduate studies. Implications for doctoral education practice are discussed.

A Module-based Approach to Adopting the 2013 ACM Curricular Recommendations on Parallel Computing

The widespread deployment of multicore systems over the last decade has brought about major changes in the software and hardware landscape. The resulting importance of parallel computing is reflected in the 2013 Curriculum Guidelines developed by the joint ACM/IEEE taskforce. The document recommends increased coverage of parallel computing and describes a new Knowledge Area on this topic. These recommendations have already been adopted by several universities in the form of new parallel programming courses. Implementing the recommendations in a complete curriculum, however, poses many challenges, including deciding on existing material to be removed, complying with administrative and ABET requirements, and maintaining caps on graduation credit hours. This paper describes an alternative approach for adopting the 2013 curricular recommendations on parallel computing. Specifically, we use a module based approach that introduces parallel computing concepts and re-iterates them through a series of short, self-contained modules taught across several lower-division courses. Most of these concepts are then combined into a new senior-level capstone course on parallel programming. Each module covers parallelism aspects in the context of a conventional computer science topic, thus enabling us to include parallel computing without a major overhaul of the curriculum. Evaluations conducted during the first year show encouraging results for this early-and-often approach in terms of learning outcomes, student interest, and confidence gains.

Work in progress - CS0 course implementation in Computer Science

The Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions (http://cahsi.fiu.edu), a consortium of 7 institutions focused on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Hispanics in computing, is implementing and promoting the development of recruitment mechanisms to attract other majors to the field of computer science. CS has lost roughly 50% of its majors in the last 5 years. The member institutions have introduced a 3-credit hour course called CS0 that is intended to motivate students, especially those who have a weak background in computing, to continue studies in computing and to prepare students for success in the first CS course. There are two models that are being implemented: one using Alice software and another using Python. CAHSI is creating a repository for support materials for dissemination of each of the implementations and collecting data to determine the success of the approaches. This paper discusses the structure, materials, and implementations, and presents preliminary results.

Linkages between youth diversity and organizational and program characteristics of out-of-school-time science programs: a mixed-methods study

ABSTRACT Science opportunities in out-of-school time (OST) programs hold potential for expanding access to science, engineering, and technology (SET) pathways for populations that have not participated in these fields at equitable rates (Coalition for Science After School, 2014). This mixed-methods study examines the relationship between the diversity of youth participants and the organizational and program design features of a broad sample of SET-focused OST programs in the USA. Overall, many programs in our study appeared to deliver high-quality programming by providing immersive experiences for youth that included inquiry-based learning and positive youth development. Encouragingly, many programs served large numbers of underrepresented minority youth and girls and these programs often showed the most numerous indicators of high-quality learning experiences. While location and a diversity-oriented organizational mission were related to youth diversity, highly diverse programs enacted their mission by developing partnerships, engaging communities, local leaders, and families, and delivering long-term, supportive programs for youth. Thus, SET-focused OST programs hold great promise in promoting broad access to rich science experiences, yet specific programmatic and organizational features are highly related to the diversity of youth participants.

Why Work with Undergraduate Researchers? Differences in Research Advisors’ Motivations and Outcomes by Career Stage

In interviews, many undergraduate research advisors stated intrinsic motivations, but some early-career advisors expressed only instrumental motivations. This study explores what this means for how advisors work with undergraduate researchers and the implications for training and retaining advisors who can provide high-quality research experiences.