Program Goal:

The DEDICATE Program will build institutional capacity as well as individual faculty capacity in teaching data science at not only historically underserved institutions (HBCUs and HSIs) but also within the interdisciplinary areas (Social Impact Areas) of 1. Criminal Justice 2. Geosciences and Health Disparities 3. Food and Water Systems. 

Registration for the Summer Cohort May Be Accessed Here

Program Rationale: 

To solve some of the biggest challenges to broadening participation in STEM at a systems-level, four problems were identified that are barriers to success: 1) Instructor-designed “projects” not based in research-based pedagogies, 2) Silos of projects across STEM and Non-STEM disciplines, 3) Lack of faculty-centric design, and 4) Lack of systemic-change networks.

DEDICATE, an NSF-funded Network Connector program, will address these four problems by 1) Leveraging educational research techniques to design data-enabled modules that are culturally relevant and can be used across disciplines to empower natural collaboration around real-world challenges, 2) Bridging both Non-STEM and STEM disciplines into data-enabled projects around problems of high social impact, specifically climate change (geosciences), criminal justice, and food and water sciences, 3) Focus on faculty capacity-building and support as the primary mechanism for systemic change, as increasing faculty interest, ability, and confidence in delivering data-centric content across disciplines translates into exponential growth in the exposure of students to STEM and their preparation for STEM Education, aligning with the NSF INCLUDES Shared Measures Initiative, and 4) Fully supporting faculty networks with not only data-enabled modules, but also creation frameworks and assessment tools aligned to ACM and other national and international standards, supporting non-technical faculty in module delivery, creating curated Social Impact modules - co-designed with impact area instructors from across the region, as well as providing training, community forums, and working groups for network expansion and organization around systemic advocacy topics. 

Today's grand challenges such as protecting the population from disease, mitigating climate change and eliminating social inequality can not be solved by STEM alone. There are human factors where we needed and missed the input of fields like psychology, sociology, and even communications to our collective detriment. These fields have higher levels of participation from historically marginalized communities. By using data as a connector, we empower natural areas of collaboration and new pipelines for faculty and student engagement in STEM education.   Also the broader faculty network that will be created through this project will empower a sustained advocacy network for systemic institutional change.

Program Description:

Four lead institutions - North Carolina Central University, University of the Virgin Islands, California State University, Fresno, and the Georgia Institute of Technology will engage instructors in an intensive two-day training workshop in the design and implementation of data-enabled and research-based pedagogies such as Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) (POGIL can be viewed as a shorter-duration version of Project-Based Learning (PBL)) project modules. 

In-person content will be delivered over 2 days at The Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. Travel stipends will be provided to selected participants. 

Who is Invited:

DEDICATE seeks to support faculty from across the Southern census region of the US and from California, in designing and implementing POGIL curriculum and data-enabled code modules in the social impact areas of 1. Criminal Justice 2. Geosciences and Health Disparities 3. Food and Water Systems. Faculty from these disciplines will be selected from HBCUs and HSIs.

Eligibility:

Instructors at historically underserved institutions (HBCUs and HSIs), including primarily teaching institutions, such as liberal arts colleges and community colleges, teaching topics within the targeted social impact areas of criminal justice, geosciences and health disparities, and food and water systems. Instructors are expected to implement data enabled POGIL project modules in their course within the next academic term. 

Outcomes:

Increased faculty interest, ability, and confidence in delivering data-centric content across disciplines, and increased exposure of students in traditionally non-STEM fields to STEM and data science education. 

Program Dates for Cohort 2 Hosted in Atlanta Georgia

Registration for the Summer Cohort May Be Accessed Here