Our NSF-funded S-STEM project seeks to create a sense of belonging among incoming first-year departmental majors by creating a Chemistry & Biochemistry Targeted Learning Community (CBTLC). In their first semester incoming students are enrolled in the General Education Life-Long Learning and General Chemistry courses to cultivate peer-to-peer interactions. A subset of students in these classes formally apply for membership in the CBTLC. Membership in the CBTLC comes with certain benefits, among them priority registration in many Chemistry courses and enhanced mentoring (faculty, peer, and professional). To remain in good standing, CBTLC members are required to complete professional development activities each semester, meet with their mentors, achieve the required passing grades, and participate in program assessment surveys and interviews. In addition, members with demonstrated financial need are awarded scholarships. At this point the program has recruited three cohorts. Preliminary results based on survey and interview data show an increased retention rate and sense of community among Cohort 1 (Fall 2021) and Cohort 2 (Fall 2022). Professional mentoring for Cohort 1 was begun in Fall 2023 and is currently being assessed.

Abstract:

This mixed-methods study investigated the impact of gamified review sessions on student engagement, evaluations, and academic performance in a university-level course. Students were randomly assigned to either gamified or non-gamified review sessions. The study aimed to examine whether gamification, characterized by competitive team-based activities, influenced student engagement levels, evaluations of the review activity and the overall class experience, exam scores, and retention rates of course material. Data were collected through post-session surveys, anonymized academic records, in-class observations, and focus group interviews. Our findings suggest that students in the gamified condition exhibited greater engagement and had more positive evaluations of the review sessions and overall class experience than those in the non-gamified condition. Moreover, gamified review sessions were associated with higher exam scores. Interestingly, our results also showed that group-based review, irrespective of gamification, led to better exam performance and more positive course evaluations compared to individually-based review. These outcomes provide valuable insights into the utility of gamified educational strategies and suggest that the social dynamics of group-based review can significantly impact academic outcomes. The findings have implications for instructional design, advocating for the incorporation of gamified and collaborative elements to enhance student learning experiences.

Presentation is pending acceptance.

Utility Value (UV) interventions are interactive classroom-based assignments based on motivation theory that help students make connections between their lives and the content they are learning. In this study, 471 undergraduate students in either Calculus II or Calculus-based Newtonian Physics at a large Hispanic Serving Institution were randomly assigned to either read essays written by peers emphasizing the usefulness of their coursework in their daily life or to a control group. We generated quotes for the courses by conducting focus groups with former students in the courses who were asked to write about how content from the course might be relevant to their lives. We developed quotes by editing the statements and generating pseudonyms with balanced age/race/gender that were representative of the college population. We found that students in the intervention condition reported significantly higher levels of utility value, midterm grades, and course grades. Our path analysis revealed that utility value indirectly improved achievement through interest and engagement factors. Participation in the UV activity was also a marginally significant predictor of posttest flourishing after adjusting for pretest flourishing. We will discuss how to increase UV messaging to increase student success and promote student well-being, especially in critical STEM transition courses.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) skills create supportive academic and professional relationships between students and faculty, which address life skills such as mindsets (fixed vs. growth), increased social skills (self-awareness, empathy, emotional intelligence), and career behaviors (being ‘present’ and follow-through). Although not psychotherapy, there is a therapeutic effect. These practices offer a low-risk opportunity for exploration with activities that guide and support, also known as HEPs and stands for High-impact Educational Practices (Vogt & Skop, 2017) as it inserts an intentional or ‘concerted’ effort to meet students in spaces, places, and ways that are both welcoming and familiar. In partnership with Calibrate, a non-profit organization whose mission is to transform the lives of young people, primarily from underserved communities, by using SEL practices, students have remarked on their own growth and emotional learning. Most notably, students practice soft skills critical for their professional success. A quote from a student: "This class helps us practice self-awareness, active listening, and many skills necessary to be successful in a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world." In this session, we discuss the framework of using SEL in a specialized service-learning classroom but also using techniques of SEL in mainstream non-service-learning courses.

Creating engaging, meaningful learning communities fosters students’ social relations, strengthens their leaner identities, and enhances their sense of belonging and engagement [1]. Adopting high-impact teaching practices similarly increases a sense of classroom belonging [2]. This poster shares how constructivist pedagogies were implemented in a first-year general education foundations seminar to promote students' connection to their values, classmates, community, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Practices included implementing placed-based case studies, co-creating the syllabus, personalizing instructional content, and conducting collaborative applied scholarship. Preliminary findings suggest students gained insight into their learner identities, cultivated their researcher identities, and felt more connected to their classmates, campus, and the region. Competencies developed include critical thinking, perspective taking, problem framing, introspection, circumspection, and metacognition.

1 Nortvig, A. M., Petersen, A. K., & Balle, S. H. (2018). A literature review of the factors influencing e learning and blended learning in relation to learning outcome, student satisfaction and engagement. Electronic Journal of E-learning, 16(1), 46-55.
2 Kirby, L. A., & Thomas, C. L. (2022). High-impact teaching practices foster a greater sense of belonging in the college classroom. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 46(3), 368-381.

Statistics courses commonly provoke high levels of test anxiety, which can undermine student achievement and self-efficacy. This study investigates whether collaborative mock exams improve these affective outcomes compared to individual mock exams. Undergraduate statistics students will be assigned to complete a mock exam individually or in pairs. All students will complete pre- and post-activity measures of test anxiety and self-efficacy. It is hypothesized that the collaborative condition will exhibit greater reductions in test anxiety and greater gains in self-efficacy compared to the individual condition. Results will provide initial evidence that the shared experience of collaborative mock exams confers motivational and emotional benefits beyond just content mastery. Findings can guide implementation of collaborative testing models to optimize statistics courses. This research elucidates psychological mechanisms underlying performance advantages of collaborative mock exams, helping enrich statistics education.

The high number of students impacted by the 23% DFW rate for Critical Thinking means that we have a special responsibility to prioritize efforts to proactively address this problem. My aim is to investigate pedagogical principles that promote student belonging by analyzing barriers, identifying and critically evaluating pedagogical approaches that seek to promote equity, and reflecting on pedagogical norms that might unintentionally hinder it. Belonging may be eroded when one does not connect to the content or identify with the authors, figures, or perspectives or have the opportunity to work under instructors or staff to whom they relate or share similar backgrounds and experiences. Additionally, negative experiences in the classroom may directly undermine belonging. Drawing on Paul Gorski, I give particular attention to eliminating harms done by deficit ideology. I will critically evaluate our dependence on popular pedagogical approaches such as ‘growth mindset.’ I hope to promote conversation around the possible harms and potential to oversimplify the reality of student experience, improperly psychologize students, and shift the burden from work on one’s own class onto the students. Equitable pedagogies ought not imply that we must fix our students.

Addressing student engagement and belonging and accessible and inclusive learning is critical during a significant time in the dietetics field, where entry level registered dietitians will be required to have a graduate degree of 2024. This change has dramatically decreased enrollment into the nutrition major and dietetics option at Cal Poly Pomona, as well as across the US in other dietetic nutrition programs. Along with the decrease in enrollment in general in higher education, the cost and length of education, lack of role models, and experiencing ethnic/racial bias in their education have been identified as barriers by under -represented (URM) dietetic students. Students may avoid the dietetics profession due to the minimum requirement changes in the dietetics profession and consequential curricula adjustments. Thus, this study attempts to assess career confidence and sense of belonging among dietetic students at different points in their academic career so that support for future URM dietetic students can be provided. This study will explore how confident nutrition students are in undergoing and completing their major, whether students feel like they belong at their university and in their department, and assess whether their career confidence, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging are associated with degree completion rates.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023), the employment of social workers increased by 7% between 2022 and 2023. This makes the employment of social workers faster than other occupations. Schools of social work nationwide began offering online master’s degree programs to meet the high demand for social workers. Because such programs provide a professional degree that prepares students to work with marginalized and vulnerable groups, these programs must consider pedagogies to ensure students’ engagement with the learning materials. This presentation is twofold: to describe the use of formative and summative assessments to engage students enrolled in an online master’s degree program in social work and to present quantitative data that indicate students’ level of engagement with the online content.

Goal:
Enhance sense of belonging on CSU campuses

Background:
Sense of belonging impacts student retention and learning. However, student clubs and online forums fall short of sustaining meaningful interactions, often leaving students disconnected, especially in larger groups.

Objective:
We propose a simple, campus-wide Canvas shell to facilitate student interactions on Zoom. This virtual space, mimicking a standard course structure, will randomly assign students into groups of three every week for weekly Zoom discussions over 15 weeks. These sessions, focused on various discussion prompts, will encourage personal connection and reflection, as well as foster a sense of belonging. For example, "How can we increase alumni contributions toward our school?" can help plant seeds for alumni giving early. Faculty members, administrators and staff will be encouraged to participate to be matched with a current student.

Engagement metrics will be implemented for motivation and rewards.

This initiative addresses the need for deeper, more personal connections among students, countering the current trends of fleeting and superficial engagements on social media platforms.

Several General Chemistry 1 laboratory experiments were redesigned using a Process Orientated Guided Inquiry Learning method. This style of instruction focuses on student centered learning by having students working in larger groups with the instructor assuming the role of a facilitator rather than a traditional instructional role. These redesigned labs were intended to promote an improved sense of belonging and reduce DFW rates. Course outcomes will be presented and compared to previous cohorts.

Disability Civil Rights is a meaningful tool for student engagement and belonging, as demonstrated in a new series of self-advocacy-themed coursework at CSU San Bernardino offered by the newly established Faculty Inclusion Fellow for Disability, Difference and Accommodation. Disability Inclusion scholarship, theory and practice touches the CSU in the past, present, and in ways that are yet define the future of the field. Not only that, one of the pillars of Universal Design for Learning is to connect learning with relevance to the learner, which this topic does - for instance, as students dream of and build a neurodiversity space on campus, they see their antiableist efforts take shape in real and meaningful ways. Through infusing this knowledge into coursework, both disabled and nondisabled students are engaged and empowered. In this mini-session, pedagogical strategies for student success will be shared including Universal Design for Learning.

The Madera Community College (MCC) 2+2+2 Pathways Project, "Developing Post-Secondary Education and Career Pathways in Agriculture Business and Technology for Under-Represented Minority Student Populations," develops, strengthens, and enhances the pipeline for under-represented student populations, including women from the college's neighboring areas. From 2017 to 2023, the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (NSF_ATE) grant funded the project's three main goals: (a) motivating and inspiring high school students to explore education and career opportunities in the agriculture industry; (b) developing and enhancing curriculum that meets California's agriculture workforce needs; and (c) improving access, success, and acceleration. Through this funding, three summer ag camps in Fresno and Madera counties, Central California, introduced high school students to new agriculture-related education and employment prospects. Dual enrollment classes were created for high school juniors and seniors. A 2+2+2 pathway allowed agricultural business and technology students to get an AS degree in agriculture at Madera Community College and a four-year BS in agriculture at California State University, Fresno. Students had a streamlined trajectory because of curriculum alignment and course transfer agreements between two- and four-year universities.

Non-tenure-track faculty (NTT) are estimated to be 65% of new appointments at universities and are considered by some to be the new normal professoriate on college campuses (American Association of University Professors, 2009). Incorporating NTT faculty members more fully into the university could improve the overall health of the learning community and provide a means of bringing equity into a two-class university system. Organizational sense of belonging is very important for NTT faculty, who often experience less control of some conditions of their employment, including salary, benefits, job security, and promotion (Kezar & Sam, 2010). To improve NTT faculty belonging within the CSU, we plan to conduct an exploratory, qualitative analysis of the sense of belonging experienced by CSU NTT faculty, as compared to the sense of belonging experienced by tenure track (TT) faculty. We will focus this exploratory analysis on Cal State LA and SFSU faculty. This information can be used to design future faculty inclusion efforts.

Aims: Baccalaureate nursing students enter nursing programs with varying degrees of writing skill. The use of formative assessment can provide students and faculty with information to act upon during a course and improve learning. This study aimed to test the use of a program-level written communication rubric as a formative assessment to be able to provide targeted interventions for improvement as part of curricular evaluation.
Methods: A written communication rubric was applied twice during the semester to assess the writing assignments of 33 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a nursing research course. A targeted intervention was designed and implemented based upon deficient aggregate assessment results from the first assignment.
Results: Paired t-test analysis demonstrated significant upward change in student performance in the second student assignment for all the targeted competency scores (all p<.05).
Conclusions: The use of a program-level rubric as formative assessment paired with a targeted intervention improved the writing skills of nursing students during a single semester. Harnessing the tools of online learning management systems, faculty can quickly identify specific challenges for students. There is potential for formative assessment to be used by faculty and students to direct ongoing development of writing skills throughout program of study.

Despite the awareness and mobilization of efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusivity in higher education, disparities in “who” persists to graduation remains a challenge. When compared to other disciplines in higher education, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields continuously are challenged to address the gaps that exist between their ethnically/racially marginalized students and their dominant racial group counterparts. Students who identify as African American/Black are more likely to leave STEM majors when compared to their peers, however, are just as interested in their majors upon entering. Therefore, it is imperative as educators to consider what we are doing to engage, or potentially disengage students from marginalize backgrounds in our classrooms. Qualitative data analysis of four focus groups with Black students in STEM will provide the foundation for a model that interrogates the ways in which STEM classrooms act to promote student engagement and belonging for Black students. Research analysis, and best practices for educators in STEM will be contextualized within person-environment fit theory which posits that optimal achievement can be realized when there is congruence between one’s environment and individual’s personal attributes.

This proposal is about a teaching method that enhances student engagement in the accounting classroom. Based on my teaching experience, I observed that students regard Accounting Ethics as one of their favorite accounting courses and they are fascinated by the discussion of values in that course, in which virtues, values, cognitive processes and ethical decision making are introduced. In the current accounting curriculum setting, Accounting Ethics is usually arranged in the senior year after students take other accounting major courses. However, students would be benefited if ethics and values are incorporated in earlier accounting courses such as Intermediate Accounting I & II. The discussion of ethics and values will motivate sophomore and junior students to think deeply about the meaning of accounting to the society and their professional responsibilities, thus helping them establish ethical values and ethical reasoning in the process of learning technical accounting knowledge. This will also enhance student engagement in the accounting classroom and make them feel they belong to the profession. Detailed course plan to incorporate ethics and values in the accounting classroom will be introduced in the presentation.

In March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank was forced under receivership by bank regulators, initiating the fear of recurrence of the 2008 banking crisis. Silicon Valley bank had a phenomenal growth in revenues and profits over the preceding decade. The fall of Silicon Valley Bank has been attributed to aggressive growth philosophy, poor investment choices and the failure of adequately hedging against rising interest rates. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank provides a rich, natural context to examine the business risks associated in banking industry, the efficacy of Dodd-Frank financial regulation and the management of “ripple effects” caused by the failure of a large bank.
This teaching case is structured around reporting of investment securities as held to maturity, commonly used by financial institutions, and how that opaques the true financial risks of the financial institution. It also focuses on the importance of interest rate risk management and the adverse consequences for a firm unable to effectively manage these risks. We also delve into internal control policies as well as the role of the banking regulators in mitigating these risks. The students to critically evaluate these issues, read authoritative literature and consider important questions on management and regulator responsibilities.