Although community colleges play a crucial role in STEM education and workforce development, “research on community college STEM students and their pathways is limited and does not inform current reform efforts” (Van Noy & Zeidenberg, 2014). The Building Opportunities for STEM Success (BOSS) project addresses this research gap through an evidence-generating project designed to evaluate the impact of strategically embedding key study skills into six cross-sector STEM courses: College Algebra, Earth & Space Science, Life in its Biological Environment, Introduction to General Chemistry, Hardware Configuration (IT) and Introduction to Engineering.
In 2015, FSCJ’s Dean of Mathematics conducted a needs analysis that revealed that students’ insufficient study skills were negatively impacting their STEM course performance and dampened their enthusiasm to continue their studies in a STEM field. Led by a passionate group of interdisciplinary STEM faculty members, BOSS has created and embedded new study skills learning tutorials and activities to improve interest, engagement and learning gains for students in STEM courses.
In this video, students and instructors describe their experience as participants in the project and discuss its impact in their STEM classes and beyond.
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Welcome to the BOSS project! Building Opportunities for STEM Success (BOSS), is a multidisciplinary project at Florida State College Jacksonville (FSCJ). FSCJ is an open enrollment state college, offering a limited number of Bachelor degrees. Most of our STEM students will earn an AA degree and then transfer to a university to further their studies.
We were interested in knowing if student performance and efficacy could be affected by teaching STEM specific study skills as co-curricular content in STEM courses. Our multidisciplinary approach includes the following: biology, chemistry, earth and space science, math, engineering and information technology.
Our study module videos are open to the public and ready for your use. They can be found here: https://guides.fscj.edu/BOSS
Data collection began in Spring 2019 and will continue through Spring of 2020.
We are especially interested in hearing from anyone who has tried a similar intervention. We'd love to know what you did and how that worked out for your students.
Thanks for viewing.
Ivetta Abramyan
Sondra Evans
Learning how to learn is very important for student in K-12 and beyond. It is wonderful to hear students quickly recognized their study habits as an important process for ALL their classes. Keep up the important work.
Holly Wiegreffe
Ivetta Abramyan
Sondra Evans
Learning how to learn is very important for student in K-12 and beyond. It is wonderful to hear students quickly recognized their study habits as an important process for ALL their classes. Keep up the important work.
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Thank you for your comments and support, Sondra.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos, Ph.D.
I loved your final comment in the film. "We're not talking about getting students ready for college...We're talking about US, being at college, ready for students."
I have a couple of logistical questions...Were these online modules required? Did they contribute to the grade in the courses they were part of? Did you remove any other modules to fit them in or were they added to the courses? Did the students in these modified courses perform differently than students in prior course offerings?
Sharon Cooper
Jonathan Lewis
Michelle Quirke
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Hi Dr. Demetrikopoulos,
Thank you for the feedback! We have a control and an experimental class for each subject. The study skills videos and related activities/assignments are embedded into the curriculum of the experimental class. The control class is taught without the study skills materials. Regarding student performance in the modified courses, we just finished our first semester of implementation so our sample size isn't large enough yet to determine results. We should have this information in the next year.
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Thank you for your comments Dr. Demetrikopoulous. A few additions to Ivetta's comments.
We are an open enrollment college and many of our students work crazy hours and have family obligations. This makes them have more characteristics in common with "day laborers" instead of "salaried workers". Our students want to be "paid" for their efforts immediately.
So, yes, they were awarded a few points for the Study Skill Modules. The points came from engaging in the material in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples: quizzes (available on request), flashcards and the focus tracking chart were collected and graded. Our online modules were required for the Experimental section.
These points would not affect the performance on the post tests, but could affect the number of "successful grades" if they were enough to bump D students to the C level. If we see a lot of borderline C grades, we will need to back those points out to determine if the Study Module points made the difference. Of course, that isn't our intention.
All of us on the team felt very strongly that our content teaching time not be reduced to fit in study skill modules. Study skills are work/assignments in addition to the "regular" curriculum. That's part of the reason we have stand alone modules online.
The last phrase is sentiment often spoke by a mentor of mine, Dr. Margo Martin. I hear her voice in my head on a daily basis... Embracing being a college ready for students is what the BOSS project is trying to achieve.
Thanks for viewing and your comments. Holly
Michelle Quirke
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Nancy Holmes
Wow, what a great resource and support system! So good to hear that you have faculty buy-in to add this piece to their curricula. It will be interesting to see the results of your data. 2 questions: 1)did you need/use external funding to develop the module(s) and collect the data? 2) did you model this program on other existing programs, and if so, what were these?Thanks!
Michelle Quirke
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Hi Nancy~ Thanks for your comments.
To answer your first question, yes we are using the NSF grant, in part, to buy release time from teaching, so we could develop the modules. We are a 100% teaching institution, much like a community college, and have heavy teaching loads contrasted with university professors. The grant will continue to support faculty as we collect and analyze data, among other things.
We did not model our work on existing "programs", but before we built the models, we embarked on professional development for those of us on the team. We adapted a lot of work from Dr. Barbara Oakley who wrote A Mind for Numbers, How to Excel in Math and Science (Even if you Flunked Algebra). Additionally, all team members took her MOOC. Additional ideas came from the literature.
As to the faculty buy-in... So far, we only have 7 faculty at our school using the material formally in the study. Of course, the modules are open to all (link in Welcome Message) and we know some faculty are also using them but aren't collecting data. If the data shows the intervention to be effective, we will roll this out to as broad of an audience as possible. Even though we focused on study strategies for STEM, the modules contain strategies that will cross over to other disciplines as well.
Thanks for viewing and your comments. Holly
Michelle Quirke
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Phillip Eaglin, PhD
Founder and CEO
It is great that study skills support is provided for community college students! I hear that often students depend on the community college to be more supportive in their transition to higher education. And you are providing the critical support! Question: Are there opportunities for the students to receive individual coaching on improving their study skills based on formative data?
Michelle Quirke
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Hello Phillip,
That's a good question. Since we are a inter-disciplinary group, we all approach our andra/pedagogy uniquely. So, I can't say if or how many formative assessments my colleagues have/give. They can chime in here to provide some more clarity for you.
I teach students chemistry and have a lot of formative assessments. Do I individually coach students after formative assessments and suggest study strategies? Yes. Our class sizes are small (24) so I can do that.
We also give surveys at the beginning of the term and at the end to measure student attitudes/efficacy.
We only have preliminary data, but it looks like our students are surprisingly confident that they already have effective study skills when they walk into the course. This was a surprise for us. That's why your question ties in nicely with our experience.
We think discussing study strategies before an assessment is probably not smart from a timing standpoint. Here's why: If students are confident in their abilities, they may not think the study strategy modules have anything to offer them. However, if they have empirical evidence that there's some inefficiency there, they may be more open to engaging with the material.
To be honest, poor performance on formative assessments is sometimes "discounted" by students. In fact, I have students who will leave a short quiz blank except for writing "I don't know how to do this but I'll figure it out by test day."
Sometimes, it's a disappointing performance on a summative assessment that gets the attention and while that is better than nothing, it's disappointing as a teacher because STEM subjects build upon themselves and now that student has to dig out of the hole while simultaneously moving forward.
In closing, your question raises a point we hadn't thought about prior to the study. Namely, is the effectiveness of the intervention dependent on when the subject is addressed/assigned? We don't have an answer, but our hypothesis is yes. Maybe that's something to study in round 2.
Thanks for your viewing and comment. Holly
Michelle Quirke
Phillip Eaglin, PhD
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thank you for the feedback, Dr. Eaglin! Our initial survey data shows that students are overconfident when entering our courses -- they've expressed that they didn't have to study or were not taught study skills in high school. This issue becomes magnified with rigorous STEM courses and students don't feel like they have what it takes to succeed.
I think the individual coaching aspect is a great idea and would likely be very effective -- just like one-on-one tutoring, but with study skills. Unfortunately, we currently don't have the resources to develop and scale something like that. We are incorporating the study skills into our curricula without forgoing content so we are already using every minute of instructional time. This is probably something we could tackle with a larger grant and additional personnel. If you have any specific ideas, we'd love to hear them.
Phillip Eaglin, PhD
Ivetta Abramyan
A Daniel Johnson
Ivetta:
You mention over-confidence in their own abilities. We see it too with students in a more-selective enrollment population, and we've had to intervene one on one with a lot students to teach them study skills.
Holly also mentioned "poor performance on formative assessments is sometimes "discounted" by students. In fact, I have students who will leave a short quiz blank except for writing "I don't know how to do this but I'll figure it out by test day." We found one way to help improve this is to reframe the formative assessment. We tell students that it is a diagnostic tool, and that we are trying to discover the gaps they have (kind of like the calibration gap in https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentations/1431). Attacking how they think about the formative assessment process helped us improve effort. This only worked though when we shared what we learned and followed through with the students.
Definitely want to look deeper into your strategy.
Ivetta Abramyan
Danielle Watt
Director of Education, Outreach, Diversity
Hello Holly and Ivetta,
Thank you for sharing your project! Are you considering having students utilize the study skills modules in groups and compare to individual use? just wonder if this would impact student reflection on using the modules and modifying study habits when working in groups vs. alone.
Ivetta Abramyan
Christopher Lee
Professor
Hi, Danielle.
That's a great question! We have not considered that. This event has generated a lot of good things to think about when we plan an extension or second phase of the study. Students, and people in general, certainly do better in groups.
Even though I have enough equipment for students to do their IT labs individually, I always organize the labs in groups so they can learn from each other. The interaction is always enlightening. As a community college, our students often come to class and leave directly afterwards, so they don't usually socialize with each other. But I actually see bonds forming during labs!
My guess is that students would form a support/accountability system if they were studying together, which would help them learn the material. This would also emphasize the soft skills that are integrated into our IT courses.
Danielle Watt
Ivetta Abramyan
Christopher Lee
Professor
Dr. Eaglin.
As Professor Wiegreffe stated, each professor in the study has the latitude to implement the BOSS curriculum as he or she chooses. I teach information technology courses. I monitor students' performance on the BOSS modules and other content and I coach as needed.
Phillip Eaglin, PhD
Ivetta Abramyan
Marcelo Worsley
Assistant Professor
This is very exciting and important work. I was wondering if you could say more about strategies or unique methods you might use for studying development of student confidence in their study skills. Holly noted that students come in with more confidence than was expected. As such, when you look at post-intervention measures how will you score or evaluate the progress a student might be showing. In some cases I'd imagine that students will decrease their self-perception of study skill confidence. Are you also planning to do interviews or focus groups?
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Hello Marcelo,
I think you are correct that some students may actually show a decreased confidence... In a future round of study, we think it would be interesting to measure student confidence as a function of time throughout the semester. How does it change from start of class through each unit? If it begins high, does it decrease after test 1? If so, does it then increase as students apply study strategies and then experience success?
As part of our study design, we hired an external evaluator and she will be conducting focus groups to help us understand better what is going on.
Thanks for viewing and for your encouraging words. Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
Danielle Watt
Marcelo Worsley
Assistant Professor
The focus groups sounds like the way to go.
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thank you for your feedback, Marcelo. We are going to hold student focus groups in the fall.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos, Ph.D.
Dear Holly,
Student confidence in their study skills can be a challenging measure when examined over time because if you ask the same questions at different time points the students are answering it with different information. For example, if a student had not experienced any challenging classes and was asked to rate their study skills they may rate them very high. Then, once they take a class that challenges them for the first time, they will realize that their skills were not, in fact, very high and reassess their skills as being inadequate. Hopefully, their skills will improve to meet the challenges, and then they will again reassess their skills as being adequate or very high. We have seen this u-shaped curve in several projects across a number of self efficacy measures. While this is an interesting phenomena to study in itself, this u-shaped curve makes it difficult to discern how the student perceives their growth in their study skills which is likely something that you would like to know. One way to be able to measure this is to use retrospective questions as part of your post intervention surveys. This would allow you to ask them to rate their study skills at the beginning of the intervention and at the end of the intervention. For example, as part of the post intervention survey you could ask questions that include time such as: prior to taking this class my study skills were (insert Likert scale);and since taking this class my study skills are (insert Likert scale).
Melissa
Michelle Quirke
Holly Wiegreffe
Ivetta Abramyan
Danielle Watt
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Dear Melissa,
I see the benefit of the retrospective questions - thanks for that tip.
It would be a big help if you could point me to some literature (yours or others) that show the U-shaped curve for self efficacy. Where should I start looking for that?
Holly
Michelle Quirke
Ivetta Abramyan
A Daniel Johnson
Melissa brings up a great point. We do not have published data, but plenty of course evaluation data showing similar U-shaped confidence curves.
Have you considered using something other than Likert scales? Maybe ask students to complete a 3-4 sentence reflection, then pull out themes to see if the students are saying WHY they feel less confident?
Ivetta Abramyan
Danielle Watt
Christopher Lee
Professor
Hi, Daniel.
It appears that we did not answer you question about using something other than Likert scales to determining why students may feel less confident. That is certainly something we can consider if we do a second phase of the project. Also, after we finish this round of data collection. our external evaluator will conduct focus groups to draw out some qualitative data. This could be one of the things on which the evaluator focuses.
Ivetta Abramyan
Sandy Wilborn
Sounds like you all are doing great work to improve students' study skills. How were the modules created? Did each professor create his/her own, or was there a team that worked together to create these?
In our US Dept of Ed i3 project, one of our goals is to improve math placement test scores for college. We plan to hold teacher-led Saturday prep sessions to review and/or teach the skills students may be weak in or lacking. We are also considering online tutorials to prepare students, so I am interested in the strategies you all used to create the modules.
Please take a look at our video "If You Give a Teacher a Network" to learn about how our Pre-Algebra and Algebra I teachers in rural Virginia are collaborating in a virtual network to instill a growth mindset and increase motivation in math.
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Hi Sandy,
About the creation of the modules: We are a team that represents many disciplines: math, biology, chemistry, IT, engineering, earth and space science and the videos were both a team and individual effort. After we selected the topics, individuals volunteered to make videos for topics that they felt strongly about. The individual put together the graphics and scripts. Then, both were shared with the greater group to get feedback and after incorporating the feedback, the videos were recorded.
Some team members made the visuals and scripts but passed on the recording part, so someone else did that part.
We also had support from our marketing team as they did the logos which appeared on the PowerPoints and the library staff helped by creating the library guide and getting the videos uploaded there. In case you didn't see it, the link to the lib guide is in the Welcome Message and you can watch and use the videos, if you think they might be helpful for your students.
We talk a lot about team work and interdisciplinary efforts, but I must say this is the first time I've been involved with a project that requires such a huge amount of team work with my colleagues. Additionally, our school is a 100% teaching institution, so to execute a federally funded research grant, we also have to work closely with the grants office, finance, administration, etc.
It hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns... but we all put the project first. We make compromises. It's a privilege to serve with this team.
Thanks for viewing and your comments. Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Sandy~
After watching your video (Great idea, by the way.) I'm thinking maybe you are more interested in the technical aspect of making the video...
Our videos were made by recording a screen cast (using Quicktime) of a PowerPoint presentation we played on our computers.
Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
Christopher Lee
Professor
Hi, Sandy.
Some of us also used MediaSpace by Kaltura to capture the PowerPoint presentations.
Some members of the team spoke directly into their computer microphones to capture the audio, while others recorded their audio at our campus Digital Media Studios. In the case of the latter, the PowerPoint videos were exported as JPEG files. The audio and the JPEG files were then compiled as a video via Adobe Elements.
I hope we answered your question!
Chris
Ivetta Abramyan
Ellis Bell
It will be interesting to see how the data turns out. Like Sandy, I have a question about the modules- Is there a single set of modules that work in all involved courses or do the faculty of the courses help create more specific modules for their course to accompany the more general modules. I was thinking specifically about quantitative skills
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Dear Ellis,
The data! Yes, we are also very interested to see how it turns out. Of course, we'd like this to be the "secret sauce" that moves the needle on student performance, but we are also scientists and are trying to remain neutral about the outcome. Like all evidence gathering endeavors we must be open to the possibility that the groups will not be statistically different. We must go where the data leads. We will learn a lot about our students, ourselves and our institution, no matter how it turns out.
There is a single set of modules (see link in Welcome Message) and our interdisciplinary team tried to incorporate the best topics for the widest STEM audience.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by quantitative skills. My best guess is you mean math remediation. If not, please help me out.
Our work is modeled primarily on the work of Dr. Barbara Oakley with a few additional ideas from the literature. We did not select quantitative skills as a module. Now, I know for chemistry, I must do math remediation for my students, but our idea was to focus more broadly on study strategies, so that the modules would transfer better across disciplines. Even though we focused on strategies that are well suited for STEM fields, the modules would apply in non-STEM disciplines as well.
Hope that answers your question. Thanks for viewing and for your comment. Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
Ellis Bell
Holly,
Thanks for the reply, I agree completely with going where the data leads!
With regards to my thoughts about quantitative skills, it goes beyond "math remdiation". "Vision and Change" talks about the importance of quantitative thinking and skills and certainly in my experience in biology, chemistry and related disciplines there seems to be a real disconnect between basic mathematics and quantitative skills that significantly limits students conceptual understanding in the sciences. Having a module that puts those quantitative aspects/skills etc in the context of the basic sciences could contribute to student success not only in their science classes but beyond.
Michelle Quirke
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thank you all for the excellent feedback. You are providing insightful suggestions, motivation and perspectives that our team will reflect on. We appreciate each point of view and encourage you to keep the comments coming!
-The BOSS Team
Ivetta Abramyan
Michelle Quirke
Excellent video. The Q&A covered many questions and provided useful content. I look forward to seeing the outcomes from both student data and faculty feedback. This project helps provide one avenue to research to meet the demands of college students in today's world. I'm also going to read the book recommended.
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thank you, Michelle. We really appreciate your feedback.
Ivetta Abramyan
Joanne Figueiredo
Very nice work! The video does a great job of showing what you are doing! As a high school teacher, I worry about my student's study skills in AP Chemistry. I love your frame shift -- making teachers think about incorporating the concept of building study skills into their presentations (while retaining content time.) Many students simply don't know how to study to reinforce their understanding from lecture. We all worry about taking time available to teach content, but if our students don't understand or know how to study to retain the ideas presented in class, this is moot. So thanks for opening my mind!
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Hi Joanne~ The link to our modules are in the Welcome message. If you think they would benefit your students, you are welcome to use them. Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
Joanne Figueiredo
Thanks for suggesting that I go to your modules Holly. They are fantastic! and I will definitely use them with my students next year. This is such important information and it is so well presented! Thank you so much for sharing! I hope everyone will check out your links!
Ivetta Abramyan
Dr. Valencia
Great video and idea. Online education requires innovative tools. Building Opportunities for STEM Success (BOSS) is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal about Quality Education (#SDGs). As a FSCJ Management Professor, I think that STEM skills are valuable to form the next business manager.
Ivetta Abramyan
Dr. Jose G. Lepervanche Valencia
Great video and idea. Online education requires innovative tools. Building Opportunities for STEM Success (BOSS) is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal about Quality Education (#SDGs). As a FSCJ Management Professor, I think that STEM skills are valuable to form the next business manager.
Ivetta Abramyan
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Thanks for the comments Jose. Holly
Ivetta Abramyan
R. Bruce Mattingly
Outstanding project! I love the comment about making colleges "student ready." I'm at a 4-year college in the SUNY system, and each year, a significant portion of our incoming students come from SUNY's network of community colleges. I would love to share your work with our community college partners.
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thank you, Bruce! Please feel free to do so. Here is the link to our website, which houses our study skills video and other supplemental information:
https://guides.fscj.edu/BOSS
We'd also love to hear feedback from any of your partners that visit our site and/or implement our techniques.
Jonathan Lewis
Ivetta Abramyan
Sharon Cooper
Thank you for sharing this work - so important!
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thanks, Sharon!
Jonathan Lewis
Hi Ivetta
Thanks for sharing this important work! I'll share the resources you've pointed to. It's great to see the breadth of your target audience in STEM, many students probably still looking for their STEM home. By all means point them to our STEMSEAS project.
Ivetta Abramyan
Ivetta Abramyan
Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences
Thanks for the feedback, Jonathan! Will do!
Tameiko Grant
Excellent video. The work that you all are doing is essential to the preparation of our students. These foundational skills are critical to their success academically and as they seek employment and career opportunities!
Holly Wiegreffe
Professor of Chemistry
Thank you for your comments, Tameiko.
Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.