Online Student Support Services for STEM Courses in New Mexico: A Cross-Institutional Approach
- Conference
- Location
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Indianapolis, Indiana
- Publication Date
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June 15, 2014
- Start Date
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June 15, 2014
- End Date
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June 18, 2014
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Electrical and Computer
- Page Count
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17
- Page Numbers
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24.954.1 - 24.954.17
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--22887
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/22887
- Download Count
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500
Paper Authors
Jose Marcio Luna University of New Mexico
Mr. Jose Marcio Luna received his B.Sc. in Electronics Engineering from District University of Bogota in 2004. He received M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of New Mexico in 2009 where he currently is a Ph.D. (cand) in Electrical Engineering with a Ph.D. Minor in Applied Mathematics. His research interests include control theory applied to computing systems, discrete event systems, mobile robots, and time-delay systems. He is been actively participating in the design of methods for cross-institutional educational collaborations between higher education institutions in New Mexico.
Timothy L Schroeder University of New Mexico
Tim Schroeder is the Project Director for the STEM Gateway Program at the University of New Mexico. In this capacity, he oversees student support programs designed to improve student achievement rates in STEM for Hispanic and low-income students. Prior to this role, Mr. Schroeder supervised student and academic support services at San Juan College in New Mexico and the University of Alaska Southeast in Sitka, Alaska. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in political science from Southwestern College and his masters of science in education from Newman University. He is currently completing his educational doctorate degree in educational leadership at the University of New Mexico.
Gregory L. Heileman
University of New Mexico
orcid.org/0000-0002-5221-5682
Gregory (Greg) L. Heileman received the BA degree from Wake Forest University in 1982, the MS degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mathematics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1986, and the PhD degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 1989. In 1990 he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, where he is currently a Professor. He received the School of Engineering's Teaching Excellence award in 1995, the ECE Department Distinguished Teacher Award in 2000. He held ECE’s Gardner Zemke Professorship from 2005-08. He was the recipient of ECE’s Lawton-Ellis Award for combined excellence in teaching, research, and student/community involvement in 2001 and again 2009. In 2009 he was also awarded the IEEE Albuquerque Section Outstanding Educator Award. From 2005-2011 he served as Associate Chair (Director of Undergraduate Programs), and led the department through two ABET accreditation visits. In 2011 he became an ABET program evaluator. Since 2011 he has served as the Associate Provost for Curriculum at the University of New Mexico. During 1998 he held a research fellowship at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and in 2005 he held a similar position at the Universidad Politénica de Madrid. His research interests are in information security, the theory of computing and information, machine learning, and data structures and algorithmic analysis. He is the author of the text Data Structures, Algorithms and Object-Oriented Programming, published by McGraw-Hill in 1996.
Chaouki T Abdallah The University of New Mexico
Chaouki T. Abdallah started his college education at the Ecole Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Beyrouth - Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon, but finished his undergraduate studies at Youngstown State University, with a Bachelors of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering in 1981. He then obtained his MS and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from GA Tech in 1982, and 1988 respectively. He joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of New Mexico where he is currently professor and since 2011, the provost & EVP for academic affairs. Professor Abdallah conducts research and teaches courses in the general area of systems theory with focus on control and communications systems. His research has been funded by national funding agencies, national laboratories, and by various companies. He has also been active in designing and implementing various international graduate programs with Latin American and European countries. He was a co-founder in 1990 of the ISTEC consortium, which currently includes more than 150 universities in the US, Spain, and Latin America. He has published 7 books, and more than 300 peer- reviewed papers. His PhD students hold academic positions in the USA and in Europe, and senior technical positions in various US National Laboratories.
Professor Abdallah is a senior member of IEEE and a recipient of the IEEE Millennium medal. He is also active in the IEEE Control Systems Society most recently serving as the general chair of the 2008 Conference of Decision and Control CDC 2008.
Jorge Crichigno Northern New Mexico College
Jorge Crichigno received the BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the Catholic University of Asuncion, Paraguay, in 2004, the MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, in 2008 and 2009 respectively. In 2007, he was visiting the Wireless Sensor Network Lab in the School of Electronic, Information and Electrical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests include wireless and optical networks, graph theory, mathematical optimization, network security and undergraduate STEM education. He has served as reviewer and TPC member of IEEE journals and conferences and as panelist for NSF STEM undergraduate education initiatives.
Ivan Lopez Hurtado Northern New Mexico College
IVAN LOPEZ HURTADO received his B.S. degree in Industrial Physics Engineering from Tec de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, 1995. M.S. degree in Automation from Tec de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico, 1998 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA in 2008. He is currently the Department of Engineering, Chair at Northern New Mexico College.
Alfredo J. Perez Northern New Mexico College
Alfredo J. Perez received his M.S. degree in Computer Science and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Florida, in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Since 2011, he has been with Northern New Mexico College, Espanola (NM), where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering. Prior to coming to USA to pursue graduate studies, he obtained a B.S degree in Systems Engineering from Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla Colombia (2006). His research interests are in the areas of Mobile Computing/Sensing, Data mining, Distributed Systems and STEM education. He has coauthored several journal and conference papers as well as the book ”Location Aware Information systems - Developing Real-time Tracking Systems”, published by CRC Press.
Abstract
Online Student Support Services for STEM Courses in New Mexico: A Cross-Institutional ApproachThis paper describes the results of a cross-institutional collaboration between the University of NewMexico (UNM), Northern New Mexico College (NNMC) and the Central New Mexico CommunityCollege (CNM) to offer and develop high quality on-line content STEM courses. This program has beenfocused on two primary initiatives: (1) expand the delivery of online engineering courses to remote and/ortwo-year institutions using a shared-curriculum and joint-instruction model, and (2) improve studentsuccess in these courses by strengthening course content, instructional delivery and student supportsystems.In expanding the delivery of engineering courses, the three institutions established an automated methodfor registering students at multiple institutions. Students were provided access to the UNM coursecontent via the UNM Learning Management System. Course content and primary instruction andassessment for four Electrical Engineering undergraduate courses were developed and provided to NNMCand CNM students online by faculty members at UNM. Supplemental content and secondary instructionwere developed and provided by faculty members at NNMC and CNM. Final grade assignments forUNM, NNMC and CNM students were provided by instructors at each institution.In strengthening instruction, UNM instructional designers collaborated with faculty members indeveloping the content of the courses to increase the quantity and quality of multi-media learningmodules and to restructure assignments and assessments for the online environment. Theseimprovements were made based on the best practices established by the Quality Matters Program.In strengthening student support, an embedded tutor was located in each improved course. For students atUNM, NNMC and CNM, an early-alert academic intervention system was piloted. This system involvedUNM Teaching Assistants (TA) and professional staff contacting students who were underperforming intheir engineering course(s) to assist them in accessing support resources and developing strategies forimprovement. Moreover, a group of Supplementary Instructors (SI) from the Center for AcademicProgram Support (CAPS) at UNM, as well as the active participation of the Academic Advisor at theElectrical and Computer Engineering Department, allowed the tracking of student performance aimed toimprove student success while keeping communication with the students to explore their motivations andinterests associated to their studies. Furthermore, at NNMC, synchronous weekly problem-solvingsessions were offered by the NNMC instructor/facilitator. During these sessions, students receivedadditional content support, peer interaction, supplemental learning resources and encouragement.The main conclusions of this work are supported on a set of quantitative and qualitative survey andevaluation instruments that allowed effectiveness of the courses and their associated services to be judgedand improved. For all courses, the Office of New Media and Extended Learning (NMEL) at UNMadministered a mid-semester survey to assess student perceptions. Additional data was collectedcomparing student achievement in improved sections to their non-improved counterparts.
Luna, J. M., & Schroeder, T. L., & Heileman, G. L., & Abdallah, C. T., & Crichigno, J., & Lopez Hurtado, I., & Perez, A. J. (2014, June), Online Student Support Services for STEM Courses in New Mexico: A Cross-Institutional Approach Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--22887
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