Sustaining STEM Student Learning Support and Engagement during COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examined how an HSI-STEM grant project at one such college responded, confronting challenges of the transition to an all-online environment head-on and tapping its unexpected benefits. With a focus on STEM student services and programs, two aspects of the situation are analyzed and studied. Facilitating Innovation: STEM administrators had to think outside the box and employ extra effort to continue providing support services such as Supplemental Instruction and Counseling Services to ensure success for their students. We attempt below to identify key issues and obstacles met along the way and how they were addressed: How did peer Supplemental Instruction (SI) Leaders, trained for a classroom setting, modify their approach and engage students through virtual-classroom-supplemented instruction? How did academic counselors incorporate non-verbal communication and document-sharing in their outreach and interaction with their students? How did faculty and staff guide two-year-long student research projects during the pandemic? What sort of challenges did they face and how were they overcome? Looking Ahead and Moving Forward: What started as a shocked reaction in the face of a dizzying crisis had to be transformed, and urgently, into an effective, necessity-dictated response in service of continued STEM teaching-and-learning advancement. Some of the changes adopted through the pandemic may now be pleasantly irreversible. What impact did access to, and experience with, online educational technology has on existing learning processes and support systems? How effective these efforts were? What are the long-lasting effects of implemented change on traditional ways of doing business?