STEM

February 4, 2022

Announcement of the STEM Transfer Partnership community of practice in WA State

We are excited to announce the 10 partnerships that will be participating in the STEM Transfer Partnership project and community of practice here in Washington state. Each pair of institutions, one from a 2-year and the other from a 4-year, will develop ways to improve outcomes for low-income STEM students! Because of the many varied…

October 1, 2021

CCRI receives nearly $1.2 million grant for work to increase equity in STEM

The University of Washington’s Community College Research Initiatives announced that it received a $1,173,375.00 grant from Ascendium Education Group to work towards equity in STEM education for low-income learners across Washington state. Community College Research Initiatives (CCRI) conducts research in order to facilitate the advancement of equity in higher education. Ascendium invests in initiatives designed…

December 10, 2020

Enhancing Undergraduate Research at Community Colleges in the Puget Sound

Last year, CCRI had the privilege of working with 3 local community colleges as a facilitator and evaluator on a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridge to Baccalaureate (B2B) planning grant. This planning grant with North Seattle College, Green River College and Pierce College led to the successful attainment of a 3-year Puget…

October 29, 2020

Using research and collaboration to improve STEM education

How can STEM teachers support students’ disciplinary engagement in project based learning? Earlier this year, co-authors Susan Nolan, Lia Wetzstein and Alexandra Goodell published the article Designing Material Tools to Mediate Disciplinary Engagement in Environmental Science in the journal Cognition and Instruction. This article describes how teachers and researchers collaborated to address problems of balancing…

June 23, 2020

Connecting Learning About the Earth to Societal Issues: Downstream Effects on Faculty Teaching

This past Spring we had CCRI’s very own Lia Wetzstein’s work published! Read about the paper below, then download the article directly or access via Wiley Online Library. About this article This study provides an empirical look at the impact on instructors interacting with sustainability curriculum in different ways across multiple institutions and disciplines via InTeGrate….

February 14, 2020

New Journal Article on Science Education

We’re thrilled to announce a new STEM publication in Cognition and Instruction that CCRI’s Lia Wetzstein co-authored with former colleagues, Susan Bobbitt Nolan and Alexandra Goodell, from their research together at the LIFE Center, University of Washington. Keywords: Science education, project-based learning, motivation and engagement, material tools, design-based research, cultural-historical activity theory Designing Material Tools…

December 13, 2019

Data note on the Complexity of STEM Transfer for Underserved Students

We’re pleased to release a new data note from CCRI’s research on STEM, authored by research scientist, Elizabeth Apple Meza titled, Underserved Community College Students and the Complexity of STEM Transfer. Abstract Community college students aspiring to transfer into STEM majors at a four-year institution face a complicated and nuanced admissions process. In some cases, students…

December 3, 2019

NSF ATE Project Update

Leveraging statewide longitudinal data to improve technical education pathways Phase one, in this three-year landscape study of National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) programs funded in Washington in the last ten years, has begun. Our team, consisting of University of Washington researchers, and faculty and administrators from Seattle Central College, Green River College, and Skagit…