UWM STEM CELL, an innovative demonstration project, seeks to fundamentally transform the first-year experience for aspirational STEM majors by accelerating the pace at which students, especially underrepresented and underprivileged students, make academic progress. The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) connected students in a cohort-based model supplemented with supports that illustrate the critical connections between STEM classroom learning and workplace skills spurring them to choose a major and complete a degree. The approach is based on strong theory and pulls together several low-cost, high-impact interventions: intentional course alignment across mathematics, chemistry, and biology; active learning across all courses; an early relevance intervention; in-class student support services, and the construction of individual development plans to inform decision points and reinforce the link between classroom/lab work and major/career/research aspirations.<br/>The presentation will discuss the results of the first year of the program in terms of academic student performance, intervention, student retention, and programmatic changes and student support mechanisms.<br/>

UWM STEM CELL: Accelerating the pace to academic success in STEM

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.