Quality Enhancement Plan

TITLE: Increasing Math and Science Literacy for Non-Majors

Submitted by STEM CETL Faculty Community

Two key general education goals for all NOVA students graduating with an Associate’s degree

understand logical and mathematical analysis within the context of various disciplines and apply

graphical, symbolic, and numerical methods to analyze, organize, and interpret data. For

scientific reasoning, students should have the ability to understand and use science as a method

of inquiry, generate arguments/data, and use reason to form conclusions. More broadly, these

educational goals also speak to NOVA graduates having math and scientific literacy. This

literacy can be defined as: the knowledge and understanding of mathematical and scientific

concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural

affairs, and economic productivity (National Academic Press, 1996). This is especially important

given our institutional goal of graduates being adequately prepared to enter Northern Virginia’s

high-skill, technology-based workforce (Strategic Vision 2015).

At the College, many students meet the Quantitative Reasoning goal by enrolling in MTH151:

Math for Liberal Arts. This course has been especially created for students who are not majoring

in math. The Scientific Reasoning requirement is satisfied by taking two semesters of a 4-credit

lab science; BIO101: General Biology I is overwhelmingly the most popular course chosen by

non-majors to fulfill part of this requirement. The Achieving the Dream initiative has identified

both of these courses as gatekeeper courses with a high enrollment and a low success rate. For

example, data has shown that between 30% and 40% of students enrolled in BIO101 do not

successfully complete the course with a grade of C or better. Faculty agree that one of the key

challenges in increasing student success in BIO101 is that it is not designed for non-science

majors but is instead a mixed-majors course (90% non-majors, 10% science majors). This means

that it is taught at a high, detailed level in order to academically prepare the majors for upperlevel

biology courses. This has led to the failure of many non-majors in this course and

ultimately is likely to impact overall graduation rates.

In contrast to a content-heavy introductory science lab course, institutions such as Harvard

University, George Washington University, and Princeton University have developed new

interdisciplinary science courses that emphasize problem solving, quantitative reasoning, and

scientific methodology. In this model, scientific facts and concepts are introduced in the context

of exciting and interdisciplinary questions, such as understanding the possibility of synthetic life,

the biology and treatment of AIDS and cancer, and human population genetics (A New Biology

for the 21st Century: Ensuring the United States Leads the Coming Biology Revolution,

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12764.html). This has led to an increased student success rate as

well as a larger number of freshmen enrolling in STEM-related majors. This integrated, problemfocused

approach to science is also entirely consistent with research on how students learn best

and how science is done in a real-world context.

In order to promote mathematical and scientific literacy and to increase the success rate of non-

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors, the NOVA Faculty Learning

Community (FLC) would like to propose that NOVA create, pilot, and implement a lab course

designed specifically for non-majors. This course would be designed to be interdisciplinary, not

only pulling from different scientific disciplines but also studying science in the context of

collecting and analyzing quantitative data. After developing and piloting this course, the

interdisciplinary lab course will be linked with MTH 151 in a learning community for nonmajors

in an effort to increase their overall success in these courses.

We believe that developing a collaborative series of student activities in science and math will

enhance student learning by breaking down traditional disciplinary barriers, emphasizing critical

thinking, and encouraging students to seek relevant connections in their own lives. In turn,

increased connection may lead to increased student engagement, increased retention, and greater

student success. It may also be possible that by having non-majors enrolled in this course, BIO

101 can be more appropriately geared toward students entering STEM or pre-health fields, thus

enhancing their success as well. Lastly, an exciting and rewarding experience in a science course

may lead to some non-majors deciding to enroll in a STEM major.

One of the long-term outcomes of this work will be the enhanced coordination of the College’s

STEM education efforts. The effort to enhance math and science literacy in the non-STEM

majors (the vast majority of our student population) will require collaborations among the STEM

faculty, the Achieving the Dream initiative, the Pathways to the Baccalaureate program, the First

Year Experience, and the math and science learning centers. Because STEM and biosciences are

key foci in the Strategic Vision 2015, this collaboration will lay the foundation for a collegewide

STEM initiative that will include a) working to enhance the retention and graduation of our

STEM students, b) partnering with transfer institutions to build bridge programs, c) recruiting

under-represented groups into STEM majors, and d) working with local high schools to develop

teacher training in STEM fields and/or a certificate in STEM education.

NOVA’s mission is centered on increasing student access to higher education, and the retention

and graduation of NOVA students. Because of its location in a vibrant, economically diverse

region where highly-skilled, technology-savvy workers are in high demand, these important

institutional goals must include enhancing and ensuring scientific and math literacy. This

initiative would also dovetail well with another part of NOVA’s strategic plan of enhancing

instructional programs/courses in STEM disciplines and the biosciences, especially if more

students enroll in STEM majors as a result of their positive experiences in the learning

community. In addition, by faculty developing collaborations with those outside of their

discipline, best teaching practices can be shared and a collegial and collaborative teaching and

learning community can be fostered. The strengthening of an educational community,

particularly across STEM disciplines, could motivate the students to see connections they might

not otherwise have seen, and thus encourage student engagement and retention.

We propose this initiative to take place in multiple steps.

Phase I: Course Development

• An interdisciplinary lab course around a “hot topic” such as nanotechnology,

water quality, cancer, cloning, or global climate change.

• It may be possible that such as course could be offered as NAS 101: Natural

Science I. This purpose of this course is to present a multidisciplinary

perspective integrating the main fields of science by emphasizing the interaction

of the scientific disciplines; the course was specifically designed for non-majors.

It is only offered currently at the Manassas Campus in the Fall semester; NOVA

appears to be the only college in the VCCS offering this course. The clear

advantage of using this course is that it already exists and already is transferable

to institutions such as GMU.

• Several faculty members from different science disciplines and math will be

involved in the development/re-design of this interdisciplinary course. They will

choose a topic, evaluate textbooks, and develop the labs that will be included in

the course. Special emphasis will be given toward incorporating investigative

labs that involve the design of experiments and the collection and analysis of

data. This team will also consult with several institutions that have recently

developed such a course, including George Washington University with whom

we collaborated with on a recent science education grant proposal.

Phase II: Piloting the course

• One or two sections of this course will be piloted.

• The course will be co-taught by faculty from different STEM disciplines who

worked on the course development.

Phase III: Inclusion of course into a student learning community.

• A learning community for non-STEM majors will be developed where students

would be co-enrolled in the newly-developed science lab course as well as MTH

151: Mathematics for Liberal Arts. They may also be co-enrolled in an

accompanying SDV course.

• Several teaching faculty will collaborate in order to explore the “hot topic” from

both scientific and quantitative perspectives.

• In order to connect this topic to the real world even further, other disciplines such

as ethics, business, etc. will be incorporated to make this experience even more

meaningful. These disciplines could be incorporated through a variety of means

such as in an accompanying SDV course or a 1-credit seminar course.

• Students will also be required to seek assistance and/or regular tutoring from the

College math centers or the Science Learning Center at Annandale to further

foster their success.

Phase IV: Expansion to College-wide STEM initiative

• The learning community will become part of the First Year Experience and/or

Pathway to the Baccalaureate, where a significant number of freshmen enroll in

these courses as a cohort.

• Because this effort will require the coordination of several college initiatives

(Achieving the Dream, Pathway, STEM FLC), the college will be prepared to

broaden their efforts at enhancing the success of STEM majors and developing

initiatives to partner with local high schools and transfer institutions. Large

institutional grants will be submitted to help fund this effort.

• Increase in success rate of students enrolled in interdisciplinary science course

over other science courses such as BIO 101 (Collect grade data)

• Increased success rate in MTH 151 for students enrolled in the learning

community (Collect grade data)

• Increased scientific and quantitative literacy of students in learning community

(Analysis of lab reports and/or presentations by learning community students)

• Higher retention of freshmen enrolled in learning community (Re-enrollment

statistics from OIR)

• Increased student engagement from students in learning community (survey of

learning community students)

• An increase of students enrolling in the A.S. in Science degree (data from OIR)

• Increased faculty satisfaction of those faculty participating in design or teaching

of the new lab course (faculty survey)

• Development of collaborations with STEM faculty from other institutions

(record keeping of conferences/meetings held or attended)

• Creation of investigative lab modules that could be incorporated into other

science courses at NOVA or at other VCCS institutions (product)

• The development of a successful course model that will highlight NOVA’s

commitment to STEM education and student success (export of course model to

other VCCS institutions).

• Improved coordination for institutional STEM enhancement (collaborations

between existing STEM FLC, Achieving the Dream, Pathway to the

Baccalaureate) – product = grant proposals to fund a college STEM center/

initiative

core faculty, helping with the assessments, and expanding the college-wide STEM education

initiative. Financial support will need to be provided to fund lunches for working sessions, the

work of CETL to coordinate the FLC, and books/journal subscriptions on college STEM

education and best practices. Honorariums may be required to bring in guest speakers to run

workshops for STEM faculty.

will need a large summer stipend or significant re-assigned time. The core group of faculty will

need to include faculty from at least three different science disciplines as well as one or two math

faculty. Their duties will range from researching and deciding on a topic, collaborating with

faculty from other institutions, choosing a textbook, creating a syllabus, choosing and piloting

lab exercises. Prior to Phase II, emphasis will need to be placed on revising MTH 151 in order to

incorporate discussions and assignments tied to the lab course (and vice versa), requiring that the

math faculty involved receive re-assigned time. In Phase IV, money and/or reassigned time will

need to be provided to the STEM faculty who are preparing large college-wide STEM education

proposals to organizations such as National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health,

etc.

of lab supplies and equipment as well as support from the lab staff of science departments.

of non-STEM students in math and science courses is the availability of tutoring from either

peers or faculty in a designated Science and/or Math Learning Center. By Phase IV, space will

need to be designated at all campuses for such a center; stipends will need to be paid to peer

tutors. Because the learning community will be enhanced by required peer tutoring, stipends will

be needed to pay STEM students involved in this.

college-wide STEM initiative will need to become involved in the STEM education community

by attending peer conferences and workshops.