Project Grant 2142314

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's STEM Education program, formerly known as Education and Human Resources, provides $133,617 to Temple University to address preparation gaps and promote culturally relevant teaching to support diverse groups in computing courses. The university will expand its Bridges system of learning materials to better serve underrepresented student populations in foundational data structures and algorithms courses. Key products and services include developing new learning content tailored to the skills, interests, and values of diverse learners; customizing existing Bridges assignments to be grounded in different cultural contexts and applications; conducting surveys and analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of customized approaches and resulting student outcomes; and disseminating evidence-based guidelines for adapting learning materials for underrepresented STEM students to improve engagement. The project aims to significantly impact foundational computer science courses and prepare a large, modern, and diverse computing workforce through culturally responsive teaching practices. Outcomes will be explored across gender, ethnicity, and institutional characteristics over the three-year period from February 1, 2022 to January 31, 2025.