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Learning through formal and informal experiences is critical for building content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and self-efficacy/confidence for preservice teachers. teachHOUSTON offers numerous teacher enhancement opportunities outside the teacher education courses which allows preservice teachers to connect to the real world which includes being able to relate to a diverse population of students and to understand how the course content can be related to them, their families, and communities in their everyday experiences. Through formal and informal experiences such as professional development workshops, discipline specific courses, research experiences, and internships, preservice teachers have the opportunity to engage in hands-on science activities they can use with their students, develop lessons, and gain knowledge on how to deliver this content while managing their classroom. This chapter will give an overview of the formal and informal experiences offered through teachHOUSTON with a highlight on the structure and content of the six week Noyce Internship Program which engaged interns as counselors and teaching assistants in a summer STEM camp for underserved middle school students and introduces the interns to interactive sessions that model promising practices for teaching.

This chapter illuminates the impact of providing informal learning experiences for students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teaching careers at a time when there is a considerable shortage of qualified teachers in America's urban centers. Preservice STEM teachers were provided with the opportunity to participate in a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant funded Noyce Internship Program prior to serving as counselors and teaching assistants in a STEM camp for underrepresented middle school students. Through the Noyce Internship Institute, participants were introduced to interactive sessions that model promising teaching practices including inquiry-based and project-based learning. This narrative inquiry examines the impact of these experiences on preservice STEM teachers' self-efficacy and highlights outcomes in three areas: increase of preservice teachers' confidence, classroom management, and strengthening their desire to teach STEM.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the role and characteristics of the summer internship program (Digital Summer Clinic) delivered by Eastern Michigan University. The authors report the results of an exploratory study of interns participating in the Digital Summer Clinic over a five-year time period. The study captures and analyzes the experiences of interns as expressed in structured interviews and blog posts.

The study data were text from structured interviews and blog posts capturing the “voice” of the interns. A natural language processing (NLP) analysis of the text corpus, consisting of 43 interviews and blog posts, resulted in the identification of 242 unique stem-terms used by interns in describing the internship experiences. The authors used the JMP Pro 15.2 Text Explorer algorithm (It is defined as a suite of computer programs for statistical analysis developed by the JMP business unit of SAS Institute) to extract the terms that were subsequently transformed and analyzed with factor analysis and regression to address the research questions.

The factor analysis results found six dimensions or themes, defined by the stem-terms used by student interns, best described the internship experience. The authors then explored the relationship between the six themes and the umbrella term “internship” with multiple regression analysis. The regression findings suggest a hierarchy of effects with the theme “Introducing Professional Opportunities” being the theme most predictive of the umbrella term.

The methodology used within the paper is unique in several ways when compared to other research investigating internship programs. First, it uses NLP analysis for the qualitative analysis of text-based descriptions of student experiences over a five-year time horizon. Second, the data analysis uses transformed text to quantitatively determine the major dimensions or themes expressed by the interns about their experiences in the Summer Clinic program. Finally, the relative importance of the themes identified provided direction for future program development.

This chapter examines the design and impact on student learning in two STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) capstone undergraduate research courses at Saint Augustine’s University. It discusses how these courses help student metacognitive capabilities as they synthesize their learning across the program, demonstrate holistic development, and successfully negotiate the transition to their next academic and career pathway. It couples data from these capstone research courses with a review of the literature to elucidate the conditions and impact that undergraduate research STEM capstone courses have benefited students, faculty and the University. These best practices for the capstone courses may be used as a model for other HBCUs capstone courses or undergraduate research experiences. Throughout this chapter, the following questions are addressed: How do the capstone courses prepare students for graduate school and/or the STEM workforce? How are the capstone courses enhancing student undergraduate experiences? How do the capstone courses offer authentic research experiences for each student in spite of limited resources and faculty? How do students and faculty feel they have benefited from the capstone course experience? How have students overall learning been enhanced because of the capstone courses?

The purpose of this study was to examine the learning experiences of high school Black males participating in an academy of engineering that was configured as a magnet school. We followed a qualitative case study design to explore the experiences of 16 Black male academies of engineering students. We identified three recurring themes from the interviews with the Black male academy of engineering students: Promoting Interests in STEM, Drawing Connections to Core Academic Concepts, and An Affinity for Hands-on Learning through the Engineering Curriculum. The results of our study helped us to better understand how academies provide a platform for Black male students' interest in engineering as a viable college and career pathway.

The learning outcomes are as follows: Identify obvious and hidden impediments to women’s careers; offer initiatives that change women’s career opportunities; explore available instruments to change the corporate culture to deal with gender issues management; and identify tools that help secure changes in these uncertain times.

The case is based on the situation that Nadia Omelchenko, Vice President of IT.Integrator, the leading Ukrainian systems integration company, faced in 2021, when COVID-19 put her thus-far successful initiatives aimed at promoting women’s careers at risk. In 2020, lockdowns were being imposed and lifted, and remote-work practices were evolving. Most women in the IT sector opted for working from home and infrequent attendance at in-office, face-to-face meetings offices because of increased family responsibilities. Her executive team members had become disgruntled about continuing to invest resources in women’s development programs. They believed that the whole idea of women’s promotion was a waste of time because in critical situations they prioritized family obligations and neglected their managerial responsibilities. One of Omelchenko’s main tasks was to secure the company’s ability to recruit and retain the best talent and reinforce the company’s position in the market. As in many emerging economies, a serious skill shortage was the common refrain in Ukraine. Many employers were facing the need to offer more than just monetary remuneration. Moreover, many Ukrainian IT companies were competing with international companies that had more financial resources and policies in place for retaining talent. This case study examines the Ukrainian IT sector, its legal and regulatory framework, and the implication of COVID-19 for the sector. The gender-equality situation is reviewed. Omelchenko's personal journey toward fostering opportunities for women and diversity, as well as her programs and initiatives to change the corporate culture and unlock women’s potential, are discussed.

MBA and Masters students or senior BBA and participants of the executive development programs

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Strengthening the nation’s technological workforce, competing and expanding its relevance in the global economy, and maintaining personal as well as homeland security will be highly dependent on the quantity, quality, and diversity of the next generations of scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. Production of a diverse generation of human resources with relevant, competitive skills is critical. However, so too is the need to raise an enlightened citizenry with cross-cultural experience and cultural awareness competency, with a broad worldview and global perspectives. These requirements are critical to understanding the challenges and opportunities of scholarly activity in a pluralistic global environment and positioning ourselves to capitalize upon them. Scholars with cross-cultural experience and competency are empowered to adapt and work collaboratively, nationally and globally, with scholars of different races, geopolitical, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Development of effective strategies to transform science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments for inclusion and to broaden the participation in STEM across cultures, socioeconomic standing, race, and gender in higher education has been a dominant topic of pedagogical interest of national priority in the last several decades. However, success in these endeavors is achievable only through systemic change and a cultural shift to address the underlying root causes of socioeconomic disparity, gender, and racial disparities and a paucity of cultural awareness among all educational stakeholders. STEM departments can only be truly transformed for inclusion through the development of sensitive, creative, and student-engaging curricula and targeted recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in STEM. Formation of well-coordinated alliances spanning educational sectors, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and community engagement and outreach are also critical to promoting inclusive and broad participation in STEM education.

The first section of the chapter gives an introduction to various challenges, obstacles, and hindrances that prevent a successful transformation of K–12 science education as well as STEM departments in higher education for inclusion. The second section discusses historical perspectives of the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (UAFS) – the institutional profile, missions, and visions of UAFS as a regional university. Policies and strategies for addressing the socioeconomic disparity, faculty gender, and racial disparities and cultural competency awareness at UAFS are also highlighted in this section. Other approaches including targeted efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented minority students, provision of financial assistance for students from low-income families, and a creative “Math-up” curriculum innovation to promote inclusive and broad participation in STEM at UAFS are highlighted in the latter section of the chapter. Formation of alliances between UAFS, local K–12 school districts, and governmental and non-governmental agencies to promote broad participation in STEM at UAFS are discussed. The last section of the chapter provides recommendations for adaptation and sustainability of strategies and efforts aimed at transforming national STEM departments for inclusion.

The attention of scholars and policy makers towards the topic of innovation has consistently increased, especially in recent years. This is justified by the fact that innovation undoubtedly plays, today, a crucial role in driving a country’s economic growth, improving productivity and, more generally, enhancing overall societal well-being.

When the discourse around innovation focuses on its economic dimension, the strong intertwinement with entrepreneurship emerges. In line with this, focusing on research on innovation in organisations and, especially, innovation in relation to the figure of the entrepreneur is considered, plenty of studies have been carried on, over time, in many disciplines, analysing the role of the entrepreneur in relation to innovation from various different angles. However, especially when management studies are considered, we can notice a poor consideration of the role played by the gender of the entrepreneur. In line with this consideration, by means of a systematic literature review, this chapter aims to fill this literature gap focusing on the intertwinement that can be envisaged, in management studies, among the issues of entrepreneurship and innovation in the case of women-owned firms.