Increasing the STEM Self Efficacy in Underrepresented Minority Middle School Resource Guide

The United States' underrepresented minorities (URM) are faced with extremely high academic disadvantages in the area of STEM education during their K-12 school years. The continuing growth of STEM careers and the lack of STEM prepared U.S. students coming out of high school are reflected in the unfilled jobs in the United States. Creating proactive STEM-integrated project-based learning (PBL) programs for middle-grade schools is a critical component in resolving this U.S. issue and helping the nation's URM students to become American global competitors in the workforce. The research-based action resource guide presented will showcase how to create an effective STEM PBL class program that creates strong pipelines with local colleges, STEM competitions, and STEM focused field trips, while simultaneously developing strong social bonds among students, college, and teachers. As a result of these interactions and partnerships, teachers will find an increase with URM students' STEM self-efficacy through such "hands on" PBL, engineering design process, and problem based learning interactions to ensure continual exploration of STEM majors and careers.