Tennessee SySTEM for College and Career Readiness Project Evaluation
Careers in STEM, including those in computer science, provide increasingly lucrative and innovative employment opportunities. However, many students lack access to early, high-quality STEM learning opportunities that would open doors to STEM careers and help them build the skills they need to succeed in advanced STEM courses.
The Tennessee SySTEM for College and Career Readiness Project (TN SySTEM) is an innovative program designed to address this lack of access. Led by Jobs for the Future (JFF) and the Tennessee Department of Education, TN SySTEM brings together Tennessee high schools, postsecondary institutions (e.g., community colleges, universities), and STEM employers to develop dual enrollment work-based courses, an innovative approach to improve and enhance work-based experiences through contextualized learning. These courses integrate the classroom and the workplace by combining the traditional classroom setting to learn industry-specific content and earn college credit with the workplace as a learning lab for workplace skills.
Dual Enrollment Work-Based Course Model
In JFF's model, there are four partners in a dual enrollment work-based course:
High Schools
Lead student recruitment and facilitate the spaces for the college and employer partners to collaborate on the design and implementation of the course.
Colleges
Collaborate with the high school and employer partners to identify the dual enrollment course and the instructor and co-design the course.
Employers
Collaborate with the teachers to co-design the dual enrollment courses and facilitate the worksite component.
Students
Receive both high school and college credit and get relevant experience at a worksite.
AIR's Evaluation
With funding from an Education Innovation and Research Early-Phase grant from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, AIR is conducting an independent evaluation of the TN SySTEM model. Our evaluation examines the feasibility and effectiveness of this innovative approach to high school STEM education. By identifying facilitators and barriers to effective implementation of TN SySTEM courses and the effects of these courses on students’ academic outcomes (e.g., attendance, GPA, advanced STEM course taking, and college enrollment), this project will inform future research and educational innovations related to STEM postsecondary pathways.
The contents of this webpage were developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.
