Assessing Student Learning and Evaluating Faculty Capacity Development in the NSF-Funded Regional Workshops Project

由国家科学基金会资助的一个全国传播项目--“传播本科科学课程实地考察的成功战略”(截止日期0088217)，也被称为“地区讲习班项目”，于2001年开始了一项为期5年的努力，最终将以每年3次的速度为300000名本科教职员工举办15次地区讲习班。RWP致力于建立专业的教师学习社区，1)创建和提供本科SMET课程，证明环境问题解决是一种综合的、具有挑战性的、有效的方式来吸引本科专业和非专业学生，2)使用适合于教授本科生如何在现实世界中解决问题的概念和现场/实验室技术，以及3)使用基于研究的知识来评估学生的学习，并支持他们作为教育工作者的能力，为本科SMET课程提供基于环境问题解决的课程。该ASA项目同时考察了NSF资助的区域研讨会项目(RWP)在提高教师能力以促进学生更多学习方面的影响。其方法是研究由RWP研讨会发起并由教师在研讨会经验后可获得的互动和资源(包括计划内和计划外资源)支持的教师能力发展，以及这些教师能力建设过程对学生学习的影响。更具体地说，这个项目正在研究：1)RWP参与者利用关于SMET学习和评估实践的研究的能力的发展，从而导致参与者对教学方法和态度的改变；2)教师在进行课程和教学(其中教学包括评估活动)重大改变的同时得到的支持的程度，从而提高参与者开发、维持和制度化基于环境问题解决的新课程的能力；以及3)SMET课程的学生的程度：a)以有意义的方式学习SMET概念(如Novak，1999)；B)建立一种与这些学科的专家所持观点一致的对中小企业学科的看法；c)构建综合概念框架，以促进他们对中小企业学科的理解；以及d)形成对中小企业学科的积极态度和看法。该项目为地区工作人员和地区讲习班负责人提供了对地区讲习班成效的形成性评估，以及经过测试的工具和易于使用的分析和报告流程，讲习班领导人可以用来对其他具有类似目标的教师发展讲习班进行形成性评估。这些形成性评估旨在帮助研讨会领导人改进研讨会的形式、内容、交付和“氛围”。一个切实的结果将是经过测试的纵向评估/评估过程，SMET教师可以适应该过程，以收集可信、可靠、可转移和可确认的反馈：1)指导课程变化，以支持改善学生的学习；2)促进他们自己的专业成长和发展。

An NSF-funded national dissemination project, "Disseminating Successful Strategies for Fieldwork in Undergraduate Science Curricula" (DUE 0088217), also known as the "Regional Workshops Project" (RWP), began a 5-year effort in 2001 that will eventually conduct 15 regional workshops for 300 undergraduate faculty at the rate of 3 per year. The RWP is engaged in establishing professional learning communities of faculty who 1) create and deliver undergraduate SMET courses that demonstrate that environmental problem solving is an integrative, challenging, effective way to engage undergraduate majors and non-majors, 2) use concepts and field/ laboratory techniques suitable for teaching undergraduates how science is done in a real-world, problem solving context, and 3) use research-based knowledge of how to assess student learning and support their capacity for development as educators on an environmental problem solving-based curriculum for undergraduate SMET courses. This ASA project is simultaneously examining the effects of the NSF-funded Regional Workshops Project (RWP) on improved faculty capacity to foster increased student learning. The approach is to study both the faculty capacity development initiated by the RWP workshops and sustained by interactions and resources (both planned and unplanned) available to faculty following their workshop experience, and the effects of these faculty capacity building processes on student learning. More specifically, this project is studying: 1) the development of RWP participants' capacity to use research on SMET learning and assessment practices in ways that result in changes in the participants approaches and attitudes toward teaching; 2) the extent to which faculty are supported while undertaking significant change in their curriculum and pedagogy (where pedagogy includes assessment activities) in ways that result in improvements in the participants' abilities to develop, sustain, and institutionalize their new environmental problem solving-based courses; and 3) the extent to which students in SMET courses : a) learn SMET concepts in a meaningful way (as defined by Novak, 1999); b) construct a view of SMET disciplines that is consistent with views held by experts in those disciplines; c) construct integrative conceptual frameworks to facilitate their understanding of SMET disciplines; and d) develop positive attitudes and perceptions about SMET disciplines. The project is providing the RWP PIs and regional workshop leaders with formative evaluation of the effectiveness of the regional workshops, and tested instruments and an easy-to-use analysis and report process that workshop leaders can use to undertake formative evaluation of other faculty development workshops with similar goals. These formative evaluations will be designed to help workshop leaders improve the format, content, delivery, and "climate" of the workshop. A tangible outcome will be a tested longitudinal assessment/evaluation process that SMET faculty can adapt to gather credible, dependable, transferable, and confirmable feedback that 1) guides course changes in support of improved student learning and 2) fosters their own professional growth and development.