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

美国国家科学基金会资助的国家推广项目“推广本科科学课程中实地考察的成功策略”（DUE 0088217），也称为“区域研讨会项目”（RWP），于2001年开始为期5年的努力，最终将以每年3次的速度为300名本科教师举办15次区域研讨会。RWP致力于建立教师的专业学习社区，这些教师1)创建和提供本科SMET课程，证明解决环境问题是一种综合的、具有挑战性的、有效的方式，可以吸引本科专业和非专业的学生；2)使用适合于教授本科生如何在现实世界中解决问题的环境中进行科学研究的概念和现场/实验室技术；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发展能力，为本科SMET课程提供基于环境问题解决的课程。这个ASA项目同时也在研究美国国家科学基金会资助的区域研讨会项目（RWP）对提高教师能力以促进学生学习的影响。方法是研究由RWP研讨会发起的教师能力发展，并通过教师在研讨会经验之后可用的互动和资源（计划和计划外）来维持，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，该项目正在研究：1)发展RWP参与者利用SMET学习和评估实践研究的能力，从而改变参与者对教学的方法和态度；2)教师在进行课程和教学法（其中教学法包括评估活动）的重大变革时得到的支持程度，以提高参与者开发、维持和制度化以环境问题解决为基础的新课程的能力；3)学生在SMET课程中的学习程度：a)以有意义的方式学习SMET概念（如Novak， 1999年所定义）；b)构建与该学科专家观点一致的SMET学科观点；c)构建综合概念框架，以促进他们对SMET学科的理解；d)培养对SMET学科的积极态度和看法。该项目为RWP项目负责人和区域讲习班负责人提供了对区域讲习班有效性的形成性评估，并提供了经过测试的工具和易于使用的分析和报告流程，讲习班负责人可以使用这些工具对具有类似目标的其他教师发展讲习班进行形成性评估。这些形成性的评估将被设计用来帮助研讨会的领导者改进研讨会的形式、内容、交付和“氛围”。一个切实的结果将是一个经过测试的纵向评估/评估过程，SMET教师可以适应它来收集可信的、可靠的、可转移的和可确认的反馈，1)指导课程的变化，以支持改进学生的学习，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.