Collaborative Research: On the Cutting Edge: A Community Resource Transforming Geoscience Education

该项目扩展了获奖的“前沿”项目的工作，并将继续为当前和未来的地球科学教师提供一个全面的、学科范围的专业发展项目。它正试图通过参加面对面或在线的前沿研讨会体验，吸引美国地球科学教师总数的大约一半，以实现广泛和可持续的影响。它扩大了拥有第一次研讨会经验的教师人数，并为地球科学教师提供了先进的学习机会，这也鼓励了重复参与尖端活动，使持续学习成为可能，并导致参与者的教学实践发生了更多的变化。该项目继续每年举办一系列面对面的研讨会，并增加了六个虚拟或混合研讨会或其他虚拟活动。它引入了许多新的元素，包括：1)更加注重改进地球科学入门课程，增加两年制学院教师的参与；2)修订项目网站，以包括更多的社区撰写和社区审查的资源，以及改进搜索和获取以前提交的材料的方法；3)开发结构化的活动，专门针对扩大和改善网站的可访问性。4)纳入一个完整的研究和评估计划，不仅提供形成性反馈以改进该计划，而且还扩展评估以评估该计划对更广泛的地球科学社区的教学实践和学生学习的影响。特别是，该项目试图确定反复参与地球科学专业发展对个人教学实践和全国地球科学教育的影响，以及参与创新和研究型地球科学教育工作者社区对教师教学效率的影响。该项目正在开发和传播地球科学的最佳实践，然而，许多项目活动也通过出版物、演讲、研讨会以及与SENCER和其他组织的合作转移到其他STEM学科。

This project is expanding the work of the award-winning "On the Cutting Edge" program, and is continuing to provide a comprehensive, discipline-wide professional development program for current and future geoscience faculty. It is attempting to engage, through participation in face-to-face or online Cutting Edge workshop experiences, about half of the total number of US geoscience faculty in order to achieve a widespread and sustainable impact. It is expanding the segment of the faculty population who have had a first workshop experience, and is also providing geoscience faculty with advanced opportunities for learning that are also encouraging repeated participation in Cutting Edge activities, enabling ongoing learning, and resulting in increased changes in teaching practice among participants. The project is continuing an annual series of face-to-face workshops and is adding six virtual or hybrid workshops or other virtual events. It is introducing a number of new elements including 1) a stronger focus on improving introductory geoscience courses and increasing participation of faculty from two-year colleges, 2) revising the project website to include expanded community-authored and community-reviewed resources as well as improved methods for searching and obtaining previously submitted materials, 3) developing structured activities aimed specifically at enlarging and improving accessibility to the website, 4) incorporating a full research and evaluation program that not only is providing formative feedback to improve the program, but also is extending evaluation to assess the effect that the program has on teaching practice and student learning among the broader geoscience community. In particular, the project is attempting to determine what impact repeated participation in geoscience professional development has on individual teaching practice and on geoscience education nationwide, and what impact participation in an innovative and research-based community of geoscience educators has on faculty teaching effectiveness. The project is developing and disseminating best practices for the geosciences, however, many project activities are also being transferred to other STEM disciplines through publications, presentations, workshops, and through collaborations developed with SENCER and other organizations.