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

该项目正在扩大获奖的“前沿”计划的工作，并继续为当前和未来的地球科学教师提供全面的、跨学科的专业发展计划。它正试图通过参与面对面或在线尖端研讨会体验，让美国地球科学教师总数的大约一半参与进来，以实现广泛和可持续的影响。它正在扩大有过第一次研讨会经验的教师群体，并为地球科学教师提供先进的学习机会，这也鼓励他们反复参与尖端活动，使持续学习成为可能，并导致参与者在教学实践中发生更多变化。该项目继续每年举办一系列面对面讲习班，并增加六个虚拟或混合讲习班或其他虚拟活动。它引入了一些新的元素，包括1)更加注重改进地球科学入门课程和增加两年制学院教师的参与，2)修改项目网站，包括扩大社区创作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)开发专门旨在扩大和改善网站可访问性的结构化活动，4)纳入全面的研究和评估计划，该计划不仅提供形成性反馈以改进计划，而且正在扩大评估，以评估该计划对更广泛的地球科学界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学专业发展对个人教学实践和全国地学教育的影响，以及参与以创新和研究为基础的地学教育工作者社区对教师教学效率的影响。该项目正在制定和传播地球科学的最佳做法，然而，许多项目活动也正在通过出版物、专题介绍、讲习班以及通过与Sencer和其他组织开展的协作而转移到其他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.