WIDER: EAGER: State Policy and Undergraduate STEM Education, Uncharted Ground

该项目与同一时间框架内正在进行的一个补充项目协调、加强和加快进展。项目目标是在高等教育中更重视设计并特别实施本科科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)课程，纳入循证实践，并使公民能够应对涉及STEM的全球挑战(在能源、环境、卫生和食品等领域)。研究表明，通过将STEM课程与现实世界问题的STEM组成部分联系起来，通常可以成功地解决这两个问题。该项目的设计是通过使高等教育机构更多地了解和联系国家一级决策机构的需要，积极影响高等教育机构更多地重视这些目标。国家一级的政策制定者在确定STEM教育方向方面正变得越来越重要，并正在探索如何利用政策杠杆来实现STEM本科课程设计和教学的有意义和持久的改进。这一范围更广的项目与目前由NSF/BIO理事会支持的国家社会环境综合中心(SESYNC)资助的“创业项目”相协调。在其活动中，SESYNC正在支持一项名为“转变本科生STEM教育的国家政策”的项目。这家企业的PI正在与来自五个州的团队进行协调和合作：加利福尼亚州、科罗拉多州、缅因州、马里兰州和新墨西哥州。该项目正在确定各州教育制度的异同，并正在用STEM参数研究各州的政策问题，以找到改进STEM本科课程的内容和教学方法的方法，并使STEM教育与州政府在环境和经济可持续发展方面的优先事项保持一致。这些州的团队包括来自高等教育、州政府和工商界的代表。它们共同代表着不同的规模和复杂性，呈现出独特的经济和社会结构和教育制度。通过这一项目，这些国家正在共同学习如何战略性地利用国家一级的现有网络，以促进以证据为基础的课程方法，这些方法借鉴了关于将STEM研究得出的思想和探究形式应用于现实世界问题的有效方法的研究文献。正是这一知识，执业科学家和积极参与的公民都必须为可持续的未来而努力。使用现实世界的问题是加深知识和理解复杂概念和原则的一种特别有效的高影响力的实践。

This project is coordinated with and strengthens and accelerates progress in a complementary project that is happening in the same timeframe. Project goals are to give greater weight to designing and especially implementing undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses in higher education that incorporate evidence-based practices, and to equip citizens to address global challenges involving STEM (in areas such as energy, environment, health, and food). Research indicates that both problems can often be successfully addressed by connecting STEM courses to the STEM components of real-world problems. The design of this project is to positively influence institutions of higher education to give more weight to these goals by making them more aware of and connected to the needs of state-level policy-making bodies. State-level policymakers are taking on growing importance in setting the direction of STEM education and are exploring how policy levers can be used to effect meaningful, lasting improvement in the design and delivery of STEM undergraduate courses. This WIDER project is coordinated with a "Venture Project" currently funded through the NSF/ BIO Directorate-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). Among its activities SESYNC is supporting a venture called "State Policies to Transform Undergraduate STEM Education." The PIs of this venture are coordinating and working with teams from five states: California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, and New Mexico. This project is identifying similarities and differences in their educational systems and is examining each state's policy issues with STEM parameters to find ways to improve the content and pedagogy in undergraduate STEM courses and to align STEM education with state priorities for environmental and economic sustainability. These state teams include representatives from higher education, state government, and business & industry. Jointly they represent a spectrum of different sizes and complexities, presenting distinctive economic and social structures and educational systems. Through this project these states are learning jointly to strategically utilize existing networks at the state level to promote evidence-based approaches to the curriculum that draw from the research-based literature on effective approaches to the application of ideas and forms of inquiry derived from the study of STEM to real-world problems. It is this knowledge that both practicing scientists and engaged citizens must address for a sustainable future. The use of real-world problems is an especially effective high impact practice for deepening knowledge and understanding of complex concepts and principles.