PLANNING GRANT - Transforming the Culture of Teaching and Learning at UCLA: Development of a Change Strategy for STEM Education

通过这笔更广泛的规划拨款，加州大学洛杉矶分校制定了一项战略行动计划，在本科科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)课程中，在全校范围内采用以学生为中心的循证教学实践。由相关学术和行政部门的领导组成的新的STEM教育指导委员会正在带头开展这一倡议。该委员会的首要目标是推动在全校园范围内推广循证教学。七个小组委员会正在评估目前的做法，查明障碍，查明最佳做法，了解具体部门的态度。最终，各小组委员会将利用这些信息，制定一项细粒度的行动计划，以应对因部门而异的特点带来的变化。作为规划的一个组成部分，指导委员会的成员正在与校园领导层合作，利用现有资源支持文化变革，并解决诸如校园教学结构和/或在提供有效STEM教学方面对优秀教师缺乏适当认可制度等障碍。通过制定实施和维持以学生为中心的积极学习教学法的战略计划，加州大学洛杉矶分校正在展示其致力于直面全国公认的问题和转变关于教学企业的机构文化。项目活动有三个主要成果：1)STEM教员正在以更高的频率和效率使用在线教学和评估资源；2)STEM教育工作者的专业发展计划正在根据组织变革文献设计，并与在校园清点/评估期间确定的学科和/或部门特定的教学/评估需求和限制相协调；3)系主任和高级校园管理人员通过利用教师奖励制度内的创新来促进教学和学习的改进。在加州大学洛杉矶分校这样的大型研究密集型机构制定变革战略和确定实施这一战略的流程所获得的见解，机构态度和政策有时会带来阻碍本科生STEM教育改革的障碍，这一点正在被广泛分享，以供其他面临类似挑战的研究型大学参考。由于这一规划拨款而产生的变化战略正在推动加州大学洛杉矶分校在加强STEM学生的学习和保留方面取得进展，并促进在STEM领域传统上代表性较低的群体的参与。

Through this WIDER planning grant, UCLA creating a strategic action plan for the institution-wide adoption of student-centered, evidence-based teaching practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. A new STEM Education Steering Committee comprised of leadership from relevant academic and administrative departments is spearheading this initiative. The overarching goal of the Committee is to catalyze a campus-wide expansion in the adoption and practice of evidence-based teaching. Seven Sub-Committees are assessing current practices, identifying barriers, identifying best practices, understanding department-specific attitudes. Ultimately, the Sub-Committees are using this information to create a granular action plan for change informed by department-specific characteristics. As an integral part of the planning, members of the Steering Committee are working with campus leadership to leverage existing resources in support of cultural change and to address barriers such as campus teaching structures and/or lack of appropriate recognition systems for instructors who excel in the delivery of effective STEM instruction. By creating a strategic plan to implement and sustain student-centered, active learning pedagogy, UCLA is demonstrating its commitment to confronting a nationally recognized problem and transforming institutional culture about the teaching enterprise. Project activities are having three major outcomes: 1) STEM faculty are using online teaching and assessment resources with increased frequency and effectiveness, 2) a professional development plan for STEM educators is being designed according to organizational change literature and attuned to the discipline- and/or department-specific teaching/assessment needs and constraints identified during campus inventory/assessment, and 3) department chairs and high level campus administrators are enabling improvements in teaching and learning by leveraging innovations within the faculty reward systems.The insights gained from developing a change strategy and identifying processes for implementing this strategy at a large, research-intensive institution like UCLA, where institutional attitudes and policies sometimes introduce barriers that hinder undergraduate STEM education reform, is being shared widely to inform other research universities experiencing similar challenges. The change strategies created as a result of this planning grant are moving UCLA forward in terms of enhanced STEM student learning and retention, and participation of groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.