Creating and Studying a National Network of Centers of STEM Education: Developing Foundational Infrastructure for Educational Transformation

该项目是由公立和赠地大学协会（APLU）、科罗拉多大学博尔德分校、马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校和卡尔顿学院科学教育资源中心共同努力的结果。它将侧重于两个相关的活动线索：1)单独研究学院和大学STEM教育中心的性质和能力，包括它们与校园教学中心（ctl）的关系，以及2)建立一个基于校园的STEM教育中心的国家网络。总体目标是建立一个由150个或更多附属STEM中心组成的全国社区，以自我维持的方式作为一个网络运行。该网络将由pi领导，并由一个积极的指导委员会支持，该委员会将监督其发展。该网络将支持年度会议和创建在线资源网站，以促进成熟中心和新生中心的运作。年度会议的参与者将支付注册费，以启动成为一个自我维持的网络的过程。总的来说，这是一个为期四年的研究和播种网络和相关中心的项目。通过这些活动，该网络将提供一个新的国家资源，支持已建立和新生的成员中心，并为本科STEM教育的系统转型提供一个新的平台。该项目的研究方面将使用混合方法（定量和定性数据收集）方法，包括对其校园内STEM教育中心的文化和功能情况进行详细检查。它将对中心所做的工作类型进行分类，并确定STEM教育中心特别适合承担的项目和文化挑战。对网络的初步研究将探索学习网络的设计和促进，然后应用这种理解来促进那些改变本科STEM教育的持续和规模化创新。该研究还将探讨网络如何支持个人和社会学习以及促进制度变革。

This project is a joint effort by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), the University of Colorado - Boulder, the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College. It will focus on two related threads of activities: 1) Studying the nature and capacity of college and university STEM Education Centers individually, including their relationships with campus centers for teaching and learning (CTLs), and 2) Building a national network of campus-based STEM Education Centers. The overarching goal is to develop a national community of 150 or more affiliated STEM centers that operate as a network in a self-sustaining fashion. The network will be led by the PIs supported by an active steering committee that will oversee its development. Activities to be supported by the network will be annual meetings and the creation of an online resource site to facilitate the operations of mature centers and nascent centers. Participants in annual meetings will pay registration fees to initiate the process of becoming a self-sustaining network. Overall this is a four-year project of studying and seeding the network and associated centers. Through these activities the network will provide a new national resource that will support both established and nascent member centers and provide a new platform for systemic transformation of undergraduate STEM education. The research aspect of this project will use a mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative data collection) approach, including a detailed examination of the cultural and functional situations of STEM education centers on their campuses. It will categorize the types of work that the centers do, and identify the programmatic and cultural challenges that STEM education centers are particularly well-positioned to undertake. Initial research on the network will explore the design and facilitation of learning networks and then apply this understanding to promote those sustaining and scaling innovations that transform undergraduate STEM education. The research will also examine how the network supports individual and social learning as well as facilitating institutional change.