Project SEA Change: Using Social Connectivity to Improve Quantitative Literacy and Transform Undergraduate Science Teaching

定量识字技能是公民参与和社会公平的重要指标，有助于成功进步和获得大学学位。由于定量读写技能的重要性，20-30%的美国成年人（包括大学毕业生）在这些技能方面表现出弱点，这一事实对社会意义深远。SEA Change项目是鲍灵格林州立大学和欧文斯州立社区学院的合作项目，旨在通过提高学生的定量能力和逻辑推理能力来提高学生在STEM本科教育中的成功程度。由于数学是完成大学学业的主要障碍，该项目将对本科教育产生变革性影响，提高两年制和四年制学位的获得程度，并增加低收入背景的学生和第一代大学生从社区大学到四年制学校的机会和转学机会。通过这样做，该项目将扩大STEM社区内声音的多样性，并创建一个更加精通STEM的社会。SEA Change项目将通过以下策略来实现其提高STEM课程本科生定量读写技能的目标：(1)在教师和助教中广泛实施高保真的研究型教学策略；(2)改善STEM转校生的社会支持和连通性；(3)提供一种“商场式”的学习模式，将自定进度的计算机教学与按需一对一辅导相结合；(4)加强管理人员和教师之间的协作领导，以支持更强的STEM教育。该项目将采用社会网络分析，结合专业发展活动、学生学习社区和引人注目的跨学科倡议，来测试小组在促进基于证据的教学实践的快速、大规模转变、减少社区大学生所经历的“转移冲击”、加深学生对掌握数学的承诺方面的力量。项目中的研究工作将有助于了解组织变革的有效方法，从而促进学生的深入学习。

Quantitative literacy skills are important indicators of civic engagement and social equity, and they contribute to successful progress and college degree attainment. Because of the importance of quantitative literacy skills, the fact that 20-30% of the US adult population (college graduates included) exhibit weakness in these skills is of profound significance for society. Project SEA Change is a cooperative venture of Bowling Green State University and Owens State Community College to increase students' success in STEM undergraduate education by improving students' quantitative competence and logical reasoning skills. Since mathematics is the primary barrier to college completion, this project will have a transformative impact on undergraduate education by increasing degree attainment at both two-year and four-year levels, and increasing access and transfer from community college to a four-year school for students from low-income backgrounds and first-generation college students. In so doing, the project will broaden the diversity of voices within the STEM community, and create a more STEM-literate society.Project SEA Change will achieve its goals of improving the quantitative literacy skills of undergraduate students in STEM courses through the following strategies: (1) widening implementation among faculty members and teaching assistants of high-fidelity research-based instructional strategies; (2) improving social support for and connectivity among STEM transfer students; (3) offering an "emporium-style" learning model that integrates self-paced computer instruction with on-demand, one-on-one tutoring; and (4) strengthening collaborative leadership among administrators and faculty in support of stronger STEM education. The project will employ social network analyses, in combination with professional development activities, student learning communities, and high-profile interdisciplinary initiatives, to test the power of subgroups to promote rapid, large shifts in the use of evidence-based teaching practices, reduce the "transfer shock" experienced by community college students, and deepen the commitment of students to mastery of mathematics. The research efforts embedded in the project will contribute to knowledge of effective approaches to organizational change that foster deeper student learning.