CAREER - The Winding Roads to Effective Teaching: Characterizing the Progressions in Instructional Knowledge and Practices of STEM Faculty

国家改善本科科学教育的举措建立在几十年来对有效教学实践的研究和发展的基础上。这些基于证据的教学实践（EBIP）促进了学生对科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的概念理解和良好态度，在妇女和代表性不足的群体中观察到的影响最大。通过提高保留率和吸引更多样化的学生群体到科学，这些以研究为基础的科学教学方法可以帮助解决国家需要教育STEM识字的毕业生和推进劳动力发展目标。目前的挑战是如何在全国范围内有效利用这些教学方法。STEM教师是任何成功的教学改革的核心，但令人惊讶的是，人们对他们的教学知之甚少。由于广泛的资源和努力目前集中在全国大学一级的STEM教学实践的转变，迫切需要表征STEM教师的教学知识基础，教学实践，两者之间的关系，以及随着时间的推移，这种知识和这些实践的进展。此外，有必要在不同的改革环境下（短期讲习班与学期的专业发展;不同的部门和机构的文化教学），以及教师在他们的学术生涯的各个点，这些进展的特点。这项基础研究的结果将为STEM教师的教学和教学实践知识基础的多样化进展提供重要的见解，这将为当前的国家和地方改革努力提供信息，这些努力旨在在大学环境中广泛实施EBIP。NSF教师早期职业发展项目将解决该学科中的巨大差距-基于教育研究文献的关于STEM教师的教学和教学实践的知识基础。具体而言，该项目将描述STEM教师的实践理论及其与教学实践的整合如何在不同的背景下发展：（a）教师的经验水平;（B）部门和机构的气候，文化和奖励结构;以及（c）正式和非正式的专业发展经验。本研究以教师为中心的系统改革模式为基础，描述了教师的教学决策过程以及影响这些过程的因素。一个收敛的，纵向的混合方法设计将被实施，以解决研究问题。定量数据将包括调查、课堂观察和课程工件。定性部分将包括一个嵌入式集体案例研究。收集的数据将包括与教师和课程文物的采访。这些研究活动将导致对STEM教师的a）教学内容知识（PCK）元素，B）教学方向和教学信念，以及c）教学实践的理解增强，以及d）在各种背景下（例如，教师在他们的学术生涯的不同层次，教师经历不同类型的部门和机构的气候，教师参与不同类型的正式和非正式的专业发展）。这项基础研究将进一步为理论框架提供信息，并为STEM教师专业发展的有效实践提供重要见解。研究和教育计划将完全整合：教育计划的一个组成部分，内布拉斯加大学林肯分校（UNL）STEM教师的专业发展计划，将作为研究的一部分;接着，研究结果将为专业发展计划的设计和实施提供信息，但也将提供机会，与UNL STEM教师进行一次教学咨询，并将为改革教学实践的研究生课程设计提供信息。

National initiatives to improve undergraduate science education build upon decades of research on and development of effective teaching practices. These evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) promote students' conceptual understanding and favorable attitudes about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), with the greatest impacts observed among women and members of underrepresented groups. By improving retention rates and attracting a more diverse student population to the sciences, these research-based ways of teaching science can help address the national need to educate STEM-literate graduates and advance workforce development goals. The challenge is fostering the effective use of these teaching practices on a national scale. STEM faculty members are at the core of any successful instructional reform, yet surprisingly little is known about them with respect to their teaching. As extensive resources and efforts are currently focused on transforming STEM instructional practices at the college level nationally, there is a critical need to characterize STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching, instructional practices, relationships between the two, as well as progressions of this knowledge and these practices over time. Moreover, there is a need to characterize these progressions under varying reform environments (short workshops versus semester-long professional development; different departmental and institutional culture around teaching), as well as for faculty at various points of their academic career. Results of this foundational research will provide critical insight into the diverse progressions of STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices, which will inform current national and local reform efforts that aim at the widespread implementation of EBIPs in STEM courses in college settings.This NSF Faculty Early Career Development project will address a wide gap in the discipline-based education research literature about STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices. Specifically, the project will characterize how STEM faculty members' practical theories and their integration with instructional practices evolve in the contexts of different (a) levels of experience as faculty members; (b) climate, culture, and rewards structures of departments and institutions; and (c) formal and informal professional development experiences. The research is grounded in the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform Model, which describes faculty members' decision-making processes about teaching and influences impacting these processes. A convergent, longitudinal mixed methods design will be implemented to address the research questions. Quantitative data will include surveys, classroom observations, and course artifacts. The qualitative component will consist of an embedded collective case study. Data collected will include interviews with faculty and course artifacts. These research activities will result in an enhanced understanding of STEM faculty members' a) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) elements, b) orientations toward teaching and beliefs about teaching, and c) instructional practices, as well as d) alignment among these three constructs under various contexts (e.g., faculty at different levels of their academic career, faculty experiencing different types of departmental and institutional climate, and faculty participating in different types of formal and informal professional development). This foundational research will further inform the theoretical framework and provide critical insights on effective practices for STEM faculty professional development to the STEM community at large. The research and education program will be fully integrated: one component of the education program, a professional development program for STEM faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), will serve as the context for part of the study; in turn, the results of the study will inform the design and implementation of the professional development program but will also provide opportunities to offer one-on-one teaching consultations with UNL STEM faculty and will inform the design of a graduate-level curriculum on reformed instructional practices.