NRT-IGE: Crossroads: Integrating Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching in Graduate Education

NRT-IGE：十字路口：在研究生教育中整合跨学科研究和教学

• 批准号: 1633764
• 负责人: Mary Hegarty
• 金额: $ 49.99万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-15 至 2021-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1633764&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NRT; IGE; Crossroads; Integrating; Interdisciplinary

Interdisciplinary approaches will be key to solving societal challenges. Although university faculty often collaborate across disciplines, most PhD students are still trained in single departments and have little opportunity to work in interdisciplinary teams. Moreover, interdisciplinary courses for undergraduates are not common, so undergraduates are rarely exposed to the power of interdisciplinary problem-solving before entering a graduate program. A lack of interdisciplinary undergraduate courses also creates few opportunities for graduate students to teach in interdisciplinary settings, even though one of the best ways to learn a topic is to teach it. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations of Graduate Education (IGE) Track to the University of California, Santa Barbara, will address these challenges by developing, enhancing, and assessing a recently developed model of interdisciplinary graduate education (Crossroads). The model will engage faculty and graduate students from multiple disciplines in a yearlong research project that is transferred into the undergraduate classroom. This project will train undergraduate and graduate students to apply multiple disciplines in problem solving, and will be especially attractive to students from under-represented communities who are eager for tools, such as interdisciplinary research, for solving the world's grand challenges. This project will result in the creation and dissemination of a suite of effective, transferable, and scalable professional development activities addressing interdisciplinary teaching and research, which have been evaluated, refined, and tested in a variety of STEM areas.This project will supplement the existing Crossroads program with a suite of new activities (open to all graduate students) that will provide explicit training in interdisciplinary scholarship and communicating that scholarship to broad audiences. For example, the project will develop workshops that help students articulate and discuss what it means to conduct research "in a discipline", to productively collaborate within an interdisciplinary research group, and to effectively communicate science to diverse groups. In addition, Crossroads students will complete a graduate pedagogy course with modules on teaching in an interdisciplinary classroom and on including authentic research in the classroom. The core Crossroads model and the new enhancements will be tested through the in-depth analysis of five Crossroads group projects (two in the area of sustainability and three across all STEM areas). An evaluator will conduct interviews, focus groups and surveys of students and faculty to assess whether participation in Crossroads improved the students' ability to apply approaches and tools from multiple disciplines to solve research problems, work in interdisciplinary teams, and communicate research to individuals outside the discipline. These assessments will be used to refine the approach as subsequent projects are developed. The Crossroads program will be thoroughly documented and the elements that are most effective, scalable and transferrable across STEM fields will be widely disseminated across the University of California and national education networks.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education. This work is supported, in part, by the Division of Undergraduate Education.

跨学科方法将是解决社会挑战的关键。尽管大学教师经常跨学科合作，但大多数博士生仍然在单一部门接受培训，很少有机会在跨学科团队中工作。此外，本科生的跨学科课程并不常见，因此本科生在进入研究生课程之前很少接触到跨学科解决问题的能力。缺乏跨学科的本科课程也为研究生创造了很少的机会在跨学科的环境中教学，即使学习一个主题的最好方法之一是教它。这个国家科学基金会研究培训（NRT）奖在研究生教育（IGE）创新轨道加州大学，圣巴巴拉，将通过发展，增强，并评估了最近开发的跨学科研究生教育模式（十字路口）。 该模型将吸引来自多个学科的教师和研究生参与为期一年的研究项目，该项目将转移到本科课堂。该项目将培养本科生和研究生应用多学科解决问题，并将特别吸引来自代表性不足社区的学生，他们渴望获得跨学科研究等工具，以解决世界的重大挑战。该项目将导致创建和传播一套有效的，可转移的，可扩展的专业发展活动，解决跨学科的教学和研究，这些活动已经过评估，完善，并在各种STEM领域进行测试。该项目将通过一系列新活动补充现有的十字路口计划（对所有研究生开放），将提供跨学科奖学金的明确培训，并将奖学金传达给广大受众。例如，该项目将举办讲习班，帮助学生阐明和讨论在“一个学科”中进行研究的意义，在跨学科研究小组中进行富有成效的合作，以及向不同群体有效地传播科学。此外，十字路口的学生将完成研究生教育学课程，其中包括跨学科课堂教学和课堂真实研究的模块。核心Crossroads模型和新的增强功能将通过对五个Crossroads小组项目（两个在可持续发展领域，三个在所有STEM领域）的深入分析进行测试。一名评估人员将进行访谈，焦点小组和学生和教师的调查，以评估是否参与十字路口提高学生的能力，从多个学科应用方法和工具来解决研究问题，在跨学科团队工作，并沟通研究学科以外的个人。 这些评估将用于在制定后续项目时完善这一方法。该十字路口计划将被彻底记录和最有效的，可扩展的和跨STEM领域的可转移的元素将在整个加州大学和国家教育网络广泛传播。NSF研究培训（NRT）计划旨在鼓励开发和实施大胆的，新的，潜在的变革性模型STEM研究生教育培训。研究生教育创新轨道专门致力于试点，测试和评估新颖，创新和潜在的变革性研究生教育方法。 这项工作得到了本科教育司的部分支持。