Collaborative Research: The Common Problem Pedagogy Project

美国的经济繁荣依赖于科学的进步、国家卫生计划的推进，以及日益技术化的经济中的整体国家繁荣。这种繁荣依赖于有能力灵活应对新挑战和开发创新技术的人才队伍。共同问题教学法项目旨在通过整合跨学科经验和应用学习机会来改善STEM教学和学习，从而加强STEM劳动力的准备，培养更具STEM素养的公众。STEM教师将与来自艺术和人文学科的一位或多位同事合作，确定与他们学科相关的重大问题或问题的社区合作伙伴。每位教师将在他们的课程中结合基于问题的学习活动来解决问题。由各自班级的学生组成的跨学科团队将共同努力，运用各自学科的观点和探究工具，制定可能的解决方案，并在学期结束时提交给社区合作伙伴。该项目将在纽约州立大学的四个校区实施：科特兰、奥尼昂塔、奥斯威戈和普拉茨堡。该项目的目标是证明共同问题教学法在STEM学科中对学生学习的有效性，增加精通这种教学法的STEM教师的数量，并确定在纽约州立大学系统内外大规模采用这种教学法的策略。来自四个校区的32名教师将参加专业发展机会，学习新的教学法，在他们的课堂上实施，然后评估这种方法对学生学习成果的影响，这些成果与使用跨学科方法解决问题有关。将采用“培训-培训师”的模式，由参与的教师招募额外的教师参加未来的学期。主要研究人员将从参与的教师和社区合作伙伴那里收集数据，以确定与实施这种方法相关的挑战，并评估学生在跨学科团队中与社区合作伙伴合作解决有意义的现实问题时的成功。

The economic prosperity of the United States relies on progress in science, the advancement of national health initiatives, and overall national prosperity in an increasingly technical economy. This prosperity relies on a talented workforce with the ability to nimbly address new challenges and develop innovative technologies. The Common Problem Pedagogy project seeks to improve STEM teaching and learning through the integration of cross-disciplinary experiences and applied learning opportunities in ways that will strengthen STEM workforce preparation and produce a more STEM-literate public. STEM faculty will partner with one or more colleagues from the arts and humanities to identify a community partner with a significant problem or issue relevant to their disciplines. Each faculty member will incorporate problem-based learning activities in their courses to address the problem. Interdisciplinary teams of students from their classes will work together, applying the perspectives and tools of inquiry from their respective disciplines, to develop potential solutions that will be presented to the community partner at the end of the semester.This project will be implemented on four SUNY Campuses: Cortland, Oneonta, Oswego, and Plattsburgh. The goals of the project are to demonstrate the effectiveness of Common Problem Pedagogy on student learning within STEM disciplines, to increase the number of STEM instructors proficient in this pedagogy, and to identify strategies for scaling up this methodology for large-scale adoption across the SUNY system and beyond. Thirty-two faculty members from the four campuses will participate in professional development opportunities to learn about the new pedagogy, implement it in their classes, and then evaluate the impact of this approach on the achievement of student learning outcomes related to problem-solving using interdisciplinary approaches. A train-the-trainer model will be adopted, whereby participating faculty members recruit additional faculty members to participate in future semesters. The principal investigators will gather data from participating faculty and community partners to identify challenges associated with implementing this method, and to evaluate students' success in working with community partners in cross-disciplinary teams to address meaningful, real-world problems.