Consortium for the Transformation of Undergraduate STEM Education at the University of Washington

该项目将建立一个促进本科STEM教育的内部联盟（CAUSE），以衡量华盛顿大学教师实践、文化和学生学习方面的变化。具体实施以理论为基础的本科教学文化转型方案。教师的目标是实现一个临界质量(25 - 50%)7个部门最大的本科入学。其中六个系属于STEM。这个项目是在一个越来越有利于这个项目的使命的大学环境中进行的。对于改变本科教学文化来说，有四个要素是至关重要或有价值的：1)坚定的高层领导；2)对新的主动学习教室空间的重大投资；3)积极的基于学科的教育研究小组(4)以及积极参与教育研究的跨学科联盟；4)一个试点教师发展网络，已经吸引了代表20个不同单位的36名教师。该项目将侧重于通过广泛的培训活动来扩大教师发展网络，并在七个核心部门中创建每年都在增长的变革小组。这些系是：化学、生物、物理、心理学、数学、计算机科学和公共卫生。这个项目的优点体现在几个方面。首先，它增加了另一个机构，在过去两年中由国家科学基金会支持的为数不多但不断增长的其他机构中，这些机构致力于通过由教育专家支持的部门变革小组进行机构转型。第二，项目的基本目标是明确的，即在这个为期三年的项目中，每年每个院系新增3名核心改革小组成员。第三，核心小组和部门领导具有“讲师”的教师地位，因为这些教师是入门课程教学专业知识的中心。但是，在本项目扩展期间，将招募其他类型的教师，并将其加入核心部门组。这个项目是一个应用研究项目，用于调查潜藏在这个转换工作之下的变化理论是否如预期的那样工作。

The project will develop an internal Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate STEM Education (CAUSE) to measure changes in faculty practice, culture, and student learning at the University of Washington. It involves a detailed plan to implement a theory-based approach to transform the culture of undergraduate teaching. The goal is to achieve a critical mass of faculty (25-50%) across seven departments that have the largest undergraduate enrollments. Six of these departments are within STEM. The project is being conducted in a university environment that is increasingly conducive to the mission of this project. There are four elements in place that are critical or valuable for transforming the culture of undergraduate teaching: 1) committed senior leadership, 2) major investments in new active-learning classroom spaces, 3) active discipline-based education research groups (four) along with an interdisciplinary consortium active in education research, and 4) a pilot faculty development network that has already engaged 36 faculty representing 20 different units. This project will focus on expanding the faculty development network with extensive training activities and create change groups in each of the seven core departments that are designed to grow each year. These departments are: Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Psychology, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Public Health. The merit of this project lies in several areas. First, it adds another institution to the small but growing set of others supported by NSF in the last two years that are focused on creating institutional transformation through departmental change groups supported by education experts. Second, the basic project goal is straightforward, namely, adding three new faculty to the core reform group in each department during each year of this 3-year project. Third, the core group and the departmental leaders have the faculty status of "Lecturer" because these faculty are where the teaching expertise for introductory courses is centered. However, during the expansion period of this project, faculty of other types will be recruited and added to the core departmental groups. This project is an applied research project to investigate whether the theory of change underlying this transformation effort works as expected.