NSF INCLUDES: Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS)

NSF 包括： 可持续发展团队增强和扩大 STEM 成员资格 (S-TEAMS)

• 批准号: 1744460
• 负责人: Amy Tuininga
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Montclair State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-11-01 至 2019-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1744460&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; INCLUDES; Sustainability; Teams; Empower

The Sustainability Teams Empower and Amplify Membership in STEM (S-TEAMS), an NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot project, will tackle the problem of persistent underrepresentation by low-income, minority, and women students in STEM disciplines and careers through transdisciplinary teamwork. As science is increasingly done in teams, collaborations bring diversity to research. Diverse interactions can support critical thinking, problem-solving, and is a priority among STEM disciplines. By exploring a set of individual contributors that can be effect change through collective impact, this project will explore alternative approaches to broadly enhance diversity in STEM, such as sense of community and perceived program benefit. The S-TEAMS project relies on the use of sustainability as the organizing frame for the deployment of learning communities (teams) that engage deeply with active learning. Studies on the issue of underrepresentation often cite a feeling of isolation and lack of academically supportive networks with other students like themselves as major reasons for a disinclination to pursue education and careers in STEM, even as the numbers of underrepresented groups are increasing in colleges and universities across the country. The growth of sustainability science provides an excellent opportunity to include students from underrepresented groups in supportive teams working together on problems that require expertise in multiple disciplines. Participating students will develop professional skills and strengthen STEM- and sustainability-specific skills through real-world experience in problem solving and team science. Ultimately this project is expected to help increase the number of qualified professionals in the field of sustainability and the number of minorities in the STEM professions. While there is certainly a clear need to improve engagement and retention of underrepresented groups across the entire spectrum of STEM education - from K-12 through graduate education, and on through career choices - the explicit focus here is on the undergraduate piece of this critical issue. This approach to teamwork makes STEM socialization integral to the active learning process. Five-member transdisciplinary teams, from disciplines such as biology, chemistry, computer and information sciences, geography, geology, mathematics, physics, and sustainability science, will work together for ten weeks in summer 2018 on real-world projects with corporations, government organizations, and nongovernment organizations. Sustainability teams with low participation by underrepresented groups will be compared to those with high representation to gather insights regarding individual and collective engagement, productivity, and ongoing interest in STEM. Such insights will be used to scale up the effort through partnership with New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS).

可持续发展团队授权和扩大STEM成员资格（S-TEAMS）是NSF包括设计和开发启动试点项目，将通过跨学科团队合作解决低收入、少数民族和女性学生在STEM学科和职业中持续代表性不足的问题。随着科学越来越多地在团队中完成，合作为研究带来了多样性。多样化的互动可以支持批判性思维，解决问题，是STEM学科的优先事项。通过探索一组可以通过集体影响影响变革的个人贡献者，该项目将探索广泛增强STEM多样性的替代方法，例如社区意识和项目利益感知。S-TEAMS项目依赖于使用可持续性作为部署学习社区（团队）的组织框架，这些社区（团队）深入参与主动学习。关于代表性不足问题的研究经常将孤立感和缺乏与其他像他们一样的学生的学术支持网络作为不愿在STEM领域接受教育和职业的主要原因，尽管全国各地的学院和大学中代表性不足的群体数量正在增加。可持续发展科学的发展提供了一个极好的机会，让来自代表性不足群体的学生加入支持性团队，共同解决需要多学科专业知识的问题。参与的学生将通过解决问题和团队科学的实际经验，培养专业技能，加强STEM和可持续发展相关技能。最终，该项目有望帮助增加可持续发展领域合格专业人员的数量，以及STEM专业中少数民族的数量。虽然在整个STEM教育领域（从K-12到研究生教育，再到职业选择），显然有必要提高代表性不足群体的参与度和保留率，但这里明确的重点是这个关键问题的本科部分。这种团队合作的方法使STEM社会化成为主动学习过程的一部分。来自生物、化学、计算机和信息科学、地理、地质、数学、物理和可持续发展科学等学科的五人跨学科团队将在2018年夏季与公司、政府组织和非政府组织一起进行为期十周的实际项目。将代表性不足群体参与度低的可持续发展团队与代表性高的团队进行比较，以收集有关个人和集体参与度、生产力和对STEM的持续兴趣的见解。这些见解将通过与新泽西州高等教育可持续发展伙伴关系（NJHEPS）的合作来扩大努力。