STEM Education 2026: Workshop on Assessment, Evaluation, and Accreditation

改善和加强本科STEM教育对国家的经济福祉至关重要。此外，创新是未来有效的STEM教育的关键部分。在这个项目中，明尼苏达州立大学（一个综合性的公共机构）和诺曼代尔社区学院（一个邻近的两年制学院）将合作举办一个研讨会，将来自多个STEM领域的参与者和研究人员聚集在一起，他们正在努力评估STEM教育创新。研讨会参与者将研究项目和机构认证中的实际和感知障碍，并研究这些障碍如何影响STEM学生体验的创新。综合基于学科的观点，与STEM教育的评估、评估和认证及其关系相关的利益和挑战，也将是研讨会的重点。提议的研讨会的目标是研究评估、评估和认证如何使STEM教育的创新得以发展、持续和/或消亡。本次研讨会对改善STEM教育的一个关键贡献将是将来自生命科学、物理科学、数学、工程和计算的参与者聚集在一起，讨论与评估、评估和认证相关的问题和挑战。来自全国各地机构基于证据的有效STEM项目的案例研究将包括在研讨会中。研讨会将提供一个论坛来审查这些示范性的STEM本科项目，包括审查这些创新项目在认证方面可能的成功和失败。通过综合STEM领域的知识和经验，并广泛传播这些信息，这项工作将影响未来关于改善STEM教育方式的进一步讨论。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Improving and enhancing undergraduate STEM education is crucial to the economic well-being of the nation. Additionally, innovation is a critical piece of an effective STEM education of the future. In this project, Minnesota State University (a comprehensive, public institution) and Normandale Community College (a neighboring two-year college) will collaborate to host a workshop that will bring together participants and researchers from multiple STEM fields who are working to evaluate STEM education innovation. Workshop participants will examine barriers, both real and perceived, in program and institutional accreditation and examine how such barriers affect innovation for the STEM student experience. The synthesis of discipline-based perspectives on benefits and challenges related to assessment, evaluation, and accreditation in STEM education and their relationships will also be a focus of the workshop. The goal of the proposed workshop will be to examine how assessment, evaluation, and accreditation have allowed innovation in STEM education to develop, persist, and/or perish. A key contribution of this workshop to the improvement of STEM education will be bringing together participants from life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computing to discuss issues and challenges related to assessment, evaluation, and accreditation. Case studies from evidence-based effective STEM programs at institutions throughout the country will be included in the workshop. The workshop will provide a forum to examine these exemplary STEM undergraduate programs, including examining possible successes and failures in accreditation of such innovative programs. By synthesizing knowledge and experiences across STEM fields and disseminating this information broadly, this work will influence further discussions about ways to improve STEM education in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.