Exploring How Geoscience Inquiry Labs Influence Graduate Student Teaching Beliefs and Undergraduate Student Learning and Interest

本项目由美国国家科学基金会改进本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE: EHR）资助，旨在通过改进本科地球科学课程，培养更有效的教育工作者，为国家利益服务。探究性教学是模拟科学过程的有效途径。然而，出版的地球科学实验室手册通常很少包含基于探究的练习。这样的实验手册表明，学习是通过遵循教师的指导来实现的。那些认为遵循指示是学习的良好途径的教师不太可能采用研究证明可以更好地支持学生学习的技术，如探究。由于助教仍处于教学信念的发展阶段，我们假设具有更多探究性实验室教学经验的助教将会形成更多以学生为中心的信念，从而提高他们作为未来教师的有效性。该项目将为地球科学入门课程创建一套探究实验室，并在两年内研究它们对五所院校助教信念的影响。本研究将确定探究经验、助教教学信念和本科生兴趣对约1500名本科生学习成果的相对影响。该项目的意义在于为地球科学专业的学生提供更有效的教学材料，并有可能揭示STEM教育转型的新途径。本项目将应用教师专业成长的相互关联模型（Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002）来检验一个假设，即通过教师信念访谈（Luft & Roehrig, 2007）来衡量，让助教参与教学探究实验室会增加他们以学生为中心的教学信念。分层线性模型将探讨助教信念、实验室探究水平和学生兴趣对概念、地球科学学习的影响比例。该项目开发的实验室将在Teach the Earth网站上提供。因此，该项目有可能在全国范围内增加以探究为基础的地球科学实验室的采用。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育转型和改善。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。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving the undergraduate geoscience curriculum and producing future faculty who are more effective educators. Inquiry-based teaching is an effective way to model the scientific process. However, published geoscience lab manuals often contain few inquiry-based exercises. Such lab manuals suggest that learning occurs by following an instructor's directions. Faculty who believe that following directions is a good pathway to learning are less likely to adopt techniques, such as inquiry, that research has demonstrated to better support student learning. Since teaching assistants are still developing their teaching beliefs, we hypothesize that teaching assistants who have more experience teaching inquiry-based labs will develop more student-centered beliefs, enhancing their effectiveness as future faculty. This project will create a suite of inquiry labs for introductory geoscience courses and study their effect on teaching assistant beliefs at five institutions over two years. This research will determine the relative effects of inquiry experiences, teaching assistant's teaching beliefs, and undergraduate student interest on student learning outcomes of approximately 1500 undergraduate students. This project's significance lies in its work to provide more effective instructional materials for geoscience students and its potential to reveal a new pathway for transforming STEM education.This project will apply the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) to test the hypothesis that involving teaching assistants in teaching inquiry labs will increase their student-centered teaching beliefs, as measured by the Teacher Beliefs Interview (Luft & Roehrig, 2007). Hierarchical linear modeling will explore the proportion of influence that teaching assistant beliefs, the inquiry level of the lab, and student interest have on conceptual, geoscientific learning. Labs developed by the project will be made available using the Teach the Earth website. As a result, the project has the potential to increase adoption of inquiry-based geoscience labs across the nation. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.