Bridging to STEM Excellence: Leveraging a Consortium of National STEM Education Initiatives to Improve Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning

本项目由美国国家科学基金会“改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源”（IUSE:EHR）资助，旨在通过提高STEM教育机构转型的能力来服务于国家利益。在各级STEM项目和教学中实施基于研究的改进是国家的优先事项。这一优先事项的基础是认识到基于证据的教学和相关的项目支持（例如，教师专业发展、与学生服务的联系以及课外活动）可以改善所有学生的成果，并增加STEM中代表性不足的群体的参与。该项目旨在创建一个试点项目，以加速采用经证明可改善学生STEM学习成果和保留率的系级和项目级干预措施。该项目计划建立和培训一支由来自五个国家项目的经验丰富的教师开发人员组成的咨询团队，旨在改善本科STEM教育。这些倡议包括BioQUEST课程联盟、全国地球科学教师协会、国家科学和公民参与中心的新公民参与和责任科学教育（SENCER）项目、过程导向引导探究学习（POGIL）项目和科学教学暑期学院。与一个机构合作的每个三人团队将包括来自五个倡议中的三个的代表，选择以匹配该机构期望的变革重点。这一方法将试点的五个合作机构是贝克斯菲尔德学院、加州州立大学奇科分校、佐治亚州立大学、俄亥俄州立大学和里士满大学。通过这一项目，五项行之有效的倡议将作为一个财团与最初的五家机构伙伴合作。这项工作通过支持国家科学基金会支持的STEM教育计划的整合，利用美国国家科学基金会过去二十年的投资，提供全面的支持，帮助教育工作者提高学生的成绩。联盟成员将协作建立一个实践社区，并发展一个在所有五个计划的改进实践方面知识渊博的咨询团队。然后，该联盟将与五个机构伙伴进行协商、行动和后续支助的循环。该项目的目标是通过在五个国家倡议中建立一个实践社区来加速高等教育的变革，从而增加其覆盖面并协调其对专业发展和方案变革的支持。此外，该项目的咨询项目将作为这些协调的国家倡议和个别机构努力之间的桥梁，以改善教学和学生支持实践。评价活动将利用实践社区的视角，对咨询模式提供形成性和总结性反馈。在项目期间进行的研究将检查每个机构的变革工作的影响，包括开发新的工具来研究变革的准备情况。联盟成员的集体专门知识及其可用的资源和方法，以及一套支持咨询团队的新材料，将通过公共网络存储库提供。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。该项目属于机构和社区转型项目，IUSE: EHR项目通过该项目支持高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育转型和改善工作。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 increasing capacity for institutional transformation in STEM education. Implementing research-based improvements to STEM programs and instruction at all levels is a national priority. This priority is underpinned by the recognition that evidence-based teaching and related programmatic support (e.g., faculty professional development; connections with student services; and co-curricular activities) improve outcomes for all students and increase participation by groups that are underrepresented in STEM. This project seeks to create a pilot program to accelerate adoption of department- and program-level interventions proven to improve student learning outcomes and retention in STEM. The project plans to establish and train a consultancy corps of experienced faculty developers from five national initiatives that aim to improve undergraduate STEM education. The initiatives include the BioQUEST Curricular Consortium, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement's Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) program, The Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) Project, and the Summer Institutes for Scientific Teaching. Each three-member team that works with an institution will include representation from three of the five initiatives, chosen to match the institution's desired change focus. The five partner institutions with whom this approach will be piloted are Bakersfield College, California State University-Chico, Georgia State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Richmond. Through this project, five well-established initiatives will come together as a Consortium to work with an initial set of five institutional partners. This effort leverages NSF investments over the past two decades by supporting the integration of national, NSF-supported STEM education initiatives to provide holistic support that will help educators achieve improved student outcomes. Consortium members will collaboratively build a community of practice and develop a consultancy corps that is knowledgeable in the improvement practices of all five initiatives. The Consortium will then undertake a cycle of consultation, action, and follow-up support with the five institutional partners. The goal of the project is to accelerate change in higher education by developing a community of practice among five national initiatives, thus increasing their reach and coordinating their support for professional development and programmatic change. In addition, the program's consultancy program will serve as a bridge between these coordinated national initiatives and individual institutional efforts to improve instruction and student support practices. Evaluation activities will provide formative and summative feedback on the consultancy model, using a community of practice lens. Research conducted during the project will examine the impact of the change efforts at each institution, including the development of new tools to study readiness for change. The collective expertise of Consortium members and their available resources and approaches, along with a set of new materials to support the consultancy corps, will be made available through a public web repository. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is in the Institutional and Community Transformation track, through which the IUSE: EHR 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.