Collaborative Research: Impacting Assessment Practices of Postsecondary Faculty Teaching Gateway Chemistry Courses

合作研究：影响高等教育教师教授入门化学课程的评估实践

• 批准号: 1936574
• 负责人: Jeffrey Raker
• 金额: $ 25.13万
• 依托单位: University of South Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1936574&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Impacting; Assessment; Practices

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate chemistry education. Assessing the nature and quality of students’ learning in science courses is a complex process. Since students focus their learning efforts on what they expect they will be tested on, high-quality assessments are vitally important as drivers of student learning. Results of assessments also inform stakeholders such as institutional accreditation boards and future employers. However, faculty members who teach college science courses typically do not receive training about how to create and use robust assessments in their courses. This project will provide professional development experiences for faculty members at two-year colleges to help them use robust assessment practices in their general chemistry and organic chemistry courses. The project will conduct a series of four three-day regional workshops for faculty members. Each workshop will be followed by a yearlong virtual mentoring experience for the participants, to support them as they implement what they learned in the workshops. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in teams from the same institution or geographical area to maximize local support and community development. The professional communities and assessment plans developed throughout the project are expected to have sustained impacts on faculty members’ assessment practices and on students’ learning in their chemistry courses.This collaboration between the University of South Florida, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will design, implement, and evaluate professional development experiences for faculty members at two-year colleges. Faculty workshop participants will gain knowledge and skills in developing course learning objectives, aligning course learning objectives with disciplinary frameworks, articulating test specification documents, and writing and evaluating assessment items. Throughout the subsequent academic year, participants will implement the assessment materials they developed. Monthly online meetings will be held for participants to share their implementation experiences and offer each other support, and for the project team to provide mentorship. Throughout the face-to-face workshops and online mentoring meetings, the project team will also collect data to develop, refine, and evaluate a model of faculty assessment practice change. The Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform model will serve as the guiding framework. Case studies will be constructed for each participant based on workshop and implementation artifacts, semi-structured interviews and surveys of the workshop participants that highlight how personal and cultural context and beliefs about teaching and learning are associated with enacted assessment practices. A cross case analysis will be conducted to better understand the impact of the workshops and online meetings including accelerators and barriers of assessment practice change, role of community in promoting assessment reform, and opportunities to improve postsecondary faculty professional development. The workshop materials and research findings from the project will be incorporated into future assessment workshops offered by the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Education Examinations Institute. The success of the project will be evaluated by an external advisory board. The project has the potential to generate new knowledge regarding the impact of a community practice approach to assessment practice reform in STEM education. This project is funded by the NSF IUSE: EHR Program, which 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.

本项目旨在通过改进本科化学教育服务于国家利益。评估学生在科学课程中的学习性质和质量是一个复杂的过程。由于学生将学习精力集中在他们期望被测试的内容上，高质量的评估作为学生学习的驱动力至关重要。评估结果也会告知机构认证委员会和未来雇主等利益相关者。然而，教授大学科学课程的教师通常没有接受过如何在他们的课程中创建和使用可靠评估的培训。该项目将为两年制学院的教师提供专业发展经验，帮助他们在普通化学和有机化学课程中使用可靠的评估实践。该项目将为教职员工举办一系列为期四天的区域研讨会。每个研讨会之后将为参与者提供为期一年的虚拟指导体验，以支持他们将在研讨会中学到的知识付诸实践。与会者将被鼓励参加来自同一机构或地理区域的团队，以最大限度地支持当地和社区发展。在整个项目中建立的专业团体和评估计划将对教师的评估实践和学生在化学课程中的学习产生持续的影响。南佛罗里达大学、大河谷州立大学和威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校之间的合作将为两年制大学的教师设计、实施和评估专业发展经验。教师研讨会的参与者将获得制定课程学习目标的知识和技能，将课程学习目标与学科框架结合起来，阐明测试规范文件，编写和评估评估项目。在接下来的学年中，参与者将实施他们开发的评估材料。每月将举行在线会议，让参与者分享他们的实施经验并相互支持，并为项目团队提供指导。通过面对面的研讨会和在线指导会议，项目团队还将收集数据，以开发、改进和评估教师评估实践变化的模型。以教师为中心的系统改革模式将作为指导框架。将根据研讨会和实施工件、半结构化访谈和研讨会参与者的调查为每个参与者构建案例研究，以突出个人和文化背景以及关于教与学的信念如何与制定的评估实践相关联。我们将进行跨个案分析，以更好地了解工作坊和网上会议的影响，包括评估实践转变的加速因素和障碍、社区在推动评估改革中的作用，以及改善专上教师专业发展的机会。讲习班的材料和研究成果将被纳入美国化学会化学教育考试研究所今后提供的评估讲习班。该项目的成功与否将由一个外部咨询委员会进行评估。该项目有可能产生关于社区实践方法对STEM教育评估实践改革影响的新知识。本项目由NSF IUSE: EHR项目资助，该项目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。