Coordinating a Teaching Excellence Network to Engage STEM Faculty in Teaching Reform

该项目旨在通过支持STEM教师实施循证教学实践来服务于国家利益。这种做法已被证明有利于所有学生，并对STEM中代表性不足的群体产生了特别强烈的影响。然而，学术界的文化往往阻碍教师采用这些做法，并作出必要的改变的步伐一直很慢。本计画将课程转型视为一个制度架构与教师行动的议题，以促进教师采行循证教学实务。该项目将从组织和结构因素必须得到系统解决的前提下运作，以增加教师的支持和努力，以改善本科STEM教育在研究型大学。该项目将创建一个教学卓越网络，提供专业发展活动，通过教师支持的多个方面来应对体制变革的挑战。它采用基于资产的方法，以目标教师的动机和主动性，并催化围绕教学的持久制度和文化变革。该项目旨在通过实施基于证据的教学法，发展教师代理，以改变他们的课程。项目活动将包括（1）通过教学卓越网络正式协调现有的教学机构资源，（2）设计和实施资源，以减少教师对课程改革的障碍，（3）让机构领导参与促进和重视教学改革。这项工作将从结构，代理和动机的理论，以产生知识教师如何处理的改革过程中，并将使用目前的研究体制障碍，教育改革开发，评估和传播教学专业发展的资产为基础的模型。该项目得到了NSF改善本科STEM教育计划的支持：教育和人力资源，该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的轨道，该计划支持的努力，以改变和改善高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育.这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估支持.

This project aims to serve the national interest by supporting STEM faculty members implementation of evidence-based teaching practices. Such practices have been shown to benefit all students and have a particularly strong impact on under-represented groups in STEM. However, the culture of academia often impedes faculty in adopting these practices and the pace of making the needed changes has been slow. This project seeks to facilitate faculty adoption of evidence-based teaching practices by approaching course transformation as an issue of institutional structure and faculty action. This project will operate from the premise that organizational and structural factors must be systematically addressed to increase faculty support for and efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education at research universities. This project will create a Teaching Excellence Network to provide professional development activities that approach the challenge of institutional change through multiple facets of faculty support. It employs an assets-based approach to target faculty motivation and initiative, and to catalyze lasting institutional and cultural change around teaching.This project aims to develop faculty agency to transform their courses by implementing evidence-based pedagogies. Project activities will include (1) formally coordinating existing institutional resources for teaching through the Teaching Excellence Network, (2) designing and implementing resources to decrease faculty barriers to course transformation, and (3) engaging institutional leadership in promoting and valuing teaching reform. This work will draw from theories of structure, agency, and motivation to produce knowledge about how faculty approach the reform process and will use current research on institutional barriers to educational reform to develop, assess, and disseminate an assets-based model of teaching professional development. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources, 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.