Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Open-access, Interactive, Video-Supported Training Resources for Peer Leaders in STEM Collaborative Learning

为 STEM 协作学习领域的同行领导者开发、实施和评估开放式、交互式、视频支持的培训资源

• 批准号: 2021162
• 负责人: Maria Cecilia Barone
• 金额: $ 29.99万
• 依托单位: University of Rochester
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2021162&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Implementation; Evaluation; Open; access

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving the quality of undergraduate STEM education. Specifically, it focuses on enhancing the preparation of undergraduate students to serve as peer leaders in STEM courses. Teaching approaches that emphasize peer instruction and collaborative learning are known to increase student success and retention in STEM. These approaches also benefit the students who serve as peer leaders. This project intends to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate a novel resource for training undergraduate STEM peer leaders. This training will be designed to emphasize practices that encourage feelings of inclusion in student groups and in STEM. Prior research has shown that students who do not feel included in science or in their STEM classrooms can be hesitant about participating in group activities, such as collaborative learning. This project aims to improve the training of peer leaders so that they are more aware of the factors that can impede a student’s sense of belonging and can develop practices that facilitate inclusion. Based on prior work, undergraduate peer leaders who participate in this training are more likely to engage in inclusive practices in their collaborative learning groups. This change in peer mentor practice is expected to lead to broader student participation in collaborative learning and has the potential to increase retention in STEM of traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women and students from racial or ethnic minorities. Ultimately, these efforts have the potential to contribute to increasing diversity within the national STEM workforce.The project intends to create two interactive training modules that could be widely used to train peer leaders in inclusive facilitation in STEM collaborative groups. These modules will be based on the effective use of live actors and an interactive theater approach for peer leader training at the University of Rochester. Each of the new training modules will be interactive video versions designed to simulate the previously used live-action experiences. These modules will be uploaded on a freely accessible website and will include: (i) a video of a scene illustrating barriers to participation in a simulated peer-led group learning environment; (ii) interactive video interviews with student characters in the scene; and (iii) a lesson plan with discussion prompts, assignments, and other resources that STEM faculty, students, and learning specialists can use for discussions of the videos. In this work, the University of Rochester, the lead institution, will partner with the University of Texas at El Paso, the second largest university with a majority Hispanic student population in the US, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, home of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. This collaboration will enable the project team to test how these interactive video resources can be used in different institutional and pedagogical contexts, including peer-led team learning and learning assistant approaches. Evaluative feedback from STEM peer leaders, students in collaborative groups, and faculty will be collected to explore the direct impact of these training resources as well as their potential to improve STEM collaborative environments in undergraduate education. The project will generate new knowledge by testing the feasibility of using a digital media platform to support interactive training of student leaders for inclusive group facilitation in STEM. The proposed range of evaluation activities could lead to a broader understanding of how this type of training resource can improve STEM collaborative learning environments. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.

本项目旨在通过提高本科STEM教育质量来服务于国家利益。具体而言，它侧重于加强本科生在STEM课程中担任同行领导者的准备。众所周知，强调同伴指导和协作学习的教学方法可以提高学生在STEM中的成功率和保留率。这些方法也有利于作为同龄人领导者的学生。本项目旨在开发、实施、评估和传播一种新的资源，用于培养STEM本科生同行领导者。该培训旨在强调在学生群体和STEM中鼓励包容感的实践。先前的研究表明，那些感觉自己不属于科学或STEM课堂的学生可能会对参与小组活动（如协作学习）犹豫不决。该项目旨在改善对同侪领袖的培训，使他们更加了解可能阻碍学生归属感的因素，并制定促进包容的做法。基于先前的工作，参加此培训的本科生同伴领导更有可能在他们的协作学习小组中参与包容性实践。同伴导师实践的这种变化预计将导致更广泛的学生参与协作学习，并有可能增加传统上代表性不足的群体（如女性和种族或少数民族学生）在STEM中的保留率。最终，这些努力有可能有助于增加国家STEM劳动力的多样性。该项目打算创建两个互动式培训模块，可广泛用于培训STEM协作小组中包容性促进方面的同行领导者。这些模块将基于罗切斯特大学有效使用现场演员和互动式戏剧方法进行同行领导者培训。每个新的培训模块都将是交互式视频版本，旨在模拟以前使用的真人体验。这些模块将上传到一个免费访问的网站上，其中包括：(i)一个场景的视频，说明参与模拟同伴领导的小组学习环境的障碍；（ii）与现场学生角色的互动视频访谈；（iii）包含讨论提示、作业和其他资源的课程计划，STEM教师、学生和学习专家可以使用这些资源来讨论视频。在这项工作中，牵头机构罗切斯特大学将与德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校和罗切斯特理工学院合作，德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校是美国第二大大学，拉美裔学生占多数，罗切斯特理工学院是美国国家聋人技术研究所的所在地。这种合作将使项目团队能够测试这些互动视频资源如何在不同的机构和教学环境中使用，包括同伴领导的团队学习和学习辅助方法。将收集来自STEM同行领导者、合作小组学生和教师的评估反馈，以探索这些培训资源的直接影响，以及它们改善本科教育STEM协作环境的潜力。该项目将通过测试使用数字媒体平台支持学生领袖互动培训以促进STEM包容性团体的可行性来产生新知识。拟议的评估活动范围可以使人们更广泛地了解这种类型的培训资源如何改善STEM协作学习环境。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。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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。