Enhancing Community College STEM Teaching through Faculty Development

该项目旨在通过改善专注于改善STEM教学的教师专业发展模式，为高质量本科STEM教育的国家利益服务。 具体而言，该项目将支持教师创建STEM课程模块，其中包括公民参与和公平问题。 社区学院为日益多样化的受众提供STEM教育。 这种教育需要为学生提供STEM知识和技能，并为他们提供系统思维和公民参与工具。 为了实现这些教育目标，该项目将帮助教师通过开发课程模块来改善他们的STEM课程，这些模块在社会相关的背景下解决环境变化科学问题。 这种方法可以提供一个可扩展的模式，以加强STEM教学和学习，同时扩大参与STEM和准备公民和科学家的21世纪世纪的挑战。该项目建立在贝尔维尤学院和北西雅图学院的成功教师专业发展的努力，通过纳入两个课程设计框架：科学教育促进新公民参与和责任以及公平伦理。 该项目将开发一个新的专业发展课程，旨在支持STEM教师修改环境课程，以培养学生的公民参与，系统思维和公平意识技能。该项目将分析这种课程模块方法与传统的整个课程方法的有效性。该项目计划在这两所学院至少招募35名STEM教师和1,800名STEM学生，如果该模式被其他机构采用，可能会影响更多的教师和学生。一个可转移的专业发展课程的设计将受益于两所大学的合作，这使得调查员试点，修改，并在两个不同的社区大学的背景下实施课程。 这两种情况将使大规模实施和比较评价成为可能。项目团队将全面评估专业发展课程对STEM教学的影响、模块对学生学习成果的影响，以及模块的纳入如何影响学生与公民参与和公平相关的系统思维技能。 该项目的所有材料和成果将在地方、区域和国家范围内广泛传播。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。 这个一级项目是在美国国家科学基金会学生学习轨道的情况下，通过该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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的支持。

This project aims to serve the national interest in high quality undergraduate STEM education by improving a faculty professional development model focused on improving STEM teaching. Specifically, this project will support faculty to create STEM course modules that include issues of civic engagement and equity. Community colleges provide STEM education to an increasingly diverse audience. This education needs to provide students with STEM knowledge and skills, as well as equip them with both systems thinking and civic engagement tools. To achieve these educational goals, the project will help faculty improve their STEM courses by developing course modules that address the science of environmental change within a socially relevant context. This approach may provide a scalable model for strengthening STEM teaching and learning, while simultaneously broadening participation in STEM and preparing citizens and scientists for 21st century challenges.This project builds upon and extends Bellevue College’s and North Seattle College’s successful faculty professional development efforts by incorporating two curriculum design frameworks: Science Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibility and the Equity Ethic. The project will develop a new professional development curriculum intended to support STEM faculty as they modify environmental lessons to build students' civic engagement, systems thinking, and equity-minded skills. The project will analyze the effectiveness of this course module approach versus a traditional whole-course approach. The project plans to engage at least 35 STEM faculty and 1,800 STEM students at the two colleges, with the potential to impact many more faculty and students if the model is adopted by other institutions. The design of a transferrable professional development curriculum will benefit from the two-college collaboration, which enables the investigators to pilot, revise, and implement the curriculum in two different community college contexts. These two contexts will enable large scale implementation and comparative evaluation. The project team will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of the professional development curriculum on STEM teaching, the impact of the modules on student learning outcomes, and how incorporation of the modules affects students’ systems thinking skills as related to civic engagement and equity. All materials and results from this project will be broadly disseminated at local, regional, and national scales. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This Level 1 project is situation within the Engaged Student Learning track, through which 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.