Applying a Digital Tool to Support Self-regulated Learning Strategies in Introductory Geoscience Courses

该项目旨在通过提高学生在地球科学入门课程中的学习和成功来服务于国家利益。 为此，它将修改和扩大一个原型在线工具，向学生提供关于他们对自己知识的看法与他们实际知识之间关系的即时反馈。该工具，类（基于信心的学习准确性支持系统），提供了一个在线测验环境，衡量学生的学习和学习的信心。 然后，它显示的结果，可以引导学生采取更有效的学习行为，从而提高课程的表现。 该项目有三个目标，即：a）改进该工具，以纳入更多资源和扩大的问题数据库; B）通过增加移动的应用程序和仪表板来升级和扩大技术，以增强学生的用户体验;以及，c）调查这些变化对不同机构类型学生学习的影响（研究型大学，四年制大学和两年制大学）和多个介绍性地球科学课程。该项目将探讨类的应用，以加强在两个西班牙裔服务机构中代表性不足的学生的地球科学学习。 因此，该项目将为来自受COVID-19影响不成比例的社区的学生提供服务。专注于支持有效学生学习行为的教学干预措施，称为自我调节学习，已被证明可以带来更高的学业成绩，提高动力和更大的坚持性。使用CLASS工具的学生会立即收到关于他们的知识水平和他们对与教师定义的学习目标相关的学习的看法的准确性的反馈。因此，学生能够很容易地找出他们的知识差距，并确定学习什么来填补这些差距。 自我调节学习是指学生对自己的思想意识、对学习的监控和管理方法以及对学习动机和行为的控制。有效的自我调节学习行为始终与增加学习相关。该项目将扩大CLASS的应用范围，CLASS是一种促进使用有效的自我调节学习行为的工具，也为教师提供了一种自动反馈学生学习质量的机制。CLASS以教育心理学研究的结果为基础，提供了传统评估方法无法确定的课程教学和学习过程的信息。CLASS的使用将使认知研究的结果直接融入课程成为可能，通过应用一种通用的评估方法，可以很容易地适应任何教师。研究设计将提供准实验定量数据（例如，测验结果），使因果推理的影响类活动结合定性数据，从学生访谈描述他们使用的工具。该项目将编制一套相关材料，可根据需要为各种地球科学入门课程提供。 最后，学生学习的工具和基本方面的普遍性将使STEM范围和教育范围的调查结果和建议的应用，以提高学生在本科课程中的成功。 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。 该奖项反映了NSF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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving student learning and success in introductory geoscience courses. To do so, it will modify and expand a prototype online tool that provides immediate feedback to students about the relationship between their perceptions of their knowledge and their actual knowledge. The tool, CLASS (Confidence-based Learning Accuracy Support System), provides an online quizzing environment that measures student learning and confidence in that learning. It then displays results that can guide students to adopt more effective learning behaviors and thus increase course performance. The project has three objectives, to: a) improve the tool to include more resources and an expanded question database; b) upgrade and expand the technology by adding a mobile app and dashboard to enhance the student user experience; and, c) investigate the effects of these changes on student learning at different institutional types (research university, four-year college, and a two-year college) and across multiple introductory geoscience courses. The project will explore the application of CLASS to enhance geoscience learning among underrepresented students at two Hispanic Serving Institutions. Consequently, the project will serve students from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.Instructional interventions that focus on supporting effective student learning behaviors, termed self-regulated learning, have been shown to result in greater academic achievement, improved motivation, and greater persistence. Students who use the CLASS tool receive immediate feedback on both their level of knowledge and the accuracy of their perceptions of their learning linked to instructor-defined learning objectives. Consequently, students are able to readily identify gaps in their knowledge and determine what to study to fill those gaps. Self-regulated learning represents the sum of a student's awareness of their own thinking, their approach to monitoring and managing their learning, and their control over motivations and behaviors related to learning. Effective self-regulated learning behaviors are consistently correlated with increased learning. This project will expand the application of CLASS, a tool that promotes the use of effective self-regulated learning behaviors and also gives instructors a mechanism for providing automated feedback about the quality of students' learning. CLASS is grounded in the findings of educational psychology research and provides information regarding course teaching and learning processes that cannot be readily ascertained from traditional assessment methods. The use of CLASS will make it possible to integrate the results of cognition research directly into a course by applying a common assessment method that could be readily adapted by any instructor. The research design will provide quasi-experimental quantitative data (e.g., quiz results) to make causal inferences about the effects of CLASS activities combined with qualitative data from student interview descriptions of their use of the tool. The project will produce a suite of related materials that can be customized for a variety of introductory geoscience courses. Finally, the generalizability of both the tool and essential facets of student learning will enable both STEM-wide and education-wide application of findings and recommendations for practices that increase student success in undergraduate courses. 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.