Exploring Transdisciplinary Approaches to STEM Teaching and Learning

该项目旨在通过改善综合STEM领域的教学实践来服务于国家利益。随着STEM行业迅速向综合和跨学科领域发展，在高等教育提供跨学科替代方案之前，学科知识只能部分满足劳动力需求。这个项目回应并直接回应了美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院的建议。他们最近关于高等教育综合学习的报告呼吁“教师的专业发展，使他们能够教授综合（跨学科）课程”。参与该项目的教师将参加为期一年的培训计划。参与的教师将更有能力培养具有21世纪STEM关键技能的本科生，包括人机界面的技能。该培训计划的方法借鉴了跨学科认知实践（TEPs）的最新框架，该框架帮助跨学科研究人员和教育工作者证明、评估和合法化他们工作中的知识主张。TEP框架是一个强大的探索性工具，用于理解、解释和建模有效的学习实践。通过将这个框架应用到他们自己的跨学科本科课程中，并开发一个修改版本和相关的规则，特别是针对高等教育，参与的教师将更善于支持和评估学生的学习。总体而言，该项目将为10名教师提供教育发展，他们将反过来教授来自非传统STEM背景的2000多名本科生，并帮助为进一步的教师发展制定更通用的模式。该项目的主要智力目标是验证一种新的概念方法来教学综合STEM领域——一种新的跨学科认知框架。该项目旨在通过创建一种新的专业发展模式来实现这一目标，该模式以教学和学习的奖学金为基础，在教师学习社区的背景下，通过现象学方法进行评估。该项目旨在汇集现有的工具来解决高等教育中新的综合学习需求，并解决以下两个研究问题：1)TEPs如何为高等教育艺术和设计背景下的教师发展提供概念框架？2)教师如何使用这一概念框架为所有学生设计和执行跨学科STEM学习机会？该项目更广泛的影响包括可能验证扩大STEM参与的新模式，目标是对艺术、设计或建筑等非STEM学科有浓厚兴趣的学生。假设是，跨学科STEM课程的组成部分对对艺术、设计或建筑有浓厚兴趣的学生来说是可识别的或熟悉的，对他们来说将更公平、更容易获得和更有吸引力，因为它们比传统的STEM课程更符合学生的学习身份。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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving teaching practices in areas of integrated STEM. As STEM industries move and grow rapidly into integrated and transdisciplinary arenas, disciplinary knowledge will only partially fulfill workforce needs until higher education provides a transdisciplinary alternative. This project responds to and directly addresses the recommendations of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Their recent report on integrated learning in higher education calls for the “professional development of faculty who are capable of teaching integrative [transdisciplinary] courses”. The participating faculty in this project will take part in a year-long training program. Participating faculty will become better equipped to train undergraduate students with the critical 21st Century STEM skills, including those at the human-technology interface. The training program’s approach draws on a recent framework on Transdisciplinary Epistemic Practices (TEPs) that helps transdisciplinary researchers and educators justify, evaluate, and legitimize knowledge claims about their work. The TEP framework is a powerful explorative tool for understanding, explaining, and modeling effective learning practices. Through applying this framework to their own transdisciplinary undergraduate courses, and developing a modified version of it and associated rubrics, specifically for higher education, participating faculty will become more adept at supporting and assessing student learning. Overall, this project will provide educational development for ten faculty members, who will in turn teach over 2,000 undergraduate students from non-traditional STEM backgrounds, and help develop a more general model for further faculty development. The primary intellectual goal of the project is to validate a novel conceptual approach to teaching integrated STEM fields-- a new transdisciplinary epistemic framework. The project aims to achieve this through the creation of a novel professional development model that is grounded in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, within the context of a Faculty Learning Community, and evaluated through phenomenological methods. The project aims to bring together established tools to address new integrated learning needs in higher education, and address the following two research questions: 1) How can TEPs provide a conceptual framework for faculty development in a higher education art and design context? 2) How can faculty use this conceptual framework to design and execute transdisciplinary STEM learning opportunities for all students? The project’s broader impacts include the potential validation of a novel model for broadening participation in STEM, targeting students with a strong interest in non-STEM disciplines such as art, design, or architecture. The hypothesis being that transdisciplinary STEM courses with components that are recognizable or familiar to students with a strong interest in art, design or architecture, will be more equitable, accessible and engaging to them, since they are more aligned with the students’ learning identities than traditional STEM 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.