Collaborative Research: Transforming Institutions Through STEM Equity Learning Communities

协作研究：通过 STEM 公平学习社区改变机构

• 批准号: 2215398
• 负责人: Timothy McKay
• 金额: $ 20.26万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215398&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Transforming; Institutions; Through

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving STEM education outcomes using a department-level approach to address systemic inequities that create barriers to student success. Introductory STEM courses consistently reproduce inequities for historically marginalized students. However, it is common among those involved in STEM education, including faculty, administrators, and even students themselves, to view these inequities as resulting from student deficits. This “blame-the-victim” mindset creates a significant barrier for STEM education reform as attempts to address inequities often focus on “fixing” the students, rather than on creating systemic change in courses and departments. This project will test a department-oriented approach for changing the student-deficit mindsets present in faculty, administrators, and undergraduate students. By guiding participants in recognizing the structural role that courses and departments play in student success, and documenting the process in the form of a guide, this project will allow new and different institutions to adapt this field-tested approach for their local contexts, driving dialogue in STEM departments on approaches for examining student academic outcomes through an equity lens. Leveraging the existing relationships and past work of the multi-institutional Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) collaboration, this project plans to develop and share a standard menu of equity measures that should provide a benchmark for universities seeking to measure equity in their courses and departments. Use of this standard menu of measurements should allow community colleges, public research universities, tribal colleges, private universities, and more to learn from each other on institutional policies that promote equity in STEM classrooms, promoting greater partnerships between these traditionally siloed types of institutions. Development of a public monthly talk series on this project hopes to make STEM reform efforts more accessible and inspire more people in higher education to consider their own mindsets on student success, to learn how to talk about and represent course inequities in equity-minded ways, and to recognize these deficit mindsets as part of the greater structural problems in the U.S. stemming from institutional racism. The overall objective of this proposal is to establish STEM Equity Learning Communities (SELCs) in universities across the U.S. that will foster impactful approaches for engaging faculty, department leaders, and undergraduate students in equity-minded discussions of their STEM courses. There are four expected outcomes for this two-year project: (1) A guide for the creation and effective operation of data-centric SELCs that can be adapted for different institutional contexts; (2) Development and implementation of an array of intersectional course equity measures that can be used by many institutions to place their own equity challenges in a national context; (3) Equity-minded action plans for peer universities across the U.S. to address systemic inequities in introductory STEM courses; and (4) Field-tested instruments for measuring mindsets on student success. Major project activities include creating a SELC on each participating SEISMIC campus, developing and using survey and interview protocols to study the experiences of SELC members, establishing shared classroom equity measures using institutional data, engaging participants with equity data through a Summer Institute, local SELC meetings, cross-campus inter-SELC meetings, and a public talk series. Finally, each SELC will be guided to develop an action plan and presentation for their local campus leadership to initiate reform in their introductory STEM courses. The project hopes to generate knowledge on how well and in what context SELCs can develop equity-mindedness in faculty, department leaders, and undergraduate students across ten large, public, R1 universities and can empower them to promote this mindset in their departments. The project should also enable future research on the nuances of equity measures most effective for motivating structural change and generating positive impact on introductory STEM courses. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program 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.

该项目旨在通过改善STEM教育成果来服务于国家利益，使用部门级方法来解决对学生成功造成障碍的系统性不平等问题。介绍性STEM课程不断再现历史上被边缘化的学生的不平等。然而，参与STEM教育的人，包括教师，管理人员，甚至学生本身，都普遍认为这些不平等是由学生赤字造成的。这种“责怪受害者”的心态为STEM教育改革造成了重大障碍，因为解决不平等的努力往往集中在“修复”学生，而不是在课程和部门中创造系统性的变化。这个项目将测试一个部门为导向的方法来改变目前在教师，管理人员和本科生的学生赤字的心态。通过引导参与者认识到课程和部门在学生成功中发挥的结构性作用，并以指南的形式记录这一过程，该项目将使新的和不同的机构能够根据当地情况调整这种经过实地测试的方法，推动STEM部门就通过公平透镜检查学生学业成果的方法进行对话。利用现有的关系和多机构斯隆公平和STEM入门课程（SEISMIC）合作的过去工作，该项目计划开发和共享公平措施的标准菜单，为寻求衡量课程和部门公平的大学提供基准。使用这个标准的测量菜单应该允许社区学院，公立研究型大学，部落学院，私立大学，以及更多的机构政策，促进STEM教室的公平，促进这些传统的孤立类型的机构之间更大的伙伴关系相互学习。关于这个项目的公共月度谈话系列的发展希望使STEM改革的努力更容易获得，并激励更多的人在高等教育中考虑自己对学生成功的心态，学习如何以公平的方式谈论和代表课程不平等，并认识到这些赤字心态是美国更大的结构性问题的一部分。该提案的总体目标是在美国各大学建立STEM公平学习社区（SELC），这将促进教师，部门领导和本科生参与STEM课程公平讨论的有效方法。这个为期两年的项目有四个预期成果：（1）为创建和有效运作以数据为中心的SELC提供指南，这些SELC可以适应不同的机构环境;（2）制定和实施一系列交叉课程公平措施，许多机构可以使用这些措施来在国家背景下应对自己的公平挑战;（3）为全美同行大学制定公平的行动计划，以解决STEM入门课程中的系统性不平等问题;（4）实地测试的工具，用于测量学生成功的心态。主要的项目活动包括在每个参与的SEISMIC校园创建一个SELC，制定和使用调查和访谈协议来研究SELC成员的经验，使用机构数据建立共享的课堂公平措施，通过暑期研究所，当地SELC会议，跨校园SELC会议和公共谈话系列让参与者参与公平数据。 最后，每个SELC将被引导制定一个行动计划，并介绍他们的当地校园领导启动改革在他们的入门STEM课程。该项目希望了解SELC如何以及在什么背景下培养十所大型公立R1大学的教师、系主任和本科生的公平意识，并使他们能够在其系中推广这种思维方式。该项目还应使未来的研究公平措施的细微差别，最有效地激励结构变革和产生积极的影响，介绍STEM课程。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.