Collaborative Research: Transforming Institutions Through STEM Equity Learning Communities

该项目旨在通过采用系级方法解决阻碍学生成功的系统性不平等问题，从而改善STEM教育成果，为国家利益服务。STEM入门课程一直在为历史上被边缘化的学生再现不平等。然而，在参与STEM教育的人员中，包括教师、管理人员甚至学生自己，都普遍认为这些不平等是由学生不足造成的。这种“指责受害者”的心态给STEM教育改革造成了重大障碍，因为解决不平等问题的努力往往侧重于“修复”学生，而不是在课程和部门中进行系统性变革。该项目将测试以院系为导向的方法，以改变教师、管理人员和本科生中存在的“生源不足”心态。通过引导参与者认识到课程和部门在学生成功中所起的结构性作用，并以指南的形式记录这一过程，该项目将允许新的和不同的机构根据当地情况调整这种实地测试的方法，推动STEM部门就通过公平视角检查学生学业成果的方法进行对话。利用现有关系和多机构斯隆公平和包容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，为寻求衡量其课程和部门公平的大学提供基准。使用这一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、私立大学等相互学习促进STEM课堂公平的制度政策，促进这些传统上孤立的机构之间建立更大的伙伴关系。关于这个项目的公开月度讲座系列的开发希望使STEM改革的努力更容易获得，并激励更多的高等教育人员考虑他们自己对学生成功的看法，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源于制度性种族主义的更大结构性问题的一部分。该提案的总体目标是在美国各地的大学建立STEM公平学习社区（selc），这将促进有影响力的方法，让教师、部门领导和本科生参与STEM课程的公平讨论。这个为期两年的项目有四个预期成果：(1)建立和有效运作以数据为中心的自力更生中心的指南，可以适应不同的机构背景；(2)制定和实施一系列交叉课程公平措施，许多机构可以利用这些措施在全国范围内解决它们自己的公平挑战；(3)针对美国同行大学的公平行动计划，以解决STEM入门课程中的系统性不平等问题；(4)测量学生成功心态的实地测试工具。主要的项目活动包括在每个参与地震的校园建立一个SELC，开发和使用调查和访谈协议来研究SELC成员的经验，利用机构数据建立共享的课堂公平措施，通过暑期学院、当地SELC会议、跨校园SELC会议和公共演讲系列让参与者参与公平数据。最后，每个SELC将被指导为当地校园领导制定行动计划和演示文稿，以启动STEM入门课程的改革。该项目希望了解selc如何以及在何种背景下在十所大型公立R1大学的教师、部门领导和本科生中培养公平意识，并使他们能够在自己的部门中推广这种心态。该项目还应使未来对公平措施的细微差别的研究能够最有效地激励结构变革，并对入门STEM课程产生积极影响。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轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育转型和改善。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 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.