Collaborative Research: Transforming Institutions Through STEM Equity Learning Communities

该项目旨在通过使用部门一级的方法改善STEM教育成果来服务于国家利益，以解决造成学生成功障碍的系统性不平等问题。STEM入门课程一贯地为历史上被边缘化的学生再现不平等现象。然而，在参与STEM教育的人中，包括教职员工、管理人员，甚至学生本身，认为这些不平等是学生缺陷造成的，这是很常见的。这种“责怪受害者”的心态对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，而不是在课程和院系中进行系统性改革。这个项目将测试一种以系为导向的方法，以改变教职员工、管理人员和本科生中存在的学生不足的心态。通过指导参与者认识到课程和系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一经过实地测试的方法，推动STEM系就通过公平的视角审查学生学业成绩的方法进行对话。利用多机构斯隆公平和纳入STEM入门课程(STEM)合作的现有关系和过去的工作，该项目计划开发和共享公平衡量的标准菜单，该菜单应为寻求衡量其课程和系的公平的大学提供基准。使用这一标准的衡量标准应该能让社区学院、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。关于该项目的每月公开谈话系列的开发希望使STEM改革努力更容易获得，并激励更多高等教育人员考虑他们自己对学生成功的心态，学习如何以公平的方式谈论和表现课程不平等，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，这些问题源于制度性种族主义。这项提议的总体目标是在美国各地的大学建立STEM公平学习社区(SELC)，这将促进有效的方法，让教师、系领导和本科生参与他们的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)创建和有效运行以数据为中心的SELC的指南，这些SELC可以根据不同的院校情况进行调整；(2)制定和实施一系列跨部门课程公平措施，许多机构可以使用这些措施将自己的公平挑战放在国家背景下；(3)为美国各地的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；以及(4)经过实地测试的工具，用于衡量学生的成功心态。主要项目活动包括在每个参与的地震校园创建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衡量标准，通过暑期学院让参与者参与公平数据，地方SELC会议，跨校区SELC会议，以及一系列公共讲座。最后，将指导每个SELC为其当地校园领导层制定行动计划和演示文稿，以启动STEM入门课程的改革。该项目希望产生关于SELC在多大程度上以及在什么背景下能够在十所大型公立R1大学的教职员工、系领导和本科生中培养公平意识的知识，并使他们能够在其系中促进这种心态。该项目还应使今后能够研究最有效地推动结构变革和对STEM入门课程产生积极影响的公平措施的细微差别。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的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转变和改进STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.