Advancing Culturally Responsive Team Learning for Underserved Students in the STEM Classroom: Motivation and Engagement Across Different Class Modalities

该项目旨在通过促进对团队学习及其在学生参与、坚持不懈和成功中的作用的理解，促进对具有多元文化能力和多样化的STEM劳动力的需求，从而服务于国家利益。团队学习的使用在STEM的学习、保留和职业准备中被广泛认为是重要的，对来自STEM历史上代表性不足的群体的学生产生了不成比例的积极影响。尽管如此，对于如何在学生群体不同的两年制大学背景下有效实施这一战略，仍存在知识缺口。这个项目将解决的主要问题是如何使团队学习在两年制大学STEM学习环境中有效，特别是在那些服务于来自代表性不足群体和非传统学生的大量学生的环境中。结果将为如何创造包容的课堂氛围提供信息，作为留住更多STEM学生的战略，并最终扩大STEM劳动力的参与。项目成果还应为旨在建立从两年制院校向四年制学院和大学成功转学的机制提供信息。此外，该项目计划研究团队学习在疫情带来的新教育格局中的有效性，在这种情况下，在线和混合课程模式现在是两年制大学的常态。该项目具有潜在的变革性，通过告知如何在非面对面的课堂形式中将团队学习实践应用于学生的成功，这是所有高等教育机构的迫切需要。该项目将通过教师培训和公开可用的资源，支持设计和采用新的教学策略。该项目希望实现三个目标：1)通过学生调查和访谈，确定并解释学生参与团队学习的心理社会预测因素；2)通过对STEM教师的调查，阐明并解释学生和教师对团队学习的认知差异；以及3)开发、测试、评估、修订和传播一套文化响应型团队学习实践。该项目使用了一种新的方法，在Bronfenbrenner的生态方法模型中调查了影响团队学习、参与和感知的个人和文化心理社会因素。虽然该模型在教育领域得到了广泛的应用，但本项目将其扩展到STEM的团队学习。最后，该项目希望利用研究成果使教师能够将公正、公平、多样性和包容性的框架应用于团队学习。通过暑期学院研讨会和实践社区，STEM教师将为在线和面授课程设计和实施变革。为了检验模型的有效性，将对学生进行前后调查。这些结果将与教师的自我反思和团队学习的形成性评估相结合，以评估教学改进的有效性，并为未来的实践提供一套建议。这套建议将通过会议报告、针对跨学科受众的同行评议论文以及一个包含资源、模块和类比的网站传播，以便其他机构使用和适应。有效团队学习的预测模型将为文化能力教育的进一步研究铺平道路，从而使STEM教育界受益。NSF关于在两年制高等教育机构推进本科STEM教育的创新和影响的项目描述支持在两年制大学推进STEM教育倡议的项目。该项目描述促进了两年制大学本科STEM教育的创新和循证实践。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 contributing to the need for a multiculturally competent and diverse STEM workforce by advancing the understanding of team learning and its role in student engagement, persistence, and success. The use of team learning is widely acknowledged as important in STEM learning, retention, and career preparation, with a disproportionately positive impact on students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. Still, there is a knowledge gap as to how to implement this strategy effectively in a two-year college context with diverse student populations. The primary question this project will address is how to make team learning effective in two-year college STEM learning environments, particularly those serving large numbers of students from underrepresented groups and non-traditional students. The results will inform ways to create an inclusive classroom climate as a strategy to retain more students in STEM and ultimately broaden participation in the STEM workforce. Project results should also inform mechanisms that are aimed at creating successful transfer pathways from two-year institutions to four-year colleges and universities. Additionally, this project plans to study the effectiveness of team learning in the new educational landscape brought about by the pandemic, where online and hybrid class modalities are now the norm in two-year colleges. This project has the potential to be transformative by informing how to adapt team learning practices for student success in non-face-to-face class modalities, an immediate need at all higher education institutions. The project will support the design and adoption of novel teaching strategies through faculty training and publicly available resources. The project hopes to achieve three goals: 1) identify and explain psychosocial predictors of student engagement in team learning through student surveys and interviews; 2) articulate and explain differences in student versus instructor perception of team learning through surveys of STEM faculty; and 3) develop, test, evaluate, revise and disseminate a set of practices for culturally responsive team learning. The project uses a novel approach by investigating both individual and cultural psychosocial factors impacting team learning engagement and perception within Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Approach model. While the model has been used extensively in the education field, this project extends it to team learning in STEM. Finally, the project hopes to leverage the research findings to empower faculty to apply a justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion framework to team learning. Through summer institute workshops and a community of practice, STEM faculty will design and implement changes for both online and face-to-face classes. To test model validity, a pre-and post-survey will be administered to students. These results will be paired with faculty self-reflections and formative assessments of team learning to evaluate effectiveness of the teaching modifications and provide a set of recommendations for future practices. The set of recommendations will be disseminated through conference presentations, peer-reviewed papers targeting an interdisciplinary audience, and a website with resources, modules, and rubrics to allow other institutions to use and adapt. The predictive model of effective team learning will benefit the STEM education community by paving the way for further research into culturally competent education. The NSF program description on Advancing Innovation and Impact in Undergraduate STEM Education at Two-year Institutions of Higher Education supports projects that advance STEM education initiatives at two-year colleges. The program description promotes innovative and evidence-based practices in undergraduate STEM education at two-year colleges.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.