Developing a Digital Platform for Providing Scalable and Actionable Feedback to Support Students' Development of Professional Skills

该项目通过为教师开发数字平台和课堂策略来提高学生在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的专业技能，为国家利益服务。这些技能（也被称为可转移技能、过程技能、21世纪技能或软技能）的明确发展对于为学生在科学技术领域的成功职业生涯做好准备至关重要。美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院以及许多行业和雇主的报告都认为，批判性思维、解决问题、协作和沟通等技能对现代国家劳动力至关重要。这些报告进一步表明，提高学生专业技能的熟练程度将确保大学生在开始职业生涯时更加成功。在该项目中，将开发一个数字平台，利用“通过提高过程技能来加强学习”项目，这是一个新颖且广泛使用的基于反馈的技能指标。该项目将为各种规模的课堂教师提供策略，帮助他们发展和评估学生的专业技能。数字平台和课堂策略也将允许教师为学生提供快速反馈和有效的指导，以提高他们的专业技能。这个创新项目将关注学生专业技能的发展，因为它将增加学生对这些技能对科学家的重要性的认识，并为他们未来的STEM职业生涯做好准备。该项目将通过使用一个可扩展的数字平台，帮助学生在STEM课堂上发展和提高他们的专业技能，该平台基于来自“通过提高过程技能提高学习”项目（ELIPSS.com）的新颖的基于反馈的技能规则。该项目将研究反馈和自我评估如何帮助学生提高专业技能，并研究外部和量身定制的反馈如何帮助学生成为自我调节的学习者。项目团队将设计和试点一个数字平台，以简化评估和向学生提供可操作的反馈，使用来自不同班级规模和机构设置的多学科STEM教师团队，以确保应用程序的实用性和可采用率。通过访谈和调查反馈，教学团队成员将确定产生和传递反馈给学生的最佳策略，这些反馈既有效又及时。数据将收集学生与提高技能发展的建议互动的方式；这些数据将被分析，以衡量他们对这些反馈的反应，以及这些反馈是否有助于他们提高技能。学生将完成一份经过验证的科学动机问卷，以收集他们对专业技能的发展如何进一步激励他们选择STEM专业和职业的见解。五个最终目标和结果为这个项目的执行提供了一个框架。首先是创建一个数字平台，该平台预装了可定制的专业技能规则，这些规则是nsf资助的ELIPSS项目的产品。其次，来自全国各地STEM学科和机构的教师团队将实施并随后传播这些材料。第三是开发一套材料和培训协议，培训更多的教师使用技能建设指南和数字平台。第四是收集最佳教学实践，以优化学生与专业技能发展反馈的互动。第五，也是最后一点，是对这些努力如何影响学生的深入理解——促进他们的技能发展，他们对这些技能对科学家的重要性的认识，以及他们为未来的STEM职业做准备。总体而言，该项目的广泛范围将使专业技能发展更好地融入本科STEM课程——数字平台和课堂策略旨在适用于所有学科、班级规模和机构设置，并将迅速影响大量学生。这些学生进入STEM工作岗位后，将掌握重要的专业技能，从而更好地确保他们的成功。更广泛地说，通过该项目开发的工具和课堂策略将在多个层面上支持STEM教育的进步：它们支持主动学习教学法，支持基于技能的程序性评估，并为未来的教育研究提供数据收集机制。NSF IUSE: EDU项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过其参与学生学习轨道，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 serves the national interest by developing a digital platform and classroom strategies for instructors to improve student professional skills across the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The explicit development of these skills (also known as transferable, process, 21st century, or soft skills) is of critical importance to prepare students for successful careers in science and technology. Skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and communication have been identified as essential for a modern national workforce by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine as well reports from many industries and employers. These reports further identify that increased proficiency in student professional skills will ensure undergraduates a more successful launch as they begin their careers. In this project, a digital platform will be developed that leverages the Enhancing Learning by Improving Process Skills project, a novel and widely available feedback-based skills rubric. This project will provide strategies for instructors in classrooms of all sizes to help them develop and evaluate student professional skills. The digital platform and classroom strategies will also allow instructors to provide students with rapid feedback and effective coaching on how to improve their professional skills. This innovative project brings attention to the development of student professional skills as it will increase students’ insights into the importance of these skills for scientists and advance their preparation for future STEM careers. This project will help students develop and improve their professional skills in STEM classrooms by using a scalable digital platform based on novel feedback-based skill rubrics from the Enhancing Learning by Improving Process Skills project (ELIPSS.com). This project will conduct research on how feedback and self-assessment can help students improve their professional skills, as well as examine how external and tailored feedback can help students become self-regulated learners. The project team will design and pilot a digital platform to streamline assessment and actionable feedback delivery to students, using a multidisciplinary team of STEM instructors from a range of class sizes and institutional settings to ensure the application’s utility and adoptability. Through interviews and survey responses, instructional team members will identify optimum strategies for generating and delivering feedback to students that is both impactful and timely. Data will be collected on the ways in which students interact with the suggestions for improving skill development; these data will be analyzed to gauge how they responded to this feedback and whether it helped them improve their skills. Students will complete a validated science motivation questionnaire to collect their insights on how their development of professional skills may further motivate them towards STEM majors and careers. Five culminating goals and outcomes provide a framework for the execution of this project. First is the creation of a digital platform, which is preloaded with customizable professional skills rubrics that were a product of the NSF-funded ELIPSS project. Second, a team of instructors from a range of STEM disciplines and institutions across the country will implement and subsequently disseminate these materials. Third is the development of a set of materials and training protocols to train additional instructors to use the skill-building rubrics and digital platform. Fourth is the assembly of a collection of best instructional practices to optimize student interaction with feedback on their professional skill development. Fifth, and finally, is an advanced understanding of how these efforts impact students - promoting their skill development, their perception of the importance of these skill for scientists, and their preparation for future STEM careers. Overall, the broad scope of this project will enable greater integration of professional skill development into undergraduate STEM programs - the digital platform and classroom strategies are designed to be used in all disciplines, class sizes and institutional settings and will rapidly impact a large number of students. These students will enter the STEM workforce with key preparation in valued professional skills that will better ensure their success. Even more broadly, the tools and classroom strategies developed through this project will support the advancement of STEM education on multiple levels: they support active learning pedagogies, support skill-based programmatic assessment, and provide a data-collection mechanism for future education research. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its 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.