Improving Understandings of Student Engagement in STEM to Enhance Teacher

来自美国和芬兰的研究人员在这个虚拟机构科学(SAVI)项目中合作，调查教师如何利用他们通过使用移动技术获得的关于学生参与的信息来做出关于课堂教学的形成性决策。这个项目的美国团队成员来自密歇根州立大学，而芬兰团队的成员来自赫尔辛基大学。该项目包括三个面对面的讲习班，在第一个讲习班期间，研究人员确定如何使用当前的工具和程序，包括经验抽样法(ESM)，以确定和实施参与的概念，以改进教师实践。第二期研讨会最终确定了研究和分析计划的设计细节，包括将研究人员目前使用的不同方法整合在一起的解释性框架，以便在美国和芬兰的课堂上进行研究。第三期讲习班的重点是讨论研究结果，并对研究中所调查的工具的可用性和可扩充性进行展望。这项研究建立在现有的国际博士后研究合作(成人之路)的基础上，并扩展了这项研究，将博士生、教师教育工作者和导师作为研究团队的一部分。研究人员正在扩展之前工作中使用的方法，经验采样法(ESM)及其相关的手机技术，以连接芬兰研究人员使用的方法。研究人员正在构建一个理论基础，以提高围绕学生的自我效能感和自我效能感对学习的影响的知识。手机技术作为一种教师可以用来获取关于学生观点的更丰富信息的方法，具有真正的前景。研究人员正在扩展参与度的概念，因为它目前被描述为“心流”，包括对学生兴趣、挑战和技能的衡量。动机作为学生成绩的一个因素越来越重要。有证据表明，作为自我效能感的参与与科学成就有关，确定增强动机并将其与教师行为联系起来的方法是重要的。该项目有助于了解如何衡量教师在课堂工作环境中的参与度。此外，它还通过培养一支积极为这一合作研究议程做出贡献的年轻研究人员队伍，支持跨国合作和学习。

Researchers from the U.S. and from Finland are collaborating in this Science Across Virtual Institutions (SAVI) project to investigate how teachers use the information about student engagement they obtain through the use of mobile technology to make formative decisions about classroom instruction. The members of the U.S. team for this project are from Michigan State University while the members for the Finnish team are from the University of Helsinki. The project involves three face-to-face workshops, during the first of which the researchers identify how the current instruments and processes, including the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), are used to define and operationalize concepts of engagement to improve teacher practice. The second workshop finalizes the specifics of the design of the research and analysis plans, including interpretive frameworks that integrate the different methodologies currently used by the researchers, to conduct the research in classrooms in both the U.S. and Finland. The third workshop focuses on the discussion of the findings from the study and development of prospects for the usability and scalability of the tools investigated in the study. The research builds on an existing international postdoctoral research collaboration (Pathways to Adulthood) and extends that research to include the involvement of doctoral students, teacher educators and mentors as part of the research teams. The researchers are extending the approach used in prior work, the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) and its related cell phone technology, to connect to the methodology used by the Finnish researchers. The researchers are constructing a theoretical base that improves knowledge around students' sense of self-efficacy and the impact of self-efficacy on learning. The cell phone technology holds real promise as an approach that teachers could use to gain richer information on students' perspectives. The researchers are extending the concept of engagement as it is currently characterized as "flow" to include measures of student interest, challenge and skill. Motivation as a factor in student achievement is of growing importance. There is evidence that engagement as self-efficacy is related to achievement in science, and determining ways to enhance motivation and to connect it to teacher actions is important. This project is contributing to the knowledge of how to measure engagement in the environment of teachers' work in the classroom. In addition, it supports cross-national collaboration and learning by developing a cadre of young researchers who actively contribute to this collaborative research agenda.