EXP: Agile Research Studios: Scaling Cognitive Apprenticeship to Advance Undergraduate and Graduate Research Training in STEM

网络学习和未来学习技术计划为支持展望学习技术的未来并推动我们了解人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的努力提供资金。网络学习探索(EXP)项目通过设计和构建新的学习技术，并研究它们促进学习的可能性和有效使用它们的挑战，来探索新类型的学习技术的可行性。该项目将通过设计组织流程和网络学习技术来推进STEM的本科生和研究生研究培训，以支持研究人员社区内的自我指导学习。教师指导、研究经验和真正的问题解决可以提高本科生在STEM的表现和留存率，特别是在女性和代表性不足的少数族裔学生中。教师指导是有效的，但劳动密集型的，通常留给更有成效的研究生；本科生的研究职位可以提供真实的实践，但数量有限。本研究假设，STEM的本科生和毕业生可以在协作的网络学习研究社区中更好地发展。这些社区使用协作网络学习技术：(A)教授研究和协作，(B)支持学生参与独立研究，以及(C)培养研究生成为有效的导师和未来的研究领导者。采用以社区为基础的方法培训自主学习者应该显著增加本科生进行真实研究的数量，为研究生提供真实的指导和领导实践，并在资源稀缺的情况下提高研究培训的效率和规模。该项目旨在满足调动国家多样化的学生人才库和扩大对科学和工程研究的参与的迫切需要，科学和工程研究是国家科学基金会的核心任务之一。为了支持这一目标，这项研究将通过开发和测试设计网络学习研究社区的经验性验证的原则，为理解更广泛的线上/线下、社交、基于项目的学习环境生态系统奠定理论基础。这项研究开发了社会技术网络学习系统，在不大幅增加研究导师的协调负担的情况下，培训更多的新手研究人员。建议的解决方案是一个通用的理论模型，名为“敏捷研究工作室”，旨在通过社会结构、实践和网络学习工具帮助教师更好地培训学生研究人员：支持规划研究询问、寻求帮助、实践反思、合作和分享。敏捷研究工作室将得到虚拟工作室的支持，虚拟工作室是一个在线平台，通过支持3个相互关联的反馈循环来协调课堂外的社交共享监管学习：(A)冲刺计划和重新计划循环，其中学生和导师接收关于项目计划和进度的反馈；(B)帮助和协作循环，帮助学生确定帮助请求的范围和优先顺序，并将他们与助手联系起来；以及(C)反思和共享循环，促进随时间增长，并促进整个工作室的协作和意识。该项目将在设计、技术和研究(DTR)的背景下，使用基于设计的研究过程来开发和评估敏捷研究工作室模型，DTR是一个研究社区，应用敏捷研究工作室来支持20多名从事西北大学(NU)15个以上研究项目的学习者。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that support envisioning the future of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Cyberlearning Exploration (EXP) Projects explore the viability of new kinds of learning technologies by designing and building new kinds of learning technologies and studying their possibilities for fostering learning and challenges to using them effectively. This project will advance undergraduate and graduate research training in STEM by designing organizational processes and cyberlearning technologies that support self-directed learning within a community of researchers. Faculty mentoring, research experience, and authentic problem solving increase undergraduate performance and retention in STEM, especially among women and underrepresented minority students. Faculty mentoring is effective but labor intensive and often reserved for more productive graduate students; undergraduate research positions can provide authentic practice but are limited in number. This research posits that undergraduates and graduates in STEM can better develop in collaborative cyberlearning research communities. These communities use collaborative cyberlearning technologies to: (a) teach research and collaboration, (b) supportively engage students in independent research, and (c) train graduate students to become effective mentors and future research leaders. Taking a community-based approach to training self-directed learners should significantly increase the number of undergraduate students doing authentic research, provide graduate students with authentic practice in mentoring and leadership, and increase the efficacy and scale of research training amid scarce resources. This project seeks to fill an urgent need to mobilize the nation's diverse student talent pool and broaden participation in science and engineering research, one of the National Science Foundation's core missions. In support of this goal, this research will lay a theoretical foundation for understanding the broader ecosystem of integrated online/offline, social, project-based learning environments through development and testing of empirically-validated principles for designing cyberlearning research communities. The research develops socio-technical cyberlearning systems that train increased numbers of novice researchers without greatly increasing the orchestration burden on research mentors. The proposed solution is a general, theoretical model, `Agile Research Studios,' for helping faculty better train student researchers through social structures, practices, and cyberlearning tools that: support planning research inquiry, seeking help, practicing reflection, collaboration, and sharing. Agile Research Studios will be supported by Virtual Studio, an online platform that orchestrate socially-shared regulation learning outside of the classroom by supporting 3 interrelated feedback loops: (a) a sprint planning and replanning loop in which students and mentors receive feedback on project plans and progress, (b) a help and collaboration loop that helps students scope and prioritize help requests and connects them to helpers, and (c) a reflection and sharing loop that promotes growing over time and promoting collaborations and awareness across a studio. The project will develop and evaluate the Agile Research Studios model using a design-based research process, in the context of Design, Technology, and Research (DTR), a research community that applies Agile Research Studios to support 20+ learners working on more than 15 research projects at Northwestern University (NU).