CAREER: Multidimensional Support to Improve Distance Learning Experience in Community College STEM Gateway Courses

在这个职业奖中，研究者将记录社区大学在线STEM课程的教学实践，并促进在线教学的有效实践。这项工作意义重大，因为社区大学是每年数百万低收入和少数族裔学生接受高等STEM教育的关键途径。因此，社区大学在国家STEM管道中发挥着关键作用。不幸的是，社区大学面临着许多挑战，包括空间和师资的限制，以及很大一部分非传统大学生很难参加校内课程。通过完全在线课程的远程学习是一种很有前途的方法，它使大学能够提供额外的课程或课程部分，从而增加学生获得必修课程的机会和进步。该项目旨在通过基于证据的干预策略和实践，促进社区大学STEM门户课程远程学习的有效性，最终目标是支持提高学生的参与度和表现。该项目有五个具体目标：(i)记录社区大学提供的在线STEM入门课程的典型教学方法；（ii）确定有希望的干预策略，这些策略有可能更好地支持学生在完全在线课程中的参与和学习；Iii)通过严格的随机对照试验来评估这些策略对学生学习成果的影响；（iv）通过调查学习行为和干预策略可能影响这些行为的方式，了解学生在在线环境中的学习体验；(v)评估哪些干预策略可以减少来自弱势背景和弱势背景的学习者在在线课程中的表现差距。为达致上述目标，我们将进行两项核心研究。研究者将实施和评估两种具体的干预策略，这两种策略在四年的环境中显示出有希望的结果：技能脚手架和增加人际互动。一项描述性研究将系统地收集有关教师对远程学习的看法及其在大型州立社区学院系统中大量在线STEM门户课程中的教学实践的信息。随后，研究者将根据理论建议和从描述性研究中收集的信息制定额外的干预策略。干预研究将进行一系列随机分配实验。这些实验将评估策略的影响，以更有效地吸引和支持在线STEM门户课程的学生。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。

In this CAREER award, the investigator will document teaching practices in online STEM courses at community colleges and promote effective practices for online teaching. This work is significant because community colleges are a key point of access to postsecondary STEM education for millions of low-income and ethnic minority students each year. Thus, community colleges play a critical role in the national STEM pipeline. Unfortunately, community colleges face many challenges, including space and faculty constraints and a large proportion of nontraditional college students who find it difficult to attend on-campus courses. Distance learning through fully online coursework is a promising approach to mitigating these barriers by enabling colleges to offer additional courses or course sections, thus increasing student access to and progression through required courses. This project aims to promote the effectiveness of distance learning in STEM gateway courses at community colleges through evidence-based intervention strategies and practices, with the ultimate goal of supporting improved student engagement and performance. The project has five specific objectives: (i) to document typical instructional approaches in online STEM gateway courses offered at community colleges; (ii) to identify promising intervention strategies with the potential to better support student engagement and learning in fully online coursework; iii) to evaluate the impacts of these strategies on student learning outcomes through rigorous randomized controlled trials; (iv) to understand the student experience of learning within online environments through investigation of learning behaviors and the ways in which an intervention strategy may influence these behaviors; and (v) to evaluate which intervention strategies reduce performance gaps in online courses between learners from less and more disadvantaged backgrounds. To achieve these objectives, two core studies will be conducted. The investigator will implement and evaluate two specific intervention strategies that have shown promising results in a four-year setting: skill scaffolding and increased interpersonal interaction. A descriptive study will systematically collect information on instructors' perceptions of distance learning and their instructional practices in a large swath of online STEM gateway courses in a large state community college system. Subsequently, the investigator will develop additional intervention strategies based on both theoretical recommendations and information collected from the descriptive study. An intervention study will conduct a series of random-assignment experiments. These experiments will assess the impacts of strategies for more effectively engaging and supporting students in online STEM gateway courses.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.