Examining The Roles of STEM Teaching Faculty in Advancing the Use of Evidence-based Teaching Practices at Research Universities

认识到科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域对我们国家未来的重要性，最近的报告呼吁改变现有的教育实践，以提高STEM毕业生的质量、数量和多样性。这些呼吁导致了以证据为基础的教学实践的发展，这些实践已被证明可以提高学生的成绩。现在的一个主要问题是，我们如何在更大的范围内推广这些教学实践？本项目探讨了与研究型大学相关的两个国家问题的交叉点：(1)通过使用循证教学策略改善本科STEM教学和学习的必要性；(2)聘用以教学为重点的终身教职教师，其职责是教授本科课程，以改善本科STEM教学、学习和奖学金。该项目将调查具有就业保障的讲师（lsoe，他们是符合终身教职资格的教学型教师）在其部门内作为有效变革推动者的程度，从而有助于改善研究型机构的STEM教学。研究小组假设，聘请LSOE教师将成为部门同事增加采用和可持续的循证教学策略的主要催化剂。为了研究与研究型大学相关的两个国家问题，研究团队将使用多种分析方法，包括准实验双向固定效应模型来控制学生和课程的变化，一种创新的观察技术来记录和评估课堂行为，图论分析研究站点内教学网络的结构和特征，以及关于教学信念和教学方法的访谈数据的文本分析。通过这些分析，研究小组旨在确定LSOE模式是否可以在全国的研究密集型机构中实施，以改变STEM教师的教学实践并提高学生的成绩。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。

Recognizing the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields to the future of our nation, recent reports have called for changes in existing educational practices to increase the quality, number, and diversity of STEM graduates. These calls have resulted in development of evidence-based teaching practices that have been shown to improve student outcomes. One major question now is, how can we spread the use of these teaching practices on a larger scale? This project examines the intersection of two national issues relevant to research-focused universities: (1) The need for improvement in undergraduate STEM teaching and learning through the use of evidence-based instructional strategies; and (2) the hiring of tenure-track teaching-focused faculty whose responsibility is teaching undergraduate courses that improve undergraduate STEM teaching, learning, and scholarship. This project will investigate the degree to which Lecturers with Security of Employment (LSOEs, who are tenure-eligible teaching-focused faculty) act as effective change agents within their departments, thus contributing to improving STEM teaching at research-focused institutions. The research team hypothesizes that the hiring of LSOE faculty will act as a major catalyst for increasing the adoption and sustainability of evidence-based instructional strategies by departmental colleagues. To examine the two national issues relevant to research-focused universities, the research team will use multiple analytic approaches, including a quasi-experimental two way fixed effects model to control for variations in students and courses, an innovative observation technique that documents and assesses classroom behaviors, graph theoretic analysis of the structure and characteristics of teaching networks within research sites, and transcript analyses of interview data on beliefs about and approaches to teaching. Through these analyses, the research team aims to identify whether the LSOE model can be a mechanism implemented in research-intensive institutions across the country to transform STEM faculty teaching practices and improve student outcomes.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.