Seeking Synergy: K-12 Professional Development as a Model for College Science Faculty

培养一支科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面准备充分的劳动力队伍是国家的优先事项。这支队伍需要在科学上取得进步，推进国家卫生倡议，并在一个日益技术化的经济中支持国家的整体繁荣。学院和大学在应对这一挑战时面临的一个当代挑战是需要为教职员工提供有效的职业发展机会。例如，专业发展可以帮助教师了解与学生学习相关的新兴研究，这些知识可以为教学实践提供信息。该项目旨在通过召集K-12和高等教育的专业发展领袖来确定大学理科教学专业发展的新模式的设计原则，以服务于国家利益。该项目旨在借鉴K-12专业基于证据的、有效的专业发展实践，并将这些策略应用于教授本科生生物学专业的教职员工的项目。多个用于专业发展的K-12模式已经过严格的测试和证明，可以改善教师的知识、技能和学生的学习。这次会议的目的是特别关注旨在揭示和回应学生思维的教学方法。该项目将支持为期三天的会议，以确定大学生物学教师新的专业发展计划的设计原则。该模型将从K-12专业发展模型中派生出组件，并专注于帮助教师学习揭示和回应学生思维的教育法。这次会议将扩大STEM教育领域两个成熟的研究和专业发展小组的工作，这两个小组是构造反应自动分析项目(AACR)和科学教师从课堂分析中学习项目(STELLA)。AACR专注于本科科学教育，并致力于：创建揭示学生对科学概念的心理模型的建构性反应评估；创建机器学习模型以预测专家对学生反应的评分；为教师制作报告，描述对学生写作的计算机化分析；以及支持AACR教师用户的长期本地教师学习社区。Stella支持K-12教师通过学生思维的视角来看待他们的教学。Stella的专业发展方法的有效性已通过随机和准实验研究得到证明，这些研究将教师学习与增加的学生学习联系起来。会议将包括AACR和STELLA的成员以及来自其他高等教育和K-12职业发展领域的专家。会议将制定一个新的大学生物专业发展计划的框架，该计划可以实施和研究。它还将创建一个由来自K-12和高等教育的科学教育专业发展专家和研究人员组成的网络。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

It is a national priority to produce a well-prepared workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This workforce is needed to make progress in science, to advance national health initiatives, and support overall national prosperity in an increasingly technical economy. One contemporary challenge colleges and universities face in meeting this challenge is the need to provide effective professional development opportunities for faculty members. For example, professional development could help faculty learn about emerging research related to student learning, and this knowledge could inform teaching practices. This project aims to serve the national interest by convening professional development leaders from both K-12 and higher education to determine the design principles of a new model of professional development for college science teaching. This project is designed to draw upon evidence-based, effective professional development practices from the K-12 sector, and to apply these strategies to programs for faculty members teaching undergraduate biology students. Multiple K-12 models for professional development have been rigorously tested and shown to improve teacher knowledge, skill, and student learning. This gathering is designed to focus specifically on teaching and learning methods designed to reveal and respond to student thinking.This project will support a three-day conference to define the design principles of a new professional development program for college biology faculty. The model will derive components from K-12 professional development models and focus on helping faculty learn the pedagogy of revealing and responding to student thinking. The conference will extend the work of two well-established research and professional development groups in STEM education, the Automated Analysis of Constructed Response project (AACR) and the Science Teachers Learning from Lesson Analysis project (STeLLA). AACR focuses on undergraduate science education and addresses: the creation of constructed-response assessments that reveal students' mental models of scientific concepts; the creation of machine learning models to predict experts' scoring of student responses; the production of reports for faculty that describe the computerized analysis of student writing; and long-term, local faculty learning communities that support faculty users of AACR. STeLLA supports K-12 teachers to view their teaching through the lens of student thinking. The efficacy of STeLLA's approach to professional development has been demonstrated through randomized and quasi-experimental studies that link teacher learning with increased student learning. The conference will include members of AACR and STeLLA as well as experts from other higher education and K-12 professional development arenas. The conference will produce a framework for developing a new college biology professional development program, which can be implemented and researched. It also will create a network of science education professional development specialists and researchers from both K-12 and higher education.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.