Developing an Educator's On-ramp to Facilitate More Effective Undergraduate Teaching of Tectonics: Middletown, CT - January 2019

在过去的二十年里，为了更有效地教育所有学生，同时增加未来劳动力所需的STEM专业的招生和留住，人们已经做出了广泛的努力来改革科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的本科教学。这一转变包括从主要以讲授和内容为基础的教学转向更具互动性和以探究为基础的课程。在地球科学领域，变革的主要推动者之一是美国国家科学基金会(NSF)对尖端专业发展计划的支持。从2002年到2012年，该项目提供了100多个专业发展研讨会，覆盖了约20%的地球科学教师。虽然这个项目对地球科学的教学实践产生了重大影响，但统计数据表明，很大比例的地球科学教师尚未将互动教学实践纳入他们的本科课程。此外，前一项工作的成功已经导致了大量的资源集合(超过5000页)，这些资源对新用户来说可能是压倒性的。因此，该项目的目标是为教授板块构造相关课程的教员开发并广泛分发一套针对现有资源的简短、快速入门的手册，名为入口处指南。这些入门指南将有助于获取现有的社区资源，并采用更具互动性和探究性的教学。虽然这一努力源于最近提交给美国国家科学基金会的构造学社区愿景文件中的建议，但主要调查人员预计，他们开发的资源可以很容易地适应其他地球科学学科或STEM领域。尽管在过去20年中取得了重大进展，但仍有很大比例的地球科学教师尚未将参与式教学实践纳入他们的课程。这个项目的目的是接触到并使一部分教授板块构造相关课程但尚未采用参与式教学法的最佳做法的教员能够参与其中。根据最近的构造学社区愿景文件中提出的建议，主要调查人员计划开发一套六个简短、快速启动的资源，名为术语入口指南，这将有助于获得和采用更积极参与和更具包容性的教学法。每个~2页的入站指南将集中于一个与地球科学教育相关的主题，并将包括对该主题的简短描述，以及示范构造学教学活动的列表，以及指向其他资源的链接，以供进一步探索。赠款支持的主要活动将是1)组织12名参与者组成小组并启动开发进程的初步虚拟会议，2)为期三天的小组写作讲习班，以面对面地编写入口指南并为其分发做好准备，以及3)分发完成的指南。入口指南将作为网页发布，可通过科学教育资源中心(SERC)托管的现有地球科学教育资源网页上的高级链接获得，并以具有活跃网络链接的pdf文件形式分发。Pdf格式将使我们能够通过电子邮件广泛发送指南，并将其托管在SERC以外的网站上，以使更多的人能够发现、导航和使用可用的资源。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。

Over the last two decades a widespread effort has been mounted to transform the undergraduate teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in order to more effectively educate all students and at the same time increase recruitment and retention of STEM majors needed for the future workforce. This transformation includes a move from primarily lecture and content-based teaching to more interactive and inquiry-based courses. In the geosciences one of the leading agents of change has been the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) supported On the Cutting Edge professional development program. From 2002 to 2012 this program offered more than 100 professional development workshops that reached ~20% of geoscience faculty. While this program has had a significant impact on teaching practice in the geosciences, statistics suggest a large percentage of geoscience faculty has yet to move toward incorporating interactive teaching practices in their undergraduate courses. Furthermore, the very success of this previous effort has led to a voluminous collection (more than 5000 pages) of resources that can appear overwhelming to new users. The goal of this project is thus to develop and widely distribute a set of short, quick-start manuals for existing resources, named on-ramp guides, to faculty members who teach courses related to plate tectonics. These on-ramp guides will facilitate access to existing community resources and adoption of more interactive and inquiry-based teaching. While this effort stems from recommendations made in the recent tectonics community vision document submitted to the NSF, principal investigators anticipate that the resources they develop could easily be adapted to other geoscience disciplines or STEM fields.Despite significant gains over the last two decades, there remains a large percentage of geoscience instructors who have yet to move toward incorporating engaged teaching practices in their courses. The purpose of this project is to reach and enable a portion of faculty members who teach courses related to plate tectonics but have not yet adopted best practices of engaged pedagogy. Following recommendations made in the recent tectonics community vision document, the principal investigators plan to develop a set of six short, quick-start resources, named term on-ramp guides, that will help facilitate access to and adoption of a more engaged and inclusive pedagogy. Each ~2 page on-ramp guide will focus on a single geoscience education-related topic and will include a short description of the topic as well as a list of exemplary tectonics teaching activities with links to additional resources for further exploration. The primary activities supported by the grant will be 1) a preliminary virtual meeting to organize the twelve participants into teams and to launch the development process, 2) a three-day writing workshop for teams to meet face-to-face to write the on-ramp guides and prepare them for dissemination, and 3) dissemination of the completed guides. On-ramp guides will be published as web pages available through high-level links on the existing geoscience education resource pages hosted by the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) and disseminated as pdf files with active web links. The pdf format will enable us to email the guides widely and have them hosted on web sites other than those at SERC in order to enable more people to discover, navigate, and use the available resources.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.