REU Site: Growing up STEM: An Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Undergraduate STEM Education

为了加强科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的学习，我们需要更好地了解学生如何获取和使用STEM知识，以及教师如何帮助学生学习。以学科为基础的教育研究人员(DBER)将他们的STEM专业知识应用于教与学的研究，从而促进了这种理解。DBER是一个相对年轻的领域，我们需要培养更多的学者来做这项重要的研究。北达科他州州立大学(NDSU)的本科生研究体验(REU)网站将通过主办一个暑期项目来满足这一需求，该项目将吸引30名本科生进行基于学科的科学和数学教育研究。通过这个REU网站，学生参与者将从各种各样的研究项目中进行选择，这些研究项目对STEM的教与学的性质提出了重要的问题。教师导师的跨学科团队提供了一套不同的项目，涉及生物、化学、数学、物理和心理学等学科。这种研究的多样性使REU参与者接触到近十几个其他项目，以丰富他们对在DBER进行的广泛调查的经验和了解。学生将通过与导师的在线互动，包括阅读和讨论相关研究论文，来启动他们的研究体验。这种早期的虚拟辅导将有两方面的好处：学生在进入校园之前接受基本的教育研究培训，并开始与他们的研究导师建立关系。一旦他们到达NDSU，REU研究员将参与一个学习社区，其中包括队列建设活动，以及教师和同行指导，以支持他们的研究活动。REU学生还将参加一个结构良好的职业发展系列，在这个系列中，他们将学习道德实践、研究方法、科学交流和陈述技能、进入研究生院的途径以及在STEM的职业生涯。学生们将在项目的前半部分通过非正式的粉笔演讲来展示他们的研究和成果，然后在暑期结束时更正式地在顶石海报研讨会上展示他们的研究和成果。除了终结性评估外，项目团队还将实施持续的形成性评估，以提供反馈，帮助他们每年细化和改进REU网站。学生入学和退学调查、学生访谈、教师调查和校友跟踪调查将为课程的持续改进提供必要的数据。总体而言，REU网站将建立以学科为基础的教育研究人才库，并为改善本科STEM教育做出贡献。本科生研究体验(REU)计划支持本科生在NSF资助的研究领域积极参与研究。该REU项目由NSF的教育与人力资源局核心研究(ECR)计划及其改进的本科生STEM教育(IUSE)计划支持。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。

To enhance learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), we need to better understand how students acquire and use STEM knowledge, and how instructors can help students learn. Discipline-based education researchers (DBERs) contribute to this understanding by applying their STEM expertise to the study of teaching and learning. DBER is a relatively young field and we need to train more scholars to do this important research. This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at North Dakota State University (NDSU) will address this need by hosting a summer program that will engage 30 undergraduate students in conducting discipline-based education research in science and mathematics.Through this REU Site, the student participants will select from a wide variety of research projects that pose important questions about the nature of teaching and learning in STEM. The interdisciplinary team of faculty mentors provides a diverse set of projects across the disciplines of biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and psychology. This diversity in research exposes REU participants to nearly a dozen other projects to enrich their experience with and understanding of the breadth of investigations conducted in DBER. Students will jump-start their research experience through online interactions with their mentors, including reading and discussing relevant research papers. The benefits of this early, virtual mentoring will be two-fold: students receive essential training in education research and begin to develop relationships with their research mentors prior to arriving on campus. Once they arrive at NDSU, the REU fellows will participate in a learning community that includes cohort-building activities, as well as both faculty and peer mentoring to support their research activities. REU students will also participate in a well-structured professional development series in which they will learn about ethical practices; research methods; scientific communication and presentation skills; pathways to graduate school; and careers in STEM. Students will present their research and results through informal chalk talks in the first half of the program and then more formally at a capstone poster symposium at the end of the summer. In addition to summative evaluation, the project team will implement continuous formative evaluation to provide feedback that helps them refine and improve the REU Site each year. Student entrance and exit surveys, student interviews, faculty surveys, and alumni follow-up surveys will provide essential data for continuous program improvement. Overall, this REU Site will build the discipline-based education research talent pool and contribute to improvements in undergraduate STEM education.The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in areas of research funded by NSF. This REU project is supported by NSF's Education & Human Resources Directorate Core Research (ECR) Program and its Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program.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.