Implementing a Framework for Assessing Teaching Effectiveness

在美国国家科学基金会“改善本科STEM教育：教育与人力资源”（IUSE: EHR）项目的支持下，本项目旨在通过鼓励和衡量大学STEM课程中有效教学实践的使用，为国家利益服务。学生学习和学业成绩的广泛提高需要教师和教育机构对良好教学的广泛承诺。良好的教学包括采用以学生为中心、以证据为基础、主动学习的教学实践。虽然使用这些方法的教学可以提高学生的成绩，这是公认的，但教师和机构在采用这些方法方面进展缓慢，前后不一。共享的测量和评估方法可以加强对良好教学的承诺，但需要做更多的工作来维持改进并使良好教学成为规范。为了解决这个问题，研究人员开发了一个框架和附带的标准来评估教学效果，强调以学生为中心，以证据为基础，积极的学习实践。这个项目将调查框架和标准在教师评价过程中的潜力。为此，它将建立一个由30名不同教职员工组成的模拟STEM“部门”，以及一个模拟系主任和一个模拟晋升和终身教职委员会。模拟系将在教师评价过程中使用该框架和标准。使用机构数据作为控制，项目团队将调查使用该框架如何影响教师的教学实践和对校园教学氛围的态度。这个小规模的研究是实现教育系统愿景的一步，在这个系统中，以学习者为中心的教学得到适当的评估、认可和奖励。该项目的目标是引入一种新的教学评估策略，并探讨采用该策略所面临的挑战，旨在为该框架的政策、实践和进一步发展提供信息。研究者的教学有效性评估框架关注有效教学的四个要素，所有这些要素都需要出现以优化学生的学习：有效的课程设计，学术教学，以学习者为中心和专业发展。教与学中心将举办研讨会，以支持各学系在教员评估过程中实施该框架，支持教员根据该框架编制教学档案，并支持教员采用该框架所述的各种教学实践。研究人员将研究教学框架和评估的变化是否会导致(1)教师对校园文化和教学价值的看法发生变化，(2)教学实践发生变化，以及(3)采用框架中描述的有效教学实践的动机增加。调查人员将使用来自不同来源的数据来衡量实践和气候的潜在变化，包括教师作品集叙述和标题分数、焦点小组和学生成绩，以及诸如基于证据的教学实践采用量表、本科STEM课堂观察协议、当前教学气候调查、高等教育教学实践调查和学生教学评估等工具。国家科学基金会的IUSE: EHR项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。这是参与学生学习轨道中的一个项目，它支持有前途的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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。

With support from NSF's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) program, this project aims to serve the national interest by encouraging and measuring the use of effective teaching practices in college STEM courses. Widespread improvement in the learning and academic success of students requires widespread commitment to good teaching by faculty and by educational institutions. Good teaching includes the use of student-centered, evidence-based, active-learning instructional practices. Although it is well-established that instruction using these practices enhances student success, faculty and institutions have been slow and inconsistent in adopting them. Shared measurements and evaluation approaches can enhance commitments to good teaching, but more work is needed to sustain improvements and to make good teaching the norm. To address this issue, the investigators have developed a framework and accompanying rubric to assess teaching effectiveness that emphasizes student-centered, evidence-based, active-learning practices. This project will investigate the potential of the framework and rubric in faculty evaluation processes. To do so, it will set up a mock STEM "department" of 30 diverse faculty members, along with a mock department chair and a mock promotion and tenure committee. The mock department will use the framework and rubric in the course of faculty evaluation. Using institutional data as the control, the project team will investigate how using the framework affects faculty members' teaching practices and attitudes about the campus climate around teaching. This small-scale study is one step toward achieving the vision of an educational system in which learner-centered teaching is appropriately assessed, recognized, and rewarded.The goal of the project is to introduce a new strategy for assessing teaching and to explore challenges to its adoption, with the intent of informing policy, practice, and further development of the framework. The investigators' Framework for Assessing Teaching Effectiveness focuses on four elements of effective teaching, all of which need to be present to optimize student learning: effective course design, scholarly teaching, learner-centeredness, and professional development. Workshops will be offered through the Center for Teaching and Learning to support departmental implementation of the framework in faculty evaluation processes, support faculty members in compiling a teaching portfolio in response to the framework, and support instructors in adopting the kinds of teaching practices described in the framework. The investigators will examine whether changes to the framing and assessment of teaching will result in (1) changes in faculty members' perceptions of the campus culture and the value placed on teaching, (2) changes to teaching practices, and (3) increased motivation to adopt the effective teaching practices described in the framework. The investigators will measure potential changes in practices and climate using data from different sources, including faculty portfolio narratives and rubric scores, focus groups, and student outcomes, as well as tools such as the Evidence Based Instructional Practices Adoption Scale, the Classroom Observations Protocol for Undergraduate STEM, the Current Instructional Climate Survey, the Postsecondary Instructional Practices Survey, and the Student Evaluation of Teaching. NSF's IUSE: EHR program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This is a project in the Engaged Student Learning track, which supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.