Collaborative Research: Impacting Assessment Practices of Postsecondary Faculty Teaching Gateway Chemistry Courses

该项目旨在通过改进本科化学教育来服务于国家利益。评估学生在科学课程中学习的性质和质量是一个复杂的过程。由于学生将他们的学习努力集中在他们期望测试的内容上，因此高质量的评估作为学生学习的驱动力至关重要。评估结果还通知利益攸关方，如机构认证委员会和未来的雇主。然而，教授大学理科课程的教职员工通常不会接受关于如何在课程中创建和使用可靠评估的培训。这个项目将为两年制学院的教职员工提供专业发展经验，帮助他们在普通化学和有机化学课程中使用可靠的评估实践。该项目将为教职员工举办一系列为期三天的四个区域研讨会。在每个研讨会之后，将为参与者提供为期一年的虚拟指导体验，以支持他们将在研讨会中学到的知识付诸实施。与会者将被鼓励参加来自同一机构或地理区域的团队，以最大限度地获得当地支持和社区发展。在整个项目中开发的专业社区和评估计划预计将对教师的评估实践和学生在其化学课程中的学习产生持续的影响。南佛罗里达大学、格兰德山谷州立大学和威斯康星大学密尔沃基分校将为两年制学院的教师设计、实施和评估专业发展经验。教师工作坊的参与者将获得制定课程学习目标、使课程学习目标与学科框架保持一致、阐明测试规范文档以及编写和评估评估项目的知识和技能。在接下来的整个学年中，参与者将实施他们开发的评估材料。将举行每月一次的在线会议，让与会者分享他们的实施经验并相互提供支持，并让项目团队提供指导。通过面对面的研讨会和在线辅导会议，项目团队还将收集数据来开发、改进和评估教师评估实践变化的模型。以教师为中心的系统改革模式将作为指导框架。将根据研讨会和实施手工艺品、半结构化访谈和对研讨会参与者的调查，为每个参与者构建案例研究，强调个人和文化背景以及关于教学和学习的信念如何与制定的评估做法相关联。将进行交叉案例分析，以更好地了解工作坊和在线会议的影响，包括评估做法变化的加速器和障碍、社区在促进评估改革中的作用，以及改善专上教师专业发展的机会。该项目的研讨会材料和研究成果将纳入美国化学学会化学教育考试研究所未来提供的评估研讨会。该项目的成功将由一个外部咨询委员会进行评估。该项目有可能产生关于社区实践方法对评估STEM教育实践改革的影响的新知识。该项目由NSF IUSE：EHR计划资助，该计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，该计划支持高等教育机构和学科社区转变和改进STEM教育的努力。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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving undergraduate chemistry education. Assessing the nature and quality of students’ learning in science courses is a complex process. Since students focus their learning efforts on what they expect they will be tested on, high-quality assessments are vitally important as drivers of student learning. Results of assessments also inform stakeholders such as institutional accreditation boards and future employers. However, faculty members who teach college science courses typically do not receive training about how to create and use robust assessments in their courses. This project will provide professional development experiences for faculty members at two-year colleges to help them use robust assessment practices in their general chemistry and organic chemistry courses. The project will conduct a series of four three-day regional workshops for faculty members. Each workshop will be followed by a yearlong virtual mentoring experience for the participants, to support them as they implement what they learned in the workshops. Attendees will be encouraged to participate in teams from the same institution or geographical area to maximize local support and community development. The professional communities and assessment plans developed throughout the project are expected to have sustained impacts on faculty members’ assessment practices and on students’ learning in their chemistry courses.This collaboration between the University of South Florida, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will design, implement, and evaluate professional development experiences for faculty members at two-year colleges. Faculty workshop participants will gain knowledge and skills in developing course learning objectives, aligning course learning objectives with disciplinary frameworks, articulating test specification documents, and writing and evaluating assessment items. Throughout the subsequent academic year, participants will implement the assessment materials they developed. Monthly online meetings will be held for participants to share their implementation experiences and offer each other support, and for the project team to provide mentorship. Throughout the face-to-face workshops and online mentoring meetings, the project team will also collect data to develop, refine, and evaluate a model of faculty assessment practice change. The Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform model will serve as the guiding framework. Case studies will be constructed for each participant based on workshop and implementation artifacts, semi-structured interviews and surveys of the workshop participants that highlight how personal and cultural context and beliefs about teaching and learning are associated with enacted assessment practices. A cross case analysis will be conducted to better understand the impact of the workshops and online meetings including accelerators and barriers of assessment practice change, role of community in promoting assessment reform, and opportunities to improve postsecondary faculty professional development. The workshop materials and research findings from the project will be incorporated into future assessment workshops offered by the American Chemical Society’s Chemical Education Examinations Institute. The success of the project will be evaluated by an external advisory board. The project has the potential to generate new knowledge regarding the impact of a community practice approach to assessment practice reform in STEM education. This project is funded by the NSF IUSE: EHR Program, which supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.