Exploratory Learning Activities: Evidence, Mechanisms, and Professional Development in Undergraduate STEM Courses

该项目旨在通过开发和测试本科STEM课程中探索性学习的有效性来服务于国家利益。 探索性学习通过让学生在正式教学之前探索一个新的问题来颠倒典型的教学顺序。 这种方法使学生能够识别他们的知识差距，然后他们可以积极工作，以填补。 在老师授课之前，自己探索新的问题和概念，已经证明可以提高学生的概念理解。探索性学习帮助学生准确地认识到问题的重要特征和自己的知识差距，使学生为从正式课程中学习做好准备。探索性学习类似于基于问题的学习和类似的方法。 然而，它比相关的战略更容易实施，需要更少的教师培训和努力融入现有的课程。 它已被广泛用于K-12教育，但在本科教育中处于起步阶段。 因此，本研究生学习项目的主要目标是开发和测试探索性学习技术在本科STEM课程中的有效性。作为一种积极的学习方法，更充分地参与所有学生，探索性学习可能有更多的优势，增加公平的成功，在干类和干劳动力。本项目还将研究在课堂上使用探索性学习的教师如何学习新的科学教学策略。本项目的结果可能有助于开发专业发展的最佳实践，采用和实施的探索性学习strategies.This project将测试探索性学习的因果有效性，通过比较使用一个新的活动之前，指示传统的讲座，然后实践的方法。受控课堂实验将用于测试四个STEM学科（生物学，化学，物理学和工程数学）的本科课程中的探索性学习，超过3000个STEM专业和非专业。STEM教师，基于学科的教育研究人员和认知科学家将在跨学科的实践社区中共同努力，为每门课程开发探索活动和评估。支持探索性学习的学习机制将通过调查和实验中的迭代改进进行检查。将制定一个综合框架，以确定如何设计探索性学习活动，以最好地支持概念理解。已知与学生在主动学习环境中的成绩相关的因素将被检查，如社会归属感和科学自我效能感。本计画也将使用质性的方法来研究教师在课堂上使用探究式学习时，其观点与身份如何演变。当学习科学家和STEM教师一起工作时，使用基于证据的教学实践，如探索性学习，可以在机构中广泛采用。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and testing the effectiveness of exploratory learning in undergraduate STEM courses. Exploratory learning reverses the typical order of instruction by having students explore a novel problem prior to formal instruction. This approach allows students to identify gaps in their knowledge that they may then actively work to fill. Exploring new problems and concepts oneself, before being taught by an instructor, has been shown to improve students’ conceptual understanding. Exploratory learning helps students accurately recognize the important features of a problem and their own knowledge gaps, preparing students to learn from formal lessons. Exploratory learning is similar to problem-based learning and similar approaches. However, it is simpler to implement than related strategies, requiring less faculty training and effort to integrate into existing courses. It has been widely used in K-12 education but is in its infancy in undergraduate education. Thus, the main goal of this Engaged Student Learning project is to develop and test the effectiveness of exploratory learning techniques in undergraduate STEM courses. As an active learning method that more fully engages all students, exploratory learning may have additional advantages for increasing equitable success in STEM classes and in the STEM workforce. This project will also examine how instructors who use exploratory learning in their classes engage in learning new scientifically informed teaching strategies. Results from this project may help to develop best practices for professional development, adoption, and implementation of exploratory learning strategies.This project will test the causal effectiveness of exploratory learning by comparing the use of a novel activity prior to instruction to traditional lecture-then-practice methods. Controlled classroom experiments will be used to test exploratory learning in undergraduate courses across four STEM disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering-mathematics), with over 3000 STEM majors and non-majors. STEM faculty, discipline-based education researchers, and cognitive scientists will work together in an interdisciplinary community of practice to develop exploration activities and assessments for each course. The learning mechanisms that support exploratory learning will be examined using surveys and iterative refinements across experiments. An integrative framework will be developed to identify how to design exploratory learning activities to best support conceptual understanding. Factors known to be associated with student achievement in active learning settings will be examined, such as social-belonging and science self-efficacy. This project will also use qualitative methods to study how instructors’ perspectives and identities as educators evolve as they use exploratory learning in their classrooms. Use of evidence-based teaching practices such as exploratory learning could become widely adopted at institutions when learning scientists and STEM instructors work together. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program 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.