Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Open-access, Interactive, Video-Supported Training Resources for Peer Leaders in STEM Collaborative Learning

该项目旨在通过提高本科STEM教育的质量来服务于国家利益。 具体而言，它侧重于加强本科生的准备，以担任STEM课程的同行领导者。 众所周知，强调同伴指导和协作学习的教学方法可以提高学生在STEM中的成功率和保留率。 这些方法也有利于学生谁担任同侪领导人。 该项目旨在开发，实施，评估和传播一种用于培训本科STEM同行领导者的新资源。 这项培训将旨在强调鼓励学生团体和STEM中的包容感的做法。 先前的研究表明，那些不觉得自己被科学或STEM课堂所包含的学生可能会对参与集体活动（如协作学习）犹豫不决。 该项目旨在改进对同龄人领袖的培训，使他们更加了解可能妨碍学生归属感的因素，并能够制定促进包容的做法。 根据以前的工作，参加这种培训的本科生同侪领导者更有可能在他们的协作学习小组中参与包容性实践。 同伴导师实践的这种变化预计将导致更广泛的学生参与协作学习，并有可能增加传统上代表性不足的群体（如妇女和少数种族或族裔学生）在STEM中的保留率。 最终，这些努力有可能有助于增加国家STEM劳动力的多样性。该项目打算创建两个互动培训模块，可广泛用于培训STEM协作团体中包容性促进的同行领导人。 这些单元将以有效利用现场演员和罗切斯特大学同侪领导人培训的互动戏剧方法为基础。 每个新的培训模块都将是互动视频版本，旨在模拟以前使用的真人体验。 这些单元将上载到一个可免费访问的网站，其中包括：㈠一段视频，说明在模拟的同龄人领导的小组学习环境中参与的障碍; ㈡与场景中的学生角色进行互动视频访谈;以及（iii）一个包含讨论提示、作业和其他资源的课程计划，STEM教师，学生，和学习专家可以用来讨论视频。 在这项工作中，牵头机构罗切斯特大学将与美国第二大大学、西班牙裔学生占多数的德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校以及国家聋人技术学院所在地罗切斯特理工学院合作。 这一合作将使项目小组能够测试如何在不同的机构和教学环境中使用这些互动视频资源，包括同行领导的团队学习和学习助理方法。 将收集来自STEM同行领导者，协作组学生和教师的评价反馈，以探索这些培训资源的直接影响以及它们改善本科教育STEM协作环境的潜力。 该项目将通过测试使用数字媒体平台支持学生领袖互动培训的可行性来产生新的知识，以促进STEM中的包容性团体。 拟议的评估活动范围可以使人们更广泛地了解这种类型的培训资源如何改善STEM协作学习环境。 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 improving the quality of undergraduate STEM education. Specifically, it focuses on enhancing the preparation of undergraduate students to serve as peer leaders in STEM courses. Teaching approaches that emphasize peer instruction and collaborative learning are known to increase student success and retention in STEM. These approaches also benefit the students who serve as peer leaders. This project intends to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate a novel resource for training undergraduate STEM peer leaders. This training will be designed to emphasize practices that encourage feelings of inclusion in student groups and in STEM. Prior research has shown that students who do not feel included in science or in their STEM classrooms can be hesitant about participating in group activities, such as collaborative learning. This project aims to improve the training of peer leaders so that they are more aware of the factors that can impede a student’s sense of belonging and can develop practices that facilitate inclusion. Based on prior work, undergraduate peer leaders who participate in this training are more likely to engage in inclusive practices in their collaborative learning groups. This change in peer mentor practice is expected to lead to broader student participation in collaborative learning and has the potential to increase retention in STEM of traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women and students from racial or ethnic minorities. Ultimately, these efforts have the potential to contribute to increasing diversity within the national STEM workforce.The project intends to create two interactive training modules that could be widely used to train peer leaders in inclusive facilitation in STEM collaborative groups. These modules will be based on the effective use of live actors and an interactive theater approach for peer leader training at the University of Rochester. Each of the new training modules will be interactive video versions designed to simulate the previously used live-action experiences. These modules will be uploaded on a freely accessible website and will include: (i) a video of a scene illustrating barriers to participation in a simulated peer-led group learning environment; (ii) interactive video interviews with student characters in the scene; and (iii) a lesson plan with discussion prompts, assignments, and other resources that STEM faculty, students, and learning specialists can use for discussions of the videos. In this work, the University of Rochester, the lead institution, will partner with the University of Texas at El Paso, the second largest university with a majority Hispanic student population in the US, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, home of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. This collaboration will enable the project team to test how these interactive video resources can be used in different institutional and pedagogical contexts, including peer-led team learning and learning assistant approaches. Evaluative feedback from STEM peer leaders, students in collaborative groups, and faculty will be collected to explore the direct impact of these training resources as well as their potential to improve STEM collaborative environments in undergraduate education. The project will generate new knowledge by testing the feasibility of using a digital media platform to support interactive training of student leaders for inclusive group facilitation in STEM. The proposed range of evaluation activities could lead to a broader understanding of how this type of training resource can improve STEM collaborative learning environments. 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.