Applying a Digital Tool to Support Self-regulated Learning Strategies in Introductory Geoscience Courses

该项目旨在通过改善学生在地球科学入门课程中的学习和成功来服务于国家利益。为此，它将修改和扩展一个原型在线工具，该工具向学生提供关于他们对知识的感知与他们的实际知识之间的关系的即时反馈。该工具名为CLASS(基于信心的学习精度支持系统)，提供了一个在线测验环境，用于衡量学生的学习情况和对学习的信心。然后显示结果，这些结果可以引导学生采取更有效的学习行为，从而提高课程表现。该项目有三个目标：a)改进该工具，以纳入更多的资源和扩展的问题数据库；b)通过增加移动应用程序和仪表盘来升级和扩展技术，以增强学生的用户体验；c)调查这些变化对不同机构类型(研究型大学、四年制学院和两年制学院)和多个地球科学入门课程的学生学习的影响。该项目将探索班级的应用，以加强两个拉美裔服务机构中代表性不足的学生的地球科学学习。因此，该项目将服务于受到COVID-19不成比例影响的社区的学生，关注于支持有效学生学习行为的教学干预措施，称为自我调节学习，已被证明能够带来更高的学业成就、更高的动机和更强的毅力。使用课堂工具的学生会收到有关他们的知识水平和他们对与教师定义的学习目标相联系的学习看法的准确性的即时反馈。因此，学生能够很容易地找出他们知识中的差距，并确定要学习什么来填补这些差距。自我调节学习是学生对自身思维的认识、对学习的监控和管理以及对学习动机和学习行为的控制的总和。有效的自我调节学习行为与学习的增加一致相关。这个项目将扩大CLASS的应用，CLASS是一个促进使用有效的自我调节学习行为的工具，也为教师提供了一种机制，可以对学生的学习质量提供自动反馈。课堂以教育心理学研究的结果为基础，提供有关课程教与学过程的信息，这些信息不能从传统的评估方法中轻易确定。课堂的使用将使认知研究的结果有可能直接整合到一门课程中，方法是应用一种任何教师都能轻易适应的通用评估方法。研究设计将提供准实验的定量数据(例如，测验结果)，以对课堂活动的影响做出因果推断，并结合学生访谈描述的关于他们使用工具的定性数据。该项目将制作一套相关材料，可以为各种地球科学入门课程定制。最后，学生学习的工具和基本方面的普遍性将使STEM和整个教育都能够应用调查结果和建议，以提高学生在本科课程中的成功。NSF IUSE：EHR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。通过参与的学生学习路径，该计划支持有前景的实践和工具的创建、探索和实施。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 student learning and success in introductory geoscience courses. To do so, it will modify and expand a prototype online tool that provides immediate feedback to students about the relationship between their perceptions of their knowledge and their actual knowledge. The tool, CLASS (Confidence-based Learning Accuracy Support System), provides an online quizzing environment that measures student learning and confidence in that learning. It then displays results that can guide students to adopt more effective learning behaviors and thus increase course performance. The project has three objectives, to: a) improve the tool to include more resources and an expanded question database; b) upgrade and expand the technology by adding a mobile app and dashboard to enhance the student user experience; and, c) investigate the effects of these changes on student learning at different institutional types (research university, four-year college, and a two-year college) and across multiple introductory geoscience courses. The project will explore the application of CLASS to enhance geoscience learning among underrepresented students at two Hispanic Serving Institutions. Consequently, the project will serve students from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.Instructional interventions that focus on supporting effective student learning behaviors, termed self-regulated learning, have been shown to result in greater academic achievement, improved motivation, and greater persistence. Students who use the CLASS tool receive immediate feedback on both their level of knowledge and the accuracy of their perceptions of their learning linked to instructor-defined learning objectives. Consequently, students are able to readily identify gaps in their knowledge and determine what to study to fill those gaps. Self-regulated learning represents the sum of a student's awareness of their own thinking, their approach to monitoring and managing their learning, and their control over motivations and behaviors related to learning. Effective self-regulated learning behaviors are consistently correlated with increased learning. This project will expand the application of CLASS, a tool that promotes the use of effective self-regulated learning behaviors and also gives instructors a mechanism for providing automated feedback about the quality of students' learning. CLASS is grounded in the findings of educational psychology research and provides information regarding course teaching and learning processes that cannot be readily ascertained from traditional assessment methods. The use of CLASS will make it possible to integrate the results of cognition research directly into a course by applying a common assessment method that could be readily adapted by any instructor. The research design will provide quasi-experimental quantitative data (e.g., quiz results) to make causal inferences about the effects of CLASS activities combined with qualitative data from student interview descriptions of their use of the tool. The project will produce a suite of related materials that can be customized for a variety of introductory geoscience courses. Finally, the generalizability of both the tool and essential facets of student learning will enable both STEM-wide and education-wide application of findings and recommendations for practices that increase student success in undergraduate courses. 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.