Enhancing Durable and Efficient Student Learning in Undergraduate Gateway STEM Courses

增强学生在本科入门 STEM 课程中持久、高效的学习

• 批准号: 1914499
• 负责人: John Dunlosky
• 金额: $ 55.21万
• 依托单位: Kent State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-12-01 至 2024-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1914499&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Enhancing; Durable; Efficient; Student; Learning

This project aims to serve the national interest by applying learning research to help undergraduate students learn and remember foundational scientific concepts. In STEM disciplines, students must be able to remember and use what they learned in introductory courses months after those courses have ended. This durability of knowledge enables students to build a cumulative knowledge base as they move from introductory classes to more advanced coursework. Accordingly, instructors in introductory STEM courses face a major problem: how can they help their students learn key concepts so that they remember and can use this knowledge in the future? The problem is even more overwhelming when one considers the amount of information that STEM students are expected to learn. If students are to learn and remember all the important content, they must use their study time as efficiently as possible. To help instructors and students meet these challenges, this Development and Implementation (Level I) proposal (Engaged Student Learning Track) will evaluate a web-based learning tool. This tool applies research about how people make long-term memories and will be used by students in gateway courses in chemistry, biology, and physics. At intervals, the tool will quiz students about foundational concepts and provide feedback on their performance. The project expects that, by providing multiple opportunities to remember, review, and relearn foundational concepts, the tool will improve the efficiency and durability of students' learning. This review-feedback method is based on simple, but powerful learning tasks. As a result, it could be used for a broad range of content across many STEM courses. Thus, this project has the potential to enhance student success in many STEM disciplines. The specific objectives of this project are to experimentally evaluate: 1) the efficacy of using a Retrieval-Monitoring-Feedback (RMF) method to improve student achievement on high-stakes exams in gateway STEM courses; 2) the degree to which the RMF method enhances performance on distal outcomes; and 3) the degree to which a refresher session using the RMF method enhances course exam performance in advanced courses in the subsequent semester. Fundamental concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics will be identified, and the web-based tool will prompt students to study the course concepts twice a week. During each study session, the web-based tool will prompt students to retrieve the targeted concepts and will provide feedback that allows students to accurately score their responses and to relearn the correct answers. Students will continue being quizzed until they can correctly retrieve the meaning of each concept, and then they will repeat this procedure to review or relearn the same concepts in subsequent sessions. Based on laboratory studies of learning, it is known that such successive relearning can produce durable learning of science concepts. Thus, a major benefit of the project to society is that it will evaluate its efficacy for boosting students' achievement outside of the laboratory, specifically in the real-world context of undergraduate science courses in biology, chemistry, and physics. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources, which 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.

该项目旨在通过应用学习研究来帮助本科生学习和记住基础科学概念来服务国家利益。在STEM学科中，学生必须能够记住并使用他们在这些课程结束几个月后在入门课程中学到的知识。 这种知识的耐用性使学生从入门课程转变为更高级的课程时就可以建立一个累积的知识库。因此，入门词干课程的讲师面临着一个主要问题：他们如何帮助学生学习关键概念，以便他们记住并可以将来使用这些知识？当人们考虑到STEM学生将学习的信息量时，这个问题就会更加压倒性。 如果学生要学习并记住所有重要内容，他们必须尽可能高效地利用学习时间。为了帮助讲师和学生应对这些挑战，这种发展和实施（I级）建议（参与学生学习轨道）将评估基于网络的学习工具。 该工具应用了有关人们如何创造长期记忆的研究，并将在化学，生物学和物理学的网关课程中使用学生使用。 该工具将在间隔地问学生有关基础概念的问题，并就其表现提供反馈。 该项目预计，通过提供多个机会来记住，审查和重新学习基础概念，该工具将提高学生学习的效率和耐用性。 此评论反馈方法基于简单但强大的学习任务。 结果，它可以用于许多STEM课程的广泛内容。因此，该项目有可能增强学生在许多STEM学科中的成功。该项目的具体目标是实验评估：1）使用检索监测反馈（RMF）方法的功效来提高在Gateway STEM课程中高风险考试的学生成就； 2）RMF方法在远端结果上增强性能的程度； 3）使用RMF方法进行复习会议的程度增强了随后学期的高级课程课程考试表现。将确定生物学，化学和物理学的基本概念，基于网络的工具将促使学生每周两次学习课程概念。 在每个研究课程中，基于Web的工具将促使学生检索目标概念，并提供反馈，使学生能够准确评分他们的回答并重新学习正确的答案。学生将继续进行测验，直到他们可以正确检索每个概念的含义为止，然后他们将重复此程序以在随后的会议中审查或重新学习相同的概念。基于学习实验室研究，众所周知，这种连续的重新学习可以产生对科学概念的持久学习。 因此，该项目对社会的主要好处是，它将评估其在实验室外提高学生成就的功效，特别是在生物学，化学和物理学本科科学课程的现实环境中。 该项目得到了NSF改善本科STEM教育计划的支持：教育和人力资源，该计划支持研发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与的学生学习轨道，该计划支持有希望的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估的评估来支持的。