CAREER - The Winding Roads to Effective Teaching: Characterizing the Progressions in Instructional Knowledge and Practices of STEM Faculty

职业生涯 - 有效教学的曲折之路：描述 STEM 教师教学知识和实践的进步

• 批准号: 2021491
• 负责人: Marilyne Stains
• 金额: $ 44.59万
• 依托单位: University of Virginia Main Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-20 至 2022-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2021491&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Winding; Roads; Effective; Teaching

National initiatives to improve undergraduate science education build upon decades of research on and development of effective teaching practices. These evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) promote students' conceptual understanding and favorable attitudes about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), with the greatest impacts observed among women and members of underrepresented groups. By improving retention rates and attracting a more diverse student population to the sciences, these research-based ways of teaching science can help address the national need to educate STEM-literate graduates and advance workforce development goals. The challenge is fostering the effective use of these teaching practices on a national scale. STEM faculty members are at the core of any successful instructional reform, yet surprisingly little is known about them with respect to their teaching. As extensive resources and efforts are currently focused on transforming STEM instructional practices at the college level nationally, there is a critical need to characterize STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching, instructional practices, relationships between the two, as well as progressions of this knowledge and these practices over time. Moreover, there is a need to characterize these progressions under varying reform environments (short workshops versus semester-long professional development; different departmental and institutional culture around teaching), as well as for faculty at various points of their academic career. Results of this foundational research will provide critical insight into the diverse progressions of STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices, which will inform current national and local reform efforts that aim at the widespread implementation of EBIPs in STEM courses in college settings.This NSF Faculty Early Career Development project will address a wide gap in the discipline-based education research literature about STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices. Specifically, the project will characterize how STEM faculty members' practical theories and their integration with instructional practices evolve in the contexts of different (a) levels of experience as faculty members; (b) climate, culture, and rewards structures of departments and institutions; and (c) formal and informal professional development experiences. The research is grounded in the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform Model, which describes faculty members' decision-making processes about teaching and influences impacting these processes. A convergent, longitudinal mixed methods design will be implemented to address the research questions. Quantitative data will include surveys, classroom observations, and course artifacts. The qualitative component will consist of an embedded collective case study. Data collected will include interviews with faculty and course artifacts. These research activities will result in an enhanced understanding of STEM faculty members' a) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) elements, b) orientations toward teaching and beliefs about teaching, and c) instructional practices, as well as d) alignment among these three constructs under various contexts (e.g., faculty at different levels of their academic career, faculty experiencing different types of departmental and institutional climate, and faculty participating in different types of formal and informal professional development). This foundational research will further inform the theoretical framework and provide critical insights on effective practices for STEM faculty professional development to the STEM community at large. The research and education program will be fully integrated: one component of the education program, a professional development program for STEM faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), will serve as the context for part of the study; in turn, the results of the study will inform the design and implementation of the professional development program but will also provide opportunities to offer one-on-one teaching consultations with UNL STEM faculty and will inform the design of a graduate-level curriculum on reformed instructional practices.

在数十年的研究和发展有效的教学实践的研究和发展的基础上，全国旨在改善本科科学教育的举措。这些基于证据的教学实践（EBIP）促进了学生对科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的概念理解和良好的态度，在妇女和代表性不足的群体的成员中观察到了最大的影响。通过提高保留率并吸引科学的学生人数更多样化，这些基于研究的教学科学方式可以帮助满足国家对STEM识字毕业生教育和提高劳动力发展目标的需求。面临的挑战是在国家规模上促进这些教学实践的有效利用。 STEM教师是任何成功的教学改革的核心，但令人惊讶的是，他们对他们的教学知之甚少。由于目前，广泛的资源和努力专注于在全国范围内在大学层面转变STEM教学实践，因此迫切需要表征STEM教师的教学知识基础，教学实践，两者之间的关系以及这些知识的进步以及这些实践的进步。此外，有必要在不同的改革环境（短期的讲习班与整个学期的专业发展；围绕教学的不同部门和机构文化）以及在他们学术生涯的各个方面的教师来表征这些进步。 Results of this foundational research will provide critical insight into the diverse progressions of STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices, which will inform current national and local reform efforts that aim at the widespread implementation of EBIPs in STEM courses in college settings.This NSF Faculty Early Career Development project will address a wide gap in the discipline-based education research literature about STEM faculty members' knowledge base for teaching and instructional practices.具体而言，该项目将表征STEM教师的实践理论及其与教学实践的融合如何在不同（a）作为教师的经验水平的情况下发展的； （b）部门和机构的气候，文化和奖励； （c）正式和非正式的专业发展经验。这项研究基于以教师为中心的系统改革模型，该模型描述了教师关于教学的决策过程和影响这些过程的影响。将实施收敛的纵向混合方法设计以解决研究问题。定量数据将包括调查，课堂观察和课程工件。定性组成部分将包括一个嵌入式的集体案例研究。收集的数据将包括对教师和课程工件的访谈。 These research activities will result in an enhanced understanding of STEM faculty members' a) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) elements, b) orientations toward teaching and beliefs about teaching, and c) instructional practices, as well as d) alignment among these three constructs under various contexts (e.g., faculty at different levels of their academic career, faculty experiencing different types of departmental and institutional climate, and faculty participating in different types of formal and informal专业发展）。这项基础研究将进一步为理论框架提供信息，并为STEM社区的STEM教师专业发展提供有效实践的重要见解。研究和教育计划将完全集成：教育计划的一个组成部分，这是内布拉斯加林肯大学（UNL）的STEM教师的专业发展计划，将作为研究部分研究的背景；反过来，该研究的结果将为专业发展计划的设计和实施提供信息，但还将提供与UNL STEM教师一对一的教学咨询的机会，并将为改革教学实践的研究生级课程提供介绍。