RAPID: Collaborative Research: Faculty Networks Supporting Rapid Transitions to Online Physics Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic

RAPID：协作研究：在 COVID-19 大流行期间支持快速过渡到在线物理教学的教师网络

• 批准号: 2027958
• 负责人: Eric Brewe
• 金额: $ 7.19万
• 依托单位: Drexel University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-15 至 2022-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2027958&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Collaborative; Research; Faculty; Networks

To minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus within their communities, colleges and universities around the nation have closed their campuses. Most have also decided to pivot to online instruction so students can continue their education and remain on track in their degree programs. To accomplish this goal, faculty in all disciplines have scrambled to quickly move their in-person classes to an online environment. Many of these faculty have not had previous experience teaching online. Many who have experience are not fluent with either the technologies or the most effective methods for teaching and learning in online environments. This project will systematically explore the ways in which physics faculty members around the nation, under enormous time pressure, are interacting with each other in online networks as they transition their physics courses online. These online networks can also help faculty navigate the stresses of teaching online and the anxiety of ensuring that students have a beneficial educational experience. This project will gather and analyze data to describe the characteristics of these networks and how they may support the transition to online teaching of physics and other STEM disciplines during a crisis and beyond.Academic and social networks are critical elements of student life in STEM, and they are also important for instructors. During this crisis, faculty are drawing on professional social networks to support their transition to online teaching. Additional research is needed to understand these informal faculty networks and to link these networks to outcomes for faculty and students. Because the coronavirus-related transition to online teaching has been so urgent and widespread, the situation presents a unique setting in which to apply techniques of social network analysis to study the roles of professional networks on a large scale within a discipline. To this end, the project will collect data from three primary components: (1) a survey of physics faculty as they transition to online teaching; (2) follow-up interviews with faculty; and (3) Twitter data-scraping to identify groups that are promoting and sharing approaches to online teaching. The three data sets will be connected and collectively contribute to analyses of network growth, resource sharing, personal community growth, and mediation of anxiety among college physics faculty. The study intends to reveal the extent to which the crisis has: 1) mobilized latent networks and formed new networks around physics teaching; 2) made such networks more salient and productive; 3) built faculty members' efficacy beliefs about their ability to teach physics online; and 4) mediated their anxiety about teaching online. In addition to revealing how faculty networks are localized and nationalized, the results can contribute to a greater understanding of how social networks influence instructional decision-making on different scales. If so, these results can inform future longitudinal studies of the persistence of educational transformations that occur during a crisis response, which may have generalizable application in understanding institutional change successes and failures. This RAPID award is made by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) program in the Division of Undergraduate Education (Directorate for Education and Human Resources).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.

为了最大程度地减少新颖的冠状病毒在其社区中的传播，全国各地的大学都关闭了校园。 大多数人还决定转移到在线教学上，以便学生可以继续他们的学业课程，并在学位课程中保持正轨。 为了实现这一目标，所有学科的教师都争先恐后地将他们的面对面课程转移到在线环境中。 这些教师中的许多人以前没有在线教学经验。 许多有经验的人对在线环境中的技术或最有效的教学方法都不会流利。该项目将系统地探索全国各地的物理教师在巨大的时间压力下，在线网络中相互互动，因为他们在网上过渡其物理课程。这些在线网络还可以帮助教师在线教学的压力以及确保学生拥有有益的教育经验的焦虑。该项目将收集和分析数据，以描述这些网络的特征，以及它们如何支持在危机及其他过程中向在线物理学和其他STEM学科的过渡。学术和社交网络是STEM中学生生活的关键要素，它们对讲师也很重要。 在这场危机期间，教师正在借鉴专业的社交网络，以支持其过渡到在线教学。需要进行其他研究来了解这些非正式的教师网络，并将这些网络与教师和学生的成果联系起来。由于与冠状病毒相关的在线教学的过渡非常紧迫和普遍，因此情况提出了一个独特的环境，可以在其中应用社交网络分析技术来研究专业网络在学科中大规模的角色。为此，该项目将从三个主要组成部分中收集数据：（1）物理教师过渡到在线教学时的调查； （2）对教师的后续采访； （3）Twitter数据剪贴画，以识别促进和共享在线教学方法的群体。这三个数据集将与大学物理学系之间的网络增长，资源共享，个人社区成长以及焦虑中的调解有关，并共同促进分析网络增长，资源共享，个人社区成长和调解。该研究旨在揭示危机的程度：1）动员潜在网络并围绕物理教学形成新的网络； 2）使此类网络更加突出和富有成效； 3）建立的教师关于他们在线教学能力的功效信念； 4）调解他们对在线教学的焦虑。除了揭示教师网络如何本地化和国有化外，结果还可以进一步了解社交网络如何影响不同范围的教学决策。 如果是这样，这些结果可以为未来的纵向研究提供有关在危机反应中发生的教育转变持续性的未来纵向研究，这可能在理解机构变革的成功和失败方面具有普遍的应用。 这项快速奖项是由本科教育部（教育和人力资源局）的改善本科STEM教育（IUSE：EHR）计划颁发的。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影响的审查标准来通过评估来获得支持的。