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

基本信息

批准号：
2027963
负责人：
Adrienne Traxler
金额：
$ 1.51万
依托单位：
Wright State 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 2021-04-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2027963&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
RAPID Collaborative Research Faculty Networks

项目摘要

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型冠状病毒在社区内的传播，全国各地的学院和大学都关闭了校园。大多数人还决定转向在线教学，以便学生可以继续学业并保持学位课程的正轨。为了实现这一目标，各学科的教师都争先恐后地将面对面的课程转移到在线环境中。其中许多教师以前没有在线教学的经验。许多有经验的人并不熟悉在线环境中的技术或最有效的教学方法。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，在将物理课程转移到网上时如何在在线网络中相互互动。这些在线网络还可以帮助教师缓解在线教学的压力以及确保学生获得有益的教育体验的焦虑。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期间及之后向物理和其他 STEM 学科的在线教学过渡。学术和社交网络是 STEM 学生生活的关键要素，并且它们对于教师也很重要。在这场危机期间，教师们正在利用专业的社交网络来支持他们向在线教学的过渡。需要进行更多的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向在线教学的过渡是如此紧迫和广泛，这种情况提供了一个独特的环境，可以应用社交网络分析技术来大规模研究学科内专业网络的作用。为此，该项目将从三个主要部分收集数据：（1）对物理教师过渡到在线教学的调查； (2) 与教师的后续访谈； (3) Twitter 数据抓取，以确定正在推广和分享在线教学方法的团体。这三个数据集将相互连接，共同有助于分析大学物理教师的网络增长、资源共享、个人社区增长和焦虑调解。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网络； 2) 使此类网络更加突出和富有成效； 3) 建立教师对其在线物理教学能力的效能信念； 4）缓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家化之外，研究结果还有助于更好地理解社交网络如何影响不同规模的教学决策。如果是这样，这些结果可以为未来关于危机应对期间教育变革持续性的纵向研究提供信息，这可能在理解制度变革的成功和失败方面具有普遍的应用。该 RAPID 奖项由本科教育部（教育和人力资源局）的改善本科 STEM 教育（IUSE：EHR）计划颁发。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的评估进行评估，被认为值得支持。智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。