NSF Award
2417077
This project aims to serve the national interest by transforming undergraduate teaching in STEM fields. This project plans to implement a novel professional development model that provides faculty with the knowledge, time, and support to design instructional innovations in their STEM courses that place students at the center of the learning process and are designed with specific attention to equity. These innovations will be implemented in STEM courses in a way that is pedagogically engaging, bringing the students into the thinking behind the process. This transition is important for supporting the learning, development, and enculturation of diverse learners into STEM fields. University science and mathematics courses are very often taught in a traditional manner, where instructors are the purveyors of knowledge, and students absorb facts and skills. Decades of research show that this is not the most effective way for students to learn and those most disadvantaged by these methods are minoritized students. The professional development program implemented in this project will provide faculty with the necessary supports to assist in making authentic, substantive, and sustainable changes in their courses towards student-centered, equitable, and pedagogically engaging (SEP) curriculum. This in turn should enhance the STEM classroom experience for students and increase their capacity for communicating about issues in STEM education. In addition, the project seeks to increase the number of students that may be interested in STEM education careers (either as K-12 teachers or STEM education researchers). The findings from this project hopes to shift the culture of STEM Education at postsecondary institutions nationwide by proliferating faculty development around SEP instruction to support diverse learners.<br/> <br/>The long-term goal for this project is to enhance the quality of undergraduate STEM education by facilitating the development of a shared meaning around SEP instruction among STEM education researchers and practitioners, while also increasing students' awareness of the pedagogical strategies used in their own education. This model of professional development begins with a pedagogy workshop that will support faculty in planning modifications to their STEM courses. The following semester, faculty will implement these changes and participate in faculty subgroups to support one another. Faculty will then attend a reflection and iteration workshop where they will share their experiences and plan modifications for the upcoming semester. Following a second semester of implementation and subgroup support, faculty will participate in the co-design of instructional modules for an Introduction to STEM Education course with students from their courses who are especially interested in education. The focusing research questions for this work are: (1) What impact does this model of professional development have on faculty learning, understanding, and implementation of student-centered, equity-minded, and pedagogically engaging curriculum? And (2) How is the Introduction to STEM Education course designed to support novice STEM educators (undergraduate and graduate STEM students) with student-centered, equity-minded, and pedagogically engaging learning of STEM content? Data will be analyzed using a grounded theory approach to dissect and abstract from the data, ask generative questions, and develop theories about faculty engagement in the professional development and student engagement within the co-design and the STEM education course. Findings from this project will be of particular interest to STEM and Education departments seeking to support faculty in becoming more student-centered, equity-minded, and pedagogically engaging in their teaching, as well as departments interested in increasing student interests in pursuing STEM education careers. Results will be disseminated at national and local education conferences (including discipline-based education conferences). In addition, the project will host a Faculty for Faculty workshop in the final year of the project, where faculty participants will share their products and experiences in re-designing their curriculum with faculty outside of the project. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.<br/><br/>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.
