| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 24, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 24, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1726133 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Thomas Kim
tkim@nsf.gov (703)292-4458 DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $303,577.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $303,577.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
4202 E FOWLER AVE TAMPA FL US 33620-5800 (813)974-2897 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
3702 Spectrum Blvd. Tampa FL US 33612-9446 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | IUSE |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
Increasing undergraduate student interest in science and improving their learning of science is a national priority. Both outcomes hinge on large-scale changes in college science teaching, so that more instructors use active learning strategies that engage and encourage students. This project focuses on inorganic chemistry, a course that most chemistry majors take in their third year. The project will use a well-established, nation-wide community of faculty, developed with prior NSF support, to build a modular framework that promotes the use of active learning strategies in inorganic chemistry courses. In addition, new curricular materials based on the latest advances in inorganic chemistry research will be developed and shared on the community website: www.ionicviper.org. During this work, the investigators will study the type and amount of support that instructors need to adopt active learning practices, as well as the impact of those changes on student learning in inorganic chemistry. This project has the potential to find specific strategies and general principles for improving STEM faculty teaching, which could be applied to other courses and disciplines. The impact of the improved curriculum and teaching effectiveness also aims to increase the number of undergraduates who have the tools and critical thinking skills needed to be successful chemists.
The knowledge generated by this project will provide insight into the challenges faculty face as they adopt active-learning teaching strategies and the level of the support necessary to effect and sustain change in teaching practices. This project will help identify how a professional community of practice can initiate, enable, and sustain faculty change. Through classroom observations, analysis of student work, surveys of students, and interviews with faculty, the project will generate data on how changes in the classroom affect student learning. It will contribute to the body of evidence for promoting faculty change by evaluating how to encourage the adoption of evidence-based classroom practices. The products of this project will include: 1) 60 new syllabi, with related course materials, for a foundation-level inorganic chemistry course with content coverage drawn from core inorganic chemistry topics, 2) new knowledge on the impact of communities of practice on faculty change, and 3) improved student learning in inorganic chemistry.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists (IONiC) is a vibrant, international community of practice that works to improve inorganic chemistry education. IONiC members have created the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPEr), an online resource where inorganic faculty develop and share teaching materials related to inorganic chemistry.
The major goals of this project were to 1) help inorganic faculty adopt more active and research literature-based learning in their courses through participation in a two-year fellowship program; 2) deliver workshops to develop or adapt high quality, active-learning teaching materials on core topics and further expand the community; and 3) study the type and amount of support for faculty that is necessary to drive curricular and pedagogical change and how faculty change impacts student learning.
With regard to Goal 1, 60 IONiC members were selected from 131 applicants to be VIPEr Fellows; 32 self-identified with an underrepresented population in STEM and 4 taught at minority-serving institutions. These Fellows engaged in a two-year course transformation project that included video recording themselves teaching a unit on either bonding or solids; collecting student-level data in the form of a conceptual activity, student surveys on motivation and self-efficacy, and the ACS foundations inorganic chemistry exam; and participating in two workshops. The first cohort of Fellows (n = 20) met for their first workshop in person and then met virtually for the second workshop due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the second cohort of Fellows (n = 40) chose to participate in the workshop either in person or virtually. A total of 48 Fellows completed the two-year commitment.
With regard to Goal 2, a total of 77 people (including faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students) participated in five content-building workshops, contributing over 64 new learning objects (LOs), flexible teaching resources that are shared with faculty members on VIPEr. Each 2.5-day workshop gave participants the opportunity to learn about recent, cutting-edge research being conducted by a featured expert. The expert delivered a seminar and was available to collaborate with small groups in creating learning objects to facilitate teaching of this topic. Participants were also able to engage in critically-reflective, visible teaching with peers, exploring areas such as curriculum development and effective classroom practices.
For Goal 3, project leaders investigated how faculty members responded to data about their teaching and data about their students’ learning. Interviews with VIPEr Fellows, after their first and second years of participation, revealed that different stakeholders need to be engaged when transforming a course; in particular, colleagues, department chairs, and students need to buy into course transformation to ensure lasting change. Observations of Fellows responding to video recordings of their teaching revealed that “watching yourself teach” is important to catalyzing decisions on how to revise a given course. Evaluations of student conceptual understanding confirmed the variable nature in which inorganic chemistry is taught; in particular, how a faculty member teaches a given topic has an influence on student learning. Finally, student surveys coupled with ACS Exam scores showed that student motivation to learn and self confidence positively correlated with course performance. VIPEr Fellow participation in collecting and analyzing data (i.e., interviews, teaching observations, measures of learning) created a transformative course revision experience for the Fellows. We also learned, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and intentionally in our proposed work, that course transformations through in-person workshops versus virtual workshops necessitate differing methods for engaging and supporting participants.
The project as a whole has resulted in 34 conference presentations, 5 journal articles, 6 book chapters, and 1 video. The IONiC community has grown from ~2,000 VIPEr users to more than 3,300 users. The number of learning materials on the website has grown from 736 to more than 1,300. A Discord server was launched in June 2019. This server supports 250+ users who interact on 40+ discussion channels focused on a range of topics (e.g., diversity-equity-inclusion, teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic); in addition, the server provides discussion channels for VIPEr Fellows cohorts as well as separate channels for IONiC VIPEr administrative teams. Lastly, more than 80 virtual roundtables (SLiThErs) and short discussion panels (nanoCHAts) have been posted on the IONiC YouTube channel.
Acronyms
- IONiC - Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists
- VIPEr - Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource
- LO - Learning object
- SLiThErs - Supporting Learning with Interactive Teaching: A Hosted, Engaging Roundtable
- ACS - American Chemical Society
Last Modified: 12/11/2023
Modified by: Jeffrey R Raker
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