| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 12, 2020 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 12, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 2020972 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Jennifer Ellis
jtellis@nsf.gov (703)292-2125 DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2020 |
| End Date: | April 30, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $292,888.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $292,888.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1100 UNIVERSITY PKWY BLDG 20E 108 PENSACOLA FL US 32514-5750 (850)474-2824 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
11000 University Parkway Pensacola FL US 32514-5750 |
| 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): |
Robert Noyce Scholarship Pgm, 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
This project aims to serve the national interest in excellent STEM education by creating a practice-based online learning experience for future STEM teachers. Many STEM teachers enter the classroom with limited experience asking effective questions and facilitating productive STEM class discussions. This project will develop online experiences to help future STEM teachers develop valuable teaching, questioning, and discussion skills before beginning classroom field experiences. Teacher skills have been correlated with teacher turnover, job satisfaction, and student outcomes. Thus, improving teaching skills has the potential to increase persistence in teaching careers. To foster teaching skill development, the online learning experiences in a simulated classroom will provide repeated opportunities for STEM undergraduate students to practice teaching skills. This approach includes deliberate practice within simulations, timely peer and mentor feedback, and guided self-reflection. All feedback will be based on the Danielson (2013) rubric allowing transferability of findings to other settings and providing information that is independent of the experts providing the feedback. Anticipated project outcomes include the development of effective practice-based teacher education learning experiences, replication of online instructional activities, and preparation of future teachers to ask effective questions and encourage stimulating STEM discussions.
This project engages undergraduate preservice STEM students through the online instructional platforms, Mursion? and Canvas?. Canvas? provides a comprehensive learning management system that will enable the undergraduate pre-service teachers to engage in deliberate practice. For example, they can record their actions, post the recording, receive feedback, and use the feedback to improve their actions. Mursion? provides a simulated classroom environment using avatar students. Through these virtual platforms, the future teachers can engage in repeated practice to develop skills in creating and posing specific questions to elicit evidence of STEM student understanding. Using a mixed-methods research design, the project has potential to advance: (1) practice-based undergraduate preservice STEM teacher preparation; (2) the use of online platforms to create synchronous and asynchronous STEM teacher skill practice opportunities; and (3) an infrastructure to develop questioning and discussion techniques that could be replicated for other important teaching skills. Results of this project will be disseminated through professional avenues (i.e. national and local conferences and peer-reviewed journals), the NSF video showcase, and a project website. This project will benefit the STEM education community by providing online, replicable practice-based approaches that can be used for teacher preparation. This project?s practice-based teacher preparation approach, practice-based instructional activities, and online infrastructure will be replicable by other teacher preparation programs. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.
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.
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.
This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Project at the University of West Florida engaged over 100 undergraduate STEM education students over the course of two and a half years in a practical experience to enhance their skill development in questioning and discussion. The college students participated in a three-week experience to develop critical skills for being an effective STEM teacher. The experience consisted of online lessons to help these future teachers learn skills using mixed reality teaching simulations with avatars in a supportive low-risk environment. The online lessons helped pre-service teachers learn about and practice skills for supporting students in asking questions and engaging in discussions.
The learning experience included three sessions of teaching to avatars and self-directed lessons to support the pre-service teachers? development. Teaching experiences were completed once each week in a live mixed-reality simulation. Self-directed skill development modules were completed between each avatar teaching session. Participating future STEM teachers were able to reflect on their experiences, receive and act on feedback from an expert teacher, and repeatedly practice in the teaching simulations. Future teachers were supported and mentored throughout the project with timely feedback from an expert teacher. Feedback during the planning process and reflection after teaching helped future teachers recognize areas in need of improvement and ways in which to improve. Lessons taught by the future teachers were recorded and available for the teachers to aid in reflection of their practice.
Sources of data included pre and post participant simulation video scores, self-reported survey responses, and focus group interviews. Video scores and self-report scores indicate a notable improvement in both implementation and perceived ability in questioning and discussion skills. Over the three-week experience, the majority (71.7%) of participants improved significantly with promoting student thinking and understanding when leading classroom discussions. These future teachers became proficient in asking a variety of questions, challenging students intellectually, advancing high-level thinking, and engaging most students in the discussion. Focus groups indicate that participants benefited from the low-risk environment of teaching simulations and the ability to teach the lesson multiple times. Participating future teachers valued teaching to avatars in a low-stakes environment that allowed for repetition, reflection, and improvement of the specific skills of questioning and discussion while teaching science lessons.
This project illuminates best practices for science teacher educators to provide a practical experience to future teachers helping them to engage learners in science discussions. This project contributes to practice-based teacher preparation using a deliberate practice model and online mediums by demonstrating an effective approach for future STEM teachers to master discussion and questioning techniques. This is a novel application of deliberate practice for online learning for future teachers that incorporates four essential qualities for practice-based experiences of actionable, contextualized, nuanced, and formative.
Teachers competent in fundamental skills are less likely to leave the profession. With the current teacher shortage, teacher preparation programs must equip prospective teachers with the necessary skills to succeed in their initial years teaching. Specifically, teacher education programs need to provide practical experiences that will enhance confidence and support the future teachers in their classrooms. This project impacted over 100 undergraduate STEM students who will become future STEM teachers in Florida where 100% of the students at 20 of the 42 schools are economically disadvantaged. The impact of the project extends significantly as the deliberate practice model can be replicated across various teacher education programs. As undergraduate pre-service STEM students engage in meaningful practice opportunities online and develop needed skills, it is likely that these students will become skilled teachers and continue to teach for many years, thus impacting thousands of students.
Last Modified: 07/06/2023
Modified by: John Pecore
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