The economic prosperity of the United States relies on progress in science, the advancement of national health initiatives, and adaptation to an increasingly technical economy. This prosperity in turn relies on a talented workforce with the ability to nimbly address new challenges and develop innovative technologies. Colleges and universities can best prepare this future workforce by ensuring that educational environments are effective for a diverse range of students. This project focuses on the design and dissemination of faculty development materials designed to enable faculty members to create more inclusive learning environments for their students. Specifically, the project will incorporate research-based practices that enable students to develop further senses of self-efficacy, identity, persistence, and motivation to persist in STEM fields of study. The project is intended to address persistent gaps in the rates at which women and members of underrepresented groups persist in STEM fields of study. Closing these gaps would lead to greater degree attainment and workforce entry. The product of this work will be a comprehensive virtual and in-person professional development program at a national scale that will prepare future and early career faculty to teach inclusively.
The project will be led by Northwestern University in partnership with Boston University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Georgia, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Des Moines Area Community College. Project leaders will work with the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching Players, a group that uses theatrical and improvisational dramatization in the service of improved learning and teaching. The materials will be designed to enable faculty members to rethink curricular choices, update their teaching methods, activities, and assessments, understand how aspects of their own identities and those of their students may affect learning, and recognize ways in which position and other issues play out in learning environments. Building on the success of two prior Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning online courses in STEM teaching and their affiliated local learning communities, the project aims to build and sustain a diverse network of institutions through learning communities of trained facilitators to advance inclusive learning and teaching on their campuses. The project has the potential to prepare 500 current faculty and 4,000 PhDs and postdoctoral scholars to apply inclusive teaching practices that would positively influence the learning experiences of more than 25,000 STEM students nationally.
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.
