institutional transformation in higher education susan rundell singer division director –...
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Institutional Transformation in Higher Education
Susan Rundell Singer
Division Director – Undergraduate Education
National Science Foundation
Challenges
Many college graduates skills do not match workforce needs Programme for the International Assessment
of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) – young adults born after 1980 (OECD/ETS study)
Gap in college attainment between individuals from high and low SES families has widened in one generation
PIAAC: How do the average scores of U.S. millennials compare with those in other participating countries?
In literacy, U.S.millennials scored lower than 15 of the 22 participating countries.Only millennials in Spain and Italy had lower scores.
In numeracy, U.S.millennials ranked last, along with Italy and Spain.
http://www.ets.org/s/research/30079/asc-millennials-and-the-future.pdf
PIAAC: How do millennials with different levels of educational attainment perform over time and in relation to their peers internationally?
Although a greater percentage of young adults in the U.S.are attaining higher levels of education since 2003, the numeracy scores of U.S.millennials whose highest level of education is high school and above high school have declined.
U.S.millennials with a four-year bachelor’s degree scored higher in numeracy than their counterparts in only two countries: Poland and Spain.
Our best-educated millennials—those with a master’s or research degree—only scored higher than their peers in Ireland, Poland, and Spain.
PIAAC: How do U.S. top-performing and lower-performing millennials compare to their international peers?
Top-scoring U.S.millennials (those at the 90th percentile) scored lower than top-scoring millennials in 15 of the 22 participating countries, and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.
Low-scoring U.S.millennials (those at the 10th percentile) ranked last along with Italy and England/Northern Ireland and scored lower than millennials in 19 participating countries.
PIACC: What impact do demographic characteristics have on the performance of U.S. millennials?
Among all countries, there was a strong relationship between parental levels of educational attainment and skills; across all levels of parental educational attainment, there was no country where millennials scored lower than those in the United States.
The gap in scores between U.S.millennials with the highest level of parental educational attainment and those with the lowest was among the largest of the participating countries.
In most countries, native-born millennials scored higher than foreign-born millennials; however, native-born U.S.millennials did not perform higher than their peers in any other country.
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Influence of family income on college completion
http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Indicators_of_Higher_Education_Equity_in_the_US_45_Year_Trend_Report.pdf
U.S ranks 12th in the world in college attainment for young people
Pell Partnership 2015 Report
The average graduation gap between Pell and non-Pell students at the institutional level is only 5.7 percentage points. But the national gap is 14 points, a result of large gaps at specific colleges, as well as too many Pell students enrolling at colleges with very low graduation rates.
Colleges with large gaps need to do more to ensure low-income student success, and more selective institutions should open their doors to more Pell students.
Higher ed has a key role – not just K-12
Top-scoring quartile
Carnevale & Strohl (2010)
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If Americans were able to match the [science and math] scores reached in Canada, which ranks seventh on the O.E.C.D. scale, the United States’ gross domestic product would rise by an additional 6.7 percent, a cumulative increase of $10 trillion (after taking inflation into account) by the year 2050, the report estimated.
Why closing the education achievement gap matters
http://equitablegrowth.org/research/achievement-gap/
NSF ResponseFrom Access to Completion – Scholarships for STEM (S-STEM) Program
1. Increase the recruitment, retention, student success, and graduation (and transfer) of low-income, academically talented students in STEM.
2. Implement and study models, effective practices, and/or strategies that contribute to success in STEM.
3. Contribute to the implementation and sustainability of effective curricular and co-curricular activities in STEM education.
S-STEM Program Updates
Funding At least 60% of the funds must be used for
scholarships Up to 40% of funds may be used for other things –
support structures, research, recruitment, etc.
Why the change? Scholarships are not enough Student success is increased through participation in
systems of academic and student support structures A more systematic determination of what support
structures are effective will benefit the STEM education community.
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Undergraduate Strategic Objectives
Implementation of evidence-based instructional practices and innovations
Improve STEM education at 2-year colleges and transfer to 4-year colleges
Support the development of university-industry partnerships to provide relevant and authentic experiences
Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan (2013, 14 Federal
Agencies)https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/stem_stratplan_2013.pdf
Address high failure rates in introductory undergraduate mathematics
Why focus on evidence-based practices?
Current version
underway
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Why authentic research experiences?
NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates since 1958
Course-based research experience FY 2016 budget request U.S. National Academies consensus study underway
http://serc.carleton.edu/genomics/index.html http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6118/408.full
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Challenge of mathematics
60% of students who arrive at postsecondary education not ready for entry level mathematics
5% of students pass developmental mathematics courses.
80% of the students who place into developmental math do not complete any college level course within 3 years. ‐
Figures have been rounded. Source: The American Freshman: Forty Year Trends, John H. Pryor, Sylvia Hurtado, Victor B. Saenz, Jose Luis Santos, and William S. Korn, Cooperative Institutional Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007.
Focusing on teaching practices is not enough
Socio-emotional domain (new NRC study)
Guided pathways to success
Systems approach – lessons learned from ADVANCE
The StratEGIC Toolkit Users’ Guide
Description of the research Key points on org change from social science research Suggestions for using the Toolkit to support organizational change to support the
advancement of STEM women scholars
Briefs Frequently used interventions are described and analyzed to help institutions
construct their own change portfolios
Institutional narratives
Examples of how specific institutions have developed comprehensive strategic change plans
Ann Austin (Michigan State) and Sandra Laursen (University of Colorado, Boulder)
http://www.colorado.edu/eer/research/strategic.html
Forthcoming article in Change: ADVANCing the Agenda for Gender Equity: Tools for Strategic Institutional Change
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Needed: Partnerships, Networks, and Networks of Networks
Networks = practitioners, researchers, professional societies, improvement networks, informal setting, including citizen science
Science of learning = learning science + cognitive psychology + educational psychology + cognitive science + discipline-based education research + scholarship of teaching and learning
Learning engineers + instructional technologists + computer scientists
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/partnering-advance-learning-technology-enhanced-world
Disciplinary scientists as partners
Frontier science and cutting edge education research create robust learning environments
Deep science disciplinary knowledge meets education research (again) Discipline-based Education Research
Embodied CognitionSian Bielock, University of ChicagoSusan Fischer, DePaul University
Can physically handling objects and directly experiencing “the physics” improve student understanding?
• Observers score lower on angular momentum and torque problems
• fMRI patterns differ
Action > Observepremot
or
M1
SPL
Action > Observation
R
When only physical reality will do
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Advanced Technological Education (ATE) ProgramWorkforce Education, Partnerships, Career Pathways
Project- STEM Guitar Project impacting education for the past 8 years—affecting over 300 two-year college and secondary school faculty andthousands of students across the country bybringing hands-on learning into the classroom. http://www.guitarbuilding.org/
Cybersecurity- 4 Centers and 1 Large Project for cybersecurity education, which are leaders in the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education and the NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence program, mentoring other colleges nationwide.
Scale effective approaches in all environments
Discipline-based education research Students’ conceptual understanding Problem solving Use of representations Effective instructional strategies
Plus deep knowledge about how people learn from the social sciences
+CIRTL MOOC
Studies of similarities and differences among different groups of students
Longitudinal studies Additional basic research in DBER Interdisciplinary studies of cross-cutting concepts
and cognitive processes Additional research on the translational role of
DBER Understanding and measuring intrapersonal and
interpersonal competencies (“noncognitive” competencies)
Accelerate learning about learning in a digital world
http://cra.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CRAEducationReport2015.pdf
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Advances in Learning Sciences
+
Technology-enhanced Learning
Quality Learning and Learner Persistence
Everywhere
Learning any time, any place: Opportunity and challenge
1Ho, A. D., Chuang, I., Reich, J., Coleman, C., Whitehill, J., Northcutt, C., Williams, J. J., Hansen, J., Lopez, G., &
Petersen, R. HarvardX and MITx: Two years of open online courses (HarvardX Working Paper No. 10).
doi:10.2139/ssrn.2586847
• Prior learning is key
• Learners motivated by knowledge gaps but not chasms
• Transfer is hard
• Promise of learning progressions
Challenge of disaggregated education
Challenges
Many college graduates skills do not match workforce needs
Gap in college attainment between individuals from high and low SES families has widened in one generation
Opportunities ahead
Furthering robust research and implementation infrastructures
Integrating practice-based evidence (Bryk) with evidence-based practice
Learning any time, anywhere:Supporting learners in creating coherent learning progressions as technology creates increasingly disaggregated systems
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Humanities
Socialsciences
Math Arts & Lit
Networks and collaboration
PractitionersLearning engineers
Learning scientists
Academic technologists
Information technologists
Computer science
Learners
Improve STEM Learning & Learning Environments:Improve the knowledge base for defining, identifying, and innovating effective undergraduate STEM education teaching and learning for all NSF-supported disciplines, and foster widespread use of evidence-based resources and pedagogies in undergraduate STEM education
Build the Professional STEM Workforce for Tomorrow:Improve the preparation of undergraduate students so they can succeed as productive members of the future STEM workforce, regardless of career path, and be engaged as members of a STEM-literate society
Broaden Participation & Institutional Capacity for STEM Learning:Increase the number and diversity of undergraduate students recruited and retained in STEM education and career pathways through improving the evidence base for successful strategies to broaden participation and implementation of the results of this research
Proposals should describe projects that build on available evidence and theory, and that will generate evidence and build knowledge.
Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) NSF 15-585