AREAS OF RESEARCH
INTRODUCTION
One way to address recruitment and retention in STEM disciplines is through programs that link K-12 and university contexts, such as those that involve graduate or undergraduate students mentoring middle or high school students. Such programs have multiple benefits, such as: modeling, building relationships, providing resources, and demonstrating pathways to higher
education. CASTLE will develop and research such efforts, focusing initially on three interleaved thrust areas that have emerged over the past decade as areas of research focus at Drexel: Technology-Mediated Educational Environments, Authentic STEM Learning Experiences, and Mentoring as a Learning Process. These thrust areas will form the knowledge basis of CASTLE. The Center will seek both to enhance our efforts in these areas and to catalyze bridging and integration of our collective work in these areas – both across disciplines and across phases of the educational spectrum. In these thrust areas, we also plan to study whether existing and newly developed programs specifically improve the achievement and retention of URMs. Additionally, some of our planned approaches will support STEM learning for those not formally trained in a STEM discipline in an effort to promote greater public understanding of STEM concepts. Ultimately, CASTLE will advance national impact through the development of model programs, the study of program designs, the dissemination of models and best practices and development of a professional community of practice around such efforts to improve STEM education across the educational spectrum. CASTLE’s research projects are interdisciplinary by necessity, as they focus on understanding the similarities and differences in effective learning environments across the STEM disciplines and the educational spectrum. Projects will use existing and newly developed testbeds as the methodology base to identify scalable and sustainable models of effective STEM education, and will experiment with translating these approaches to other disciplines, institutions, and levels of the educational spectrum. Projects will consider barriers to translatability, scalability and sustainability such as: cross-discipline standards; differences in implementation at distinct academic levels; how to motivate student engagement; differing admission standards; and variations in operations at distinct academic institutions. Ultimately, these studies will allow CASTLE to develop paradigms for STEM curricular reform and resources to support faculty and administrators as they incorporate models of effective STEM education at their institutions. RESEARCH AREA 1
Technology-mediated educational environments – Projects in this area aim to understand how effective use of technology can enhance STEM learning. Technology-mediated environments, conceived as studios, portals, classes, or new applications, are designed to provide new opportunities for interaction and communication. These opportunities create potential for learning and identity transformation since interactions are personalized and designed to meet the specific needs of individuals and the groups of which they are a part. In addition, the personalized interactions allow for creative opportunities for knowledge building and thought. It has been established that technology-mediated educational environments can allow students to move from engagement with content knowledge to deeper learning, but it is not yet understood which elements of these approaches matter the most, nor whether these approaches can cultivate community if they are effectively integrated into formal and informal learning opportunities within a discipline. In addition, we are still at the early stages of learning how to effectively monitor and assess feedback in a technology-mediated educational environment. Research questions include:
What are the novel and productive forms of educational interaction afforded by online learning communities, both for students and faculty;
How does participation in interdisciplinary teams using computer-based educational activities frame STEM interest and learning;
What technological supports enhance STEM learning in small-group problem solving environments online;
What technologies best support learning within and outside of the classroom. RESEARCH AREA 2
Authentic STEM learning – Projects in this area aim to identify mechanisms that will allow students to engage in the authentic work of their discipline. One approach that has been highlighted as critical to increasing student achievement and retention in STEM is expanding undergraduate student exposure to research experiences. Benefits of undergraduate research experiences include: positive effects on retention, increases in self-confidence, growth in understanding of science and the research process, improvements in ability to apply knowledge and skills, enhancements in communication and lab skills, and increases in ability to work independently. Despite these findings, undergraduate institutions across the country still struggle to provide all STEM undergraduates with a research experience. In fact, many students who graduate with STEM degrees have not had the opportunity to legitimately participate in the activities that define science in practice: asking questions and defining problems without a known answer or clear path to a solution, using models, planning and carrying out investigations, and analyzing data. While this phenomenon is the result of many factors, one primary challenge is the lack of sufficient resources to support research experiences for undergraduates, which require significant faculty time, lab space, supplies and equipment. In addition to traditional research experiences, there are other approaches that can furnish authentic STEM participation, including engaging in discovery-based courses, community service projects or internships. The effectiveness of these experiential approaches in promoting professional gains for STEM students is understudied, and thus the value of such approaches to support STEM education is not fully understood. Research questions include:
What aspects of a research experience are critical for student learning;
How to scale-up research experiences that are transformative for student learning;
what are the similarities and differences in outcomes for students engaging in inquiry-based learning across disciplines and across the educational spectrum;
Does engaging in community outreach or workplace activities lead to the same gains in self-confidence and identity development as research experiences;
How do we translate these types of experiences to K-12 classrooms. RESEARCH AREA 3
Mentoring as a learning process – Projects in this area aim to develop and evaluate models for mentoring across the educational spectrum. It is known that peer-to-peer and hierarchical mentoring of high school and undergraduate students provide benefits such as increased engagement and/or satisfaction with STEM disciplines and/or consideration of STEM careers. While mentoring has been studied in some settings, little work has been done to explore the impact of having learners engage in both peer-to-peer and hierarchical mentoring. Questions also remain about efficacy of various mentoring models and effective preparation mechanisms for mentors and students across the educational spectrum. Research questions include:
How can learner/mentor interactions support STEM knowledge and practice development for both participants;
What are benefits and weaknesses of different mentoring models for all students and mentors and for those underrepresented in STEM disciplines;
How can mentors be best prepared in their content knowledge, ability to understand student learning trajectories, and skills to design effective learning interventions;
How can students successfully prepare to be mentored;
How can uniformity across mentoring best be supported.
