Collaborative Research: Scaling Undergraduate STEM Transformation and Institutional Networks for Engaged Dissemination (SUSTAINED)

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

This project is facilitating the growing use of STEM Learning Assistants in STEM departments in institutions of higher education and improving implementations of this approach. Learning Assistants (LAs) are talented highly-trained STEM undergraduates who are hired by university and two-year college STEM instructors to help transform courses to evidence-based approaches and assist enrolled students to get the full impact of active learning methods. The Learning Assistant model has spread rapidly into practice in the last few years. In response to growing use and requests for assistance, the team that created the LA model has recently developed an international Learning Assistant Alliance - a collaborative network of 88 institutions that use Learning Assistants to catalyze education transformation in mathematics, science, and engineering courses. Members of the LA Alliance also engage in collaborative research with peer institutions interested in developing and using improved outcome measures. Project resources are supporting the development and implementation of a web-based process for disseminating research-based LA instructional practices, including a database to provide resources and information for new users that will contribute to the efficient implementation of the LA model. Project resources are also supporting a large-scale research study of the learning outcomes and retention of over 50,000 undergraduates who have enrolled in courses using the LA model. With the initial support provided in this award, the LA Alliance is developing a governing structure and a plan for sustainable funding in years beyond the grant. The Learning Assistant model is a model for social and structural organization in undergraduate STEM education that is related to and builds on the work of Peter Senge on learning organizations and on the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger on communities of practice. It is an approach to supporting the growing use of evidence-based instructional strategies. However, it is not a specific instructional strategy but rather a method of training and using advanced undergraduate students as course assistants and liaisons between instructors and students enrolled in a STEM course. Built into the model is the baseline expectation that participating institutions are working to bring about change in the way undergraduate courses are taught and to study the effectiveness of these changes.