Continuing the Conversation in Discipline-Based Education Research: The Transforming Research in Undergraduate STEM Education Conference

North Dakota State University Fargo, Fargo ND

Investigators

Abstract

Studies of teaching and learning of mathematics and science at the undergraduate level have been rapidly increasing over the past several decades. Much of this work is being conducted by faculty members within departments of physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics, and is the basis for funded research proposals and peer-reviewed publications. This research can be particularly impactful when researchers across these mathematics and sciences disciplines collaborate. However, partnerships between education researchers from different science and mathematics disciplines have only recently emerged. This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE:EHR) project will organize, implement, and assess the success of the Transforming Research in Undergraduate STEM Education (TRUSE) Conference for bringing together discipline-based education researchers (DBERs) to share knowledge and build collaborations. Through presentations from outstanding plenary speakers and contributed posters, as well as working group sessions, the TRUSE conference will provide a venue for researchers to gain exposure to new ways of investigating teaching and learning that would not be readily available to them within a conference that is specific to only one discipline. In addition to bringing DBERs together to share theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and findings, the TRUSE conference will create collaborative research programs and build capacity for such integrative work by involving a significant number of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in mathematics and science education. This project will fund conference travel for speakers and organizers, as well as some graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and will include a competition for mini-grant funding to seed a new, cross-disciplinary research project developed by conference participants.