Developing a Digital Platform for Providing Scalable and Actionable Feedback to Support Students' Development of Professional Skills

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

Investigators

Abstract

This project serves the national interest by developing a digital platform and classroom strategies for instructors to improve student professional skills across the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The explicit development of these skills (also known as transferable, process, 21st century, or soft skills) is of critical importance to prepare students for successful careers in science and technology. Skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and communication have been identified as essential for a modern national workforce by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine as well reports from many industries and employers. These reports further identify that increased proficiency in student professional skills will ensure undergraduates a more successful launch as they begin their careers. In this project, a digital platform will be developed that leverages the Enhancing Learning by Improving Process Skills project, a novel and widely available feedback-based skills rubric. This project will provide strategies for instructors in classrooms of all sizes to help them develop and evaluate student professional skills. The digital platform and classroom strategies will also allow instructors to provide students with rapid feedback and effective coaching on how to improve their professional skills. This innovative project brings attention to the development of student professional skills as it will increase students’ insights into the importance of these skills for scientists and advance their preparation for future STEM careers. This project will help students develop and improve their professional skills in STEM classrooms by using a scalable digital platform based on novel feedback-based skill rubrics from the Enhancing Learning by Improving Process Skills project (ELIPSS.com). This project will conduct research on how feedback and self-assessment can help students improve their professional skills, as well as examine how external and tailored feedback can help students become self-regulated learners. The project team will design and pilot a digital platform to streamline assessment and actionable feedback delivery to students, using a multidisciplinary team of STEM instructors from a range of class sizes and institutional settings to ensure the application’s utility and adoptability. Through interviews and survey responses, instructional team members will identify optimum strategies for generating and delivering feedback to students that is both impactful and timely. Data will be collected on the ways in which students interact with the suggestions for improving skill development; these data will be analyzed to gauge how they responded to this feedback and whether it helped them improve their skills. Students will complete a validated science motivation questionnaire to collect their insights on how their development of professional skills may further motivate them towards STEM majors and careers. Five culminating goals and outcomes provide a framework for the execution of this project. First is the creation of a digital platform, which is preloaded with customizable professional skills rubrics that were a product of the NSF-funded ELIPSS project. Second, a team of instructors from a range of STEM disciplines and institutions across the country will implement and subsequently disseminate these materials. Third is the development of a set of materials and training protocols to train additional instructors to use the skill-building rubrics and digital platform. Fourth is the assembly of a collection of best instructional practices to optimize student interaction with feedback on their professional skill development. Fifth, and finally, is an advanced understanding of how these efforts impact students - promoting their skill development, their perception of the importance of these skill for scientists, and their preparation for future STEM careers. Overall, the broad scope of this project will enable greater integration of professional skill development into undergraduate STEM programs - the digital platform and classroom strategies are designed to be used in all disciplines, class sizes and institutional settings and will rapidly impact a large number of students. These students will enter the STEM workforce with key preparation in valued professional skills that will better ensure their success. Even more broadly, the tools and classroom strategies developed through this project will support the advancement of STEM education on multiple levels: they support active learning pedagogies, support skill-based programmatic assessment, and provide a data-collection mechanism for future education research. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. 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.