-ACS Publication
Quasi-experiments are common in studies that estimate the effect of instructional interventions on student performance outcomes. In this type of research, the nature of the experimental design, the choice in assessment, the selection of comparison groups, and the statistical methods used to analyze the comparison data dictate the validity of causal inferences.
We are now accepting applications for the summer institute 2019.The Summer Institute (SI) is part of a national effort to improve college education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and to enhance the academic success of all students by helping current and future faculty develop and adopt inclusive and effective teaching practices. The SI is a nationally recognized, prestigious teaching development program that has trained more than 1,000 faculty in evidence-based instruction over the last decade, including over 100 UCLA science faculty, some of whom will serve as facilitators and mentors of this esteemed 4-day professional development opportunity this summer at UCLA.
Click here to complete and submit a short application to the program. Qualified applicants will be notified by email of their acceptance status by the first week of May.
The EHR Core Research (ECR) program of National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) wishes to notify the community of its intention to support, through EHR Core Research (ECR) program solicitation NSF 19-508, fundamental discipline-based education research (DBER) focused on undergraduate and graduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The NSF intends to foster DBER to develop foundational knowledge in STEM education at the undergraduate and graduate levels in each of ECR’s three tracks: STEM Learning and Learning Environments, Broadening Participation in STEM, and STEM Workforce Development.
DBER is defined as “an empirical approach to investigating learning and teaching that is informed by an expert understanding of [STEM] disciplinary knowledge and practice”.[1] DBER addresses complex problems in STEM education by integrating expert knowledge of particular STEM disciplines’ models, theories, culture and educational challenges with relevant models, theories and research methodologies from a variety of fields such as education, the learning sciences, psychology, and many more. With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF invites proposals that request support to conduct fundamental DBER (basic or use-inspired) focused on developing and testing models or theories in undergraduate or graduate STEM education, including all areas of STEM supported by NSF including interdisciplinary or convergent topics.
Please see EHR Core Research (ECR) program of National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) for more information
Applications Deadline: October 3, 2019
The Office of Interdisciplinary & Cross Campus Affairs (ICCA) is pleased to announce two funding opportunities, including an opportunity to bring outstanding scholars to Campus to promote interdisciplinary and cross campus education, research, and service at UCLA. In addition to the Visiting Speaker funding, ICCA will also be accepting proposals for its Symposia, Workshop, and Planning Meeting funding opportunity.
The goal of these programs is to encourage Schools, Divisions, and other units to find areas of mutual programmatic interest and to support faculty in their exploration of these intersections.
These opportunities are open to all UCLA faculty members. Proposals must include collaborations of faculty from multiple schools or research units to be considered for funding. Please see ICCA’s Funding Opportunities web page for information specific to each opportunity. Priority for both awards will be given to collaborative events that engage a diverse range of faculty and/or students across schools.
Applications Deadline: Sunday, April 7, 2019
-Taylor & Francis
Successful change efforts can sometimes result from past “failures.” While changes in administration and economic recessions halted initial efforts in our case studies of studio classroom reform, it often created coalitions of people interested in innovative teaching that led to later successes.
-The National Academies Press
Research suggests that the cultural diversity of a nation’s workforce is a key factor in its ability to innovate and compete in a global economy. This report on the role of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in creating a diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce is motivated by the realization that the United States is unlikely to maintain its competitive advantage in STEM without the contributions that these institutions are uniquely positioned to make.
-SocArXiv
Quantitative performance ratings are ubiquitous in modern organizations—from businesses to universities—yet there is substantial evidence of bias against women in such ratings. This study examines how gender inequalities in evaluations depend on the design of the tools used to judge merit.
-Nature
More than 40% of women with full-time jobs in science leave the sector or go part time after having their first child, according to a study of how parenthood affects career trajectories in the United States. By contrast, only 23% of new fathers leave or cut their working hours.
-CBE Life Sciences
The Current Insights feature is designed to introduce life science educators and researchers to current articles of interest in other social science and education journals. In this installment, I highlight three diverse research studies: one addresses the relationships between active learning and teaching evaluations; one presents an observation tool for documenting metacognition in the classroom; and the last explores things teachers can say to encourage students to employ scientific reasoning during class discussions.
-AAPT
College instructors are often afraid to use active learning instructional strategies because they fear that students may complain and/or give them lower evaluations of teaching. In this paper, we present data from a survey of 431 physics instructors who had attended the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop and who attempted to incorporate active learning into their introductory course. Nearly half of respondents (48%) felt that their student evaluations increased, one-third (32%) felt that their student evaluations had not been impacted, and one-fifth (20%) felt that their student evaluations decreased. Thus, contrary to common fears, for these instructors the most likely result from the incorporation of active learning was an increase in student evaluations.