International Journal of Stem Education最新文献

{"title":"A content analysis of research on technology use for teaching mathematics to students with disabilities: word networks and topic modeling.","authors":"Mikyung Shin, Min Wook Ok, Sam Choo, Gahangir Hossain, Diane P Bryant, Eunyoung Kang","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00414-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40594-023-00414-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The purpose of this study was to conduct a content analysis of research on technology use for teaching mathematics to students with disabilities. We applied word networks and structural topic modeling of 488 studies published from 1980 to 2021. Results showed that the words \"computer\" and \"computer-assisted instruction\" had the highest degree of centrality in the 1980s and 1990s, and \"learning disability\" was another central word in the 2000s and 2010s. The associated word probability for 15 topics also represented technology use within different instructional practices, tools, and students with either high- or low-incidence disabilities. A piecewise linear regression with knots in 1990, 2000, and 2010 demonstrated decreasing trends for the topics of <i>computer-assisted instruction</i>, <i>software</i>, <i>mathematics achievement</i>, <i>calculators</i>, and <i>testing</i>. Despite some fluctuations in the prevalence in the 1980s, the <i>support for visual materials</i>, <i>learning disabilities</i>, <i>robotics</i>, <i>self-monitoring tools</i>, and <i>word problem-solving instruction</i> topics showed increasing trends, particularly after 1990. Some research topics, including <i>apps</i> and <i>auditory support,</i> have gradually increased in topic proportions since 1980. Topics including <i>fraction instruction</i>, <i>visual-based technology</i>, and <i>instructional sequence</i> have shown increasing prevalence since 2010; this increase was statistically significant for the <i>instructional sequence</i> topic over the past decade.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"23"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10039814/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9242284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Promoting engineering students' social responsibility and willingness to act on socioscientific issues.","authors":"Yohan Hwang, Yeonjoo Ko, Sungok Serena Shim, Seung-Yong Ok, Hyunju Lee","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00402-1","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40594-023-00402-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Despite increasing awareness of the importance of promoting the social responsibility of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals, few intervention programs have been developed to enhance the social responsibility of college students or adults in the STEM fields. In this paper, we introduced a new instructional program, called ENACT (engage, navigate, anticipate, conduct, and take action) and examined whether the program increased the social responsibility among safety engineering students (<i>N</i> = 46) recruited from a university located in a southern metropolitan area of South Korea.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In the ENACT program, the college students selected and explored socioscientific issues (SSIs) of their own interest then autonomously engaged in scientific and engineering group projects spanning a semester where they developed solutions to the SSIs and shared them with their communities. At the conclusion of the intervention in this study, they displayed an increased social responsibility regarding the consideration of societal needs and demands, civic engagement and services, and participation in policy decision-making. Social responsibility scores measured after the intervention (post-test) correlated with students' willingness to voluntarily participate in projects involving SSIs. In addition, the intervention effects were more pronounced for the students who initially had medium and low social responsibility scores.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We have shown that social responsibility can be nurtured by systemic instructional approaches, and increased social responsibility can lead to greater commitment to resolving SSIs. Mastering engineering content knowledge and skills is the key element of engineering curricula. However, we are compelled to incorporate social responsibility into the STEM curriculum. We believe that the ENACT model contributes toward this end.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"11"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9909146/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10721291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Face negotiation in graduate school: the decision to conceal or reveal depression among life sciences Ph.D. students in the United States.","authors":"Nicholas J Wiesenthal,&nbsp;Logan E Gin,&nbsp;Katelyn M Cooper","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00426-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40594-023-00426-7","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background: &lt;/strong&gt;Depression is one of the top mental health concerns among biology graduate students and has contributed to the \"graduate student mental health crisis\" declared in 2018. Several prominent science outlets have called for interventions to improve graduate student mental health, yet it is unclear to what extent graduate students with depression discuss their mental health with others in their Ph.D. programs. While sharing one's depression may be an integral step to seeking mental health support during graduate school, depression is considered to be a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) and revealing one's depression could result in loss of status or discrimination. As such, face negotiation theory, which describes a set of communicative behaviors that individuals use to regulate their social dignity, may help identify what factors influence graduate students' decisions about whether to reveal their depression in graduate school. In this study, we interviewed 50 Ph.D. students with depression enrolled across 28 life sciences graduate programs across the United States. We examined (1) to what extent graduate students revealed their depression to faculty advisors, graduate students, and undergraduates in their research lab, (2) the reasons why they revealed or concealed their depression, and (3) the consequences and benefits they perceive are associated with revealing depression. We used a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive coding to analyze our data.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;More than half (58%) of Ph.D. students revealed their depression to at least one faculty advisor, while 74% revealed to at least one graduate student. However, only 37% of graduate students revealed their depression to at least one undergraduate researcher. Graduate students' decisions to reveal their depression to their peers were driven by positive mutual relationships, while their decisions to reveal to faculty were often based on maintaining dignity by performing preventative or corrective facework. Conversely, graduates performed supportive facework when interacting with undergraduate researchers by revealing their depression as a way to destigmatize struggling with mental health.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;Life sciences graduate students most commonly revealed their depression to other graduate students, and over half reported discussing depression with their faculty advisor. However, graduate students were reluctant to share their depression with undergraduate researchers. Power dynamics between graduate students and their advisors, their peers, and their undergraduate mentees influenced the reasons they chose to reveal or conceal their depression in each situation. This study provides insights into how to create more inclusive life science graduate programs where students can feel more comfortable discussing their mental health.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Supplementary information: &lt;/strong&gt;The online version contains supplement","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"35"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10189696/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9871007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Engineering student experience and self-direction in implementations of blended learning: a cross-institutional analysis.","authors":"David Evenhouse,&nbsp;Yonghee Lee,&nbsp;Edward Berger,&nbsp;Jeffrey F Rhoads,&nbsp;Jennifer DeBoer","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00406-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-023-00406-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Much of researchers' efforts to foster wider implementation of educational innovations in STEM has focused on understanding and facilitating the implementation efforts of faculty. However, student engagement in blended learning and other innovations relies heavily on students' self-directed learning behaviors, implying that students are likely key actors in the implementation process. This paper explores the ways in which engineering students at multiple institutions experience the self-directed selection and implementation of blended learning resources in the context of their own studies. To accomplish this, it adopts a research perspective informed by Actor-Network Theory, allowing students themselves to be perceived as individual actors and implementors rather than a population that is implemented upon.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A thematic analysis was conducted in two parts. First, analysis identified sets of themes unique to the student experience at four participant institutions. Then, a second round of analysis identified and explored a subset of key actors represented in students' reported experiences across all institutions. The findings show clear similarities and differences in students' experiences of blended learning across the four institutions, with many themes echoing or building upon the results of prior research. Distinct institutional traits, the actions of the instructors, the components of the blended learning environment, and the unique needs and preferences of the students themselves all helped to shape students' self-directed learning experiences. Students' engagement decisions and subsequent implementations of blended learning resulted in personally appropriate, perhaps even idiosyncratic, forms of engagement with their innovative learning opportunities.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The institutional implementation of blended learning, and perhaps other educational innovations, relies in part on the self-directed decision-making of individual students. This suggests that instructors too hold an additional responsibility: to act as facilitators of their students' implementation processes and as catalysts for growth and change in students' learning behaviors. Developing a greater understanding of students' implementation behaviors could inform the future implementation efforts of faculty and better empower students to succeed in the innovative classroom.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"19"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9994781/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9119043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Undergraduate student perceptions of stress and mental health in engineering culture.","authors":"Karin J Jensen,&nbsp;Joseph F Mirabelli,&nbsp;Andrea J Kunze,&nbsp;Thomas E Romanchek,&nbsp;Kelly J Cross","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00419-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-023-00419-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Mental health for engineering undergraduates is an urgent topic for engineering educators. Narratives of engineering education requiring suffering may create or exacerbate problematic perceptions around stress and mental health in engineering. This study explored the roles of stress and mental health in engineering culture. We sought to explore: (1) how engineering students describe their experiences related to stress and mental health and (2) norms and expectations engineering students share about stress and mental health. Qualitative interview data were collected from 30 students who had previously responded to a college-wide survey.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Codes related to experiences with stress and mental health in engineering were organized in a bioecological systems model and analyzed for emergent themes depicting engineering culture. The study identified three themes related to stress and mental health in engineering culture: (1) engineering workload as a defining stressor, (2) specific barriers that prevent engineering students from seeking help for mental health concerns, and (3) reliance on peers to cope with stress and mental health distress.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our analysis provided insight into how engineering students perceive norms around stress and mental health in engineering and how this impacts help-seeking for mental health challenges. These findings have important implications for developing interventions and positive cultures that support student mental health.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"30"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123580/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9448954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mixed methods study of student participation and self-efficacy in remote asynchronous undergraduate physics laboratories: contributors, lurkers, and outsiders.","authors":"Drew Rosen, Angela M Kelly","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00428-5","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40594-023-00428-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>While laboratory practices have traditionally been conducted in-person, online asynchronous laboratory learning has been growing in popularity due to increased enrollments and the recent pandemic, creating opportunities for accessibility. In remote asynchronous learning environments, students have more autonomy to choose how they participate with other students in their laboratory classes. Communities of practice and self-efficacy may provide insights into why students are making their participation choices and how they are interacting with peers in asynchronous physics laboratory courses.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this mixed methods, explanatory sequential study, students in an introductory physics remote asynchronous laboratory (<i>N</i> = 272) were surveyed about their social learning perceptions and their physics laboratory self-efficacy. Three groups of students were identified based upon their self-reported participation level of communication with peers in asynchronous courses: (1) <i>contributors</i>, who communicated with peers via instant messaging software and posted comments; (2) <i>lurkers</i>, who read discussions on instant messaging software without posting comments; and (3) <i>outsiders</i>, who neither read nor posted comments to peer discussions. Analysis of variance with post hoc Tukey tests showed significant differences in social learning perceptions among contributors, lurkers, and outsiders, with a large effect size, and differences between contributing and lurking students' self-efficacy, with a small effect size. Qualitative findings from open-ended survey responses indicated contributors felt the structure of the learning environment, or their feeling of connectedness with other students, facilitated their desire to contribute. Many lurkers felt they could get what they needed through vicarious learning, and many expressed their lack of confidence to post relevant, accurate comments. Outsiders felt they did not have to, did not want to, or could not connect with other students.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>While the classroom laboratory traditionally requires all students to participate in the learning process through active socialization with other students, students in a remote asynchronous laboratory may still gain the benefits of participation through lurking. Instructors may consider lurking in an online or remote science laboratory as a legitimate form of participation and engagement.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"34"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10189232/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9569482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Co-curricular engagement among engineering undergrads: do they have the time and motivation?","authors":"Andrew Olewnik,&nbsp;Yunjeong Chang,&nbsp;Mengchen Su","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00410-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-023-00410-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Co-curricular activities are often touted as valuable STEM learning opportunities in higher education settings. Particularly in engineering, industry encourage and seek students with co-curricular experiences. However, many engineering undergraduates do not regularly participate in those experiences. Some researchers have suggested that the rigors of the curriculum leave little time for co-curriculars. Yet, little research has empirically examined the reality of the undergraduate students' involvement in co-curriculars. Thus, as an initial study, we situated our study in a large public university to explore students' motivations for co-curriculars. In this paper we report on our efforts to understand student perceptions about the value and costs of that involvement. We considered how undergraduate engineering students used their time and what motivated them to engage (or not) in co-curriculars using Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT). Students' motivation was investigated with a quantitative research methodology and complemented by interview data.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results of our motivation survey show that students who participated in co-curriculars perceived less cost than those who never participated. We also found that the achievement values of co-curriculars does not necessarily motivate student involvement. Interview data were used to further interpret quantitative data results.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>In the context of study findings and existent literature, we discuss several implications for future research and practice. First, we argue for a more granular investigation of student time use and its impact on co-curricular participation. Second, despite the potential for high impact outcomes, students who have never participated perceived high cost for co-curricular engagement. Those perceptions may aggravate inequitable engagement of student populations, including historically marginalized populations in the STEM field. Third, students do not necessarily associate co-curricular experiences with the types of achievement values and learning that institutions, alumni, and industry might consider most important. Thus, to build and support co-curricular programs that provide the holistic educational experiences and learning that are anticipated, research that supports design of co-curricular programs and policies to improve engagement and persistence in those programs for all students is necessary.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-023-00410-1.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"27"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10074349/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9326076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The relation of representational competence and conceptual knowledge in female and male undergraduates.","authors":"Peter A Edelsbrunner,&nbsp;Sarah Malone,&nbsp;Sarah I Hofer,&nbsp;Stefan Küchemann,&nbsp;Jochen Kuhn,&nbsp;Roman Schmid,&nbsp;Kristin Altmeyer,&nbsp;Roland Brünken,&nbsp;Andreas Lichtenberger","doi":"10.1186/s40594-023-00435-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s40594-023-00435-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Representational competence is commonly considered a prerequisite for the acquisition of conceptual knowledge, yet little exploration has been undertaken into the relation between these two constructs. Using an assessment instrument of representational competence with vector fields that functions without confounding topical context, we examined its relation with <i>N</i> = 515 undergraduates' conceptual knowledge about electromagnetism.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Applying latent variable modeling, we found that students' representational competence and conceptual knowledge are related yet clearly distinguishable constructs (manifest correlation: <i>r</i> = .54; latent correlation: <i>r</i> = .71). The relation was weaker for female than for male students, which could not be explained by measurement differences between the two groups. There were several students with high representational competence and low conceptual knowledge, but only few students with low representational competence and high conceptual knowledge.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These results support the assumption that representational competence is a prerequisite, yet insufficient condition for the acquisition of conceptual knowledge. We provide suggestions for supporting learners in building representational competence, and particularly female learners in utilizing their representational competence to build conceptual knowledge.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-023-00435-6.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"10 1","pages":"44"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10285021/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9707627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mentoring in STEM higher education: a synthesis of the literature to (re)present the excluded women of color.","authors":"Tara Nkrumah,&nbsp;Kimberly A Scott","doi":"10.1186/s40594-022-00367-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-022-00367-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mentoring initiatives for undergraduate and graduate women of color (WOC) have provided peer-to-peer relationships and counterspaces to disrupt the inequitable treatment of students in STEM higher education (HE). This literature synthesis explores intersectionality in STEM HE mentoring through pursuing the following research questions: (1) What impact do the social contexts of WOC have on their mentoring experiences in STEM HE? (2) What role does intersectionality play in the structural organization of WOC mentoring models in STEM HE? (3) How has intersectionality shaped the life experiences of WOC mentors and mentees? and (4) How can mentoring models utilize intersectionality to incorporate the experiences of WOC in STEM HE? Thematic findings from literature related to STEM HE mentoring suggest a reinforcement of deficit mentoring models (Fix the URM), a symbolic application of intersectionality (branding gender-race), and a lack of paradigmatic shifts (catch-all). Our specific recommendations presented in this article challenge the epistemic oppression and epistemic violence that current STEM HE mentoring models operationalize.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-022-00367-7.</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"9 1","pages":"50"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9336123/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9700817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL): a tool for understanding the learning potential and substance of interactions in faculty (online) learning community meetings.","authors":"Alexandra C Lau,&nbsp;Makenna Martin,&nbsp;Adriana Corrales,&nbsp;Chandra Turpen,&nbsp;Fred Goldberg,&nbsp;Edward Price","doi":"10.1186/s40594-021-00301-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00301-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>While many research-based instructional strategies in STEM have been developed, faculty need support in implementing and sustaining use of these strategies. A number of STEM faculty professional development programs aim to provide such pedagogical support, and it is necessary to understand the activity and learning process for faculty in these settings. In this paper, a taxonomy for describing the learning opportunities in faculty (online) learning community meetings is presented. Faculty learning communities, meeting either in-person or (increasingly) online, are a common form of professional development. They aim to develop the pedagogical and reflective skills of participants through regular meetings centered on conversations about teaching and learning.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The tool presented in this paper, the Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL), provides a structured approach to making sense of the dynamic interactions that occur during faculty learning community meetings. The origins and development of the TxOTL are described, followed by a detailed presentation of the constructs that make up the TxOTL: communicative approach used in a conversation, the concepts developed, and the meeting segment category. The TxOTL characterizes the learning opportunities presented by a faculty learning community conversation through describing the content of the conversation as well as how participants engage in the conversation. Examples of the tool in use are provided through an application to a faculty online learning community serving instructors of a physical science curriculum. A visual representation used to compactly display the results of applying the taxonomy to a meeting is detailed as well. These examples serve to illustrate the types of claims the TxOTL facilitates.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The TxOTL allows one to examine learning opportunities available to a faculty learning community group, analyze concept development present in their conversations, track change over time in a given group, and identify patterns between meeting segment categories and communicative approaches. It is useful for researchers as well as facilitators of these STEM faculty professional development groups. The taxonomy is most applicable to faculty (online) learning communities, with limited use for workshops and K-12 professional development contexts.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1186/s40594-021-00301-3).</p>","PeriodicalId":48581,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Stem Education","volume":"8 1","pages":"45"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8285718/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10749548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}