Institutional Transformation in Higher Education

Susan Rundell Singer

Division Director – Undergraduate Education

National Science Foundation

Challenges

Many college graduates skills do not match workforce needs Programme for the International Assessment

of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) – young adults born after 1980 (OECD/ETS study)

Gap in college attainment between individuals from high and low SES families has widened in one generation

PIAAC: How do the average scores of U.S. millennials compare with those in other participating countries?

In literacy, U.S.millennials scored lower than 15 of the 22 participating countries.Only millennials in Spain and Italy had lower scores.

In numeracy, U.S.millennials ranked last, along with Italy and Spain.

http://www.ets.org/s/research/30079/asc-millennials-and-the-future.pdf

PIAAC: How do millennials with different levels of educational attainment perform over time and in relation to their peers internationally?

Although a greater percentage of young adults in the U.S.are attaining higher levels of education since 2003, the numeracy scores of U.S.millennials whose highest level of education is high school and above high school have declined.

U.S.millennials with a four-year bachelor’s degree scored higher in numeracy than their counterparts in only two countries: Poland and Spain.

Our best-educated millennials—those with a master’s or research degree—only scored higher than their peers in Ireland, Poland, and Spain.

PIAAC: How do U.S. top-performing and lower-performing millennials compare to their international peers?

Top-scoring U.S.millennials (those at the 90th percentile) scored lower than top-scoring millennials in 15 of the 22 participating countries, and only scored higher than their peers in Spain.

Low-scoring U.S.millennials (those at the 10th percentile) ranked last along with Italy and England/Northern Ireland and scored lower than millennials in 19 participating countries.

PIACC: What impact do demographic characteristics have on the performance of U.S. millennials?

Among all countries, there was a strong relationship between parental levels of educational attainment and skills; across all levels of parental educational attainment, there was no country where millennials scored lower than those in the United States.

The gap in scores between U.S.millennials with the highest level of parental educational attainment and those with the lowest was among the largest of the participating countries.

In most countries, native-born millennials scored higher than foreign-born millennials; however, native-born U.S.millennials did not perform higher than their peers in any other country.

7

Influence of family income on college completion

http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Indicators_of_Higher_Education_Equity_in_the_US_45_Year_Trend_Report.pdf

U.S ranks 12th in the world in college attainment for young people

Pell Partnership 2015 Report

The average graduation gap between Pell and non-Pell students at the institutional level is only 5.7 percentage points. But the national gap is 14 points, a result of large gaps at specific colleges, as well as too many Pell students enrolling at colleges with very low graduation rates.

Colleges with large gaps need to do more to ensure low-income student success, and more selective institutions should open their doors to more Pell students.

Higher ed has a key role – not just K-12

Top-scoring quartile

Carnevale & Strohl (2010)

10

If Americans were able to match the [science and math] scores reached in Canada, which ranks seventh on the O.E.C.D. scale, the United States’ gross domestic product would rise by an additional 6.7 percent, a cumulative increase of $10 trillion (after taking inflation into account) by the year 2050, the report estimated.

Why closing the education achievement gap matters

http://equitablegrowth.org/research/achievement-gap/

NSF ResponseFrom Access to Completion – Scholarships for STEM (S-STEM) Program

1. Increase the recruitment, retention, student success, and graduation (and transfer) of low-income, academically talented students in STEM.

2. Implement and study models, effective practices, and/or strategies that contribute to success in STEM.

3. Contribute to the implementation and sustainability of effective curricular and co-curricular activities in STEM education.

S-STEM Program Updates

Funding At least 60% of the funds must be used for

scholarships Up to 40% of funds may be used for other things –

support structures, research, recruitment, etc.

Why the change? Scholarships are not enough Student success is increased through participation in

systems of academic and student support structures A more systematic determination of what support

structures are effective will benefit the STEM education community.

13

Undergraduate Strategic Objectives

Implementation of evidence-based instructional practices and innovations

Improve STEM education at 2-year colleges and transfer to 4-year colleges

Support the development of university-industry partnerships to provide relevant and authentic experiences

Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan (2013, 14 Federal

Agencies)https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/stem_stratplan_2013.pdf

Address high failure rates in introductory undergraduate mathematics

Why focus on evidence-based practices?

Current version

underway

15

Why authentic research experiences?

NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates since 1958

Course-based research experience FY 2016 budget request U.S. National Academies consensus study underway

http://serc.carleton.edu/genomics/index.html http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6118/408.full

16

Challenge of mathematics

60% of students who arrive at postsecondary education not ready for entry level mathematics

5% of students pass developmental mathematics courses.

80% of the students who place into developmental math do not complete any college level course within 3 years. ‐

Figures have been rounded. Source: The American Freshman: Forty Year Trends, John H. Pryor, Sylvia Hurtado, Victor B. Saenz, Jose Luis Santos, and William S. Korn, Cooperative Institutional Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, 2007.

Focusing on teaching practices is not enough

Socio-emotional domain (new NRC study)

Guided pathways to success

Systems approach – lessons learned from ADVANCE

The StratEGIC Toolkit Users’ Guide

Description of the research Key points on org change from social science research Suggestions for using the Toolkit to support organizational change to support the

advancement of STEM women scholars

Briefs Frequently used interventions are described and analyzed to help institutions

construct their own change portfolios

Institutional narratives

Examples of how specific institutions have developed comprehensive strategic change plans

Ann Austin (Michigan State) and Sandra Laursen (University of Colorado, Boulder)

http://www.colorado.edu/eer/research/strategic.html

Forthcoming article in Change: ADVANCing the Agenda for Gender Equity: Tools for Strategic Institutional Change

19

Needed: Partnerships, Networks, and Networks of Networks

Networks = practitioners, researchers, professional societies, improvement networks, informal setting, including citizen science

Science of learning = learning science + cognitive psychology + educational psychology + cognitive science + discipline-based education research + scholarship of teaching and learning

Learning engineers + instructional technologists + computer scientists

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/partnering-advance-learning-technology-enhanced-world

Disciplinary scientists as partners

Frontier science and cutting edge education research create robust learning environments

Deep science disciplinary knowledge meets education research (again) Discipline-based Education Research

Embodied CognitionSian Bielock, University of ChicagoSusan Fischer, DePaul University

Can physically handling objects and directly experiencing “the physics” improve student understanding?

• Observers score lower on angular momentum and torque problems

• fMRI patterns differ

Action > Observepremot

or

M1

SPL

Action > Observation

R

When only physical reality will do

22

Advanced Technological Education (ATE) ProgramWorkforce Education, Partnerships, Career Pathways

Project- STEM Guitar Project impacting education for the past 8 years—affecting over 300 two-year college and secondary school faculty andthousands of students across the country bybringing hands-on learning into the classroom. http://www.guitarbuilding.org/

Cybersecurity- 4 Centers and 1 Large Project for cybersecurity education, which are leaders in the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education and the NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence program, mentoring other colleges nationwide.

Scale effective approaches in all environments

Discipline-based education research Students’ conceptual understanding Problem solving Use of representations Effective instructional strategies

Plus deep knowledge about how people learn from the social sciences

+CIRTL MOOC

Studies of similarities and differences among different groups of students

Longitudinal studies Additional basic research in DBER Interdisciplinary studies of cross-cutting concepts

and cognitive processes Additional research on the translational role of

DBER Understanding and measuring intrapersonal and

interpersonal competencies (“noncognitive” competencies)

Accelerate learning about learning in a digital world

http://cra.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CRAEducationReport2015.pdf

26

Advances in Learning Sciences

+

Technology-enhanced Learning

Quality Learning and Learner Persistence

Everywhere

Learning any time, any place: Opportunity and challenge

1Ho, A. D., Chuang, I., Reich, J., Coleman, C., Whitehill, J., Northcutt, C., Williams, J. J., Hansen, J., Lopez, G., &

Petersen, R. HarvardX and MITx: Two years of open online courses (HarvardX Working Paper No. 10).

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2586847

• Prior learning is key

• Learners motivated by knowledge gaps but not chasms

• Transfer is hard

• Promise of learning progressions

Challenge of disaggregated education

Challenges

Many college graduates skills do not match workforce needs

Gap in college attainment between individuals from high and low SES families has widened in one generation

Opportunities ahead

Furthering robust research and implementation infrastructures

Integrating practice-based evidence (Bryk) with evidence-based practice

Learning any time, anywhere:Supporting learners in creating coherent learning progressions as technology creates increasingly disaggregated systems

31

Humanities

Socialsciences

Math Arts & Lit

Networks and collaboration

PractitionersLearning engineers

Learning scientists

Academic technologists

Information technologists

Computer science

Learners

Questions?

SRSinger@NSF.gov

@SusanRSinger

Improve STEM Learning & Learning Environments:Improve the knowledge base for defining, identifying, and innovating effective undergraduate STEM education teaching and learning for all NSF-supported disciplines, and foster widespread use of evidence-based resources and pedagogies in undergraduate STEM education

Build the Professional STEM Workforce for Tomorrow:Improve the preparation of undergraduate students so they can succeed as productive members of the future STEM workforce, regardless of career path, and be engaged as members of a STEM-literate society

Broaden Participation & Institutional Capacity for STEM Learning:Increase the number and diversity of undergraduate students recruited and retained in STEM education and career pathways through improving the evidence base for successful strategies to broaden participation and implementation of the results of this research

Proposals should describe projects that build on available evidence and theory, and that will generate evidence and build knowledge.

Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) NSF 15-585