Postdoctoral Fellowship: STEMEdIPRF: From Learners to Leaders: Building Teamwork Skills in Physics Education for Teachers

Being able to work well in teams is an important skill that students use in science classrooms which also prepares students for STEM careers. This project aims to create a teaching tool for physics classrooms that helps students learn to work more fairly and effectively in groups. The tool includes a flexible set of lessons designed to improve student socio-metacognition. Socio-metacognition involves being aware of the thinking that individuals do together. This includes how a group may be building on members’ ideas or leaving members out. Tool development will be done in partnership with instructors of physics courses at multiple universities that collectively enroll approximately 480 future K-12 teachers. These future teachers will have opportunities to learn teamwork skills that they can ultimately pass on to students. Because collaborative learning is a critical component of research-based STEM instruction, this project focuses on the need for science classrooms to teach students effective teamwork skills. The project is designed to develop an adaptable socio-metacognitive intervention to improve students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes for teamwork in physics learning contexts. Using a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-intervention measures, the research aims to examine the intervention’s impacts on student collaboration. Analyses will include case studies of students navigating power dynamics within group learning. The researcher will iteratively refine the intervention in response to class use. The PI will share the resulting tool and research through established science teacher preparation networks, thereby expanding the project's impacts to approximately 50 programs. This project is funded by the STEM Education Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (STEM Ed PRF) program that aims to enhance the research knowledge, skills, and practices of recent doctorates in STEM, STEM education, education, and related disciplines to advance their preparation to engage in fundamental and applied research that advances knowledge within the field. 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.