Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century (2018) / Chapter Skim
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3 Crosscutting Themes in Graduate STEM Education
3 Crosscutting Themes in Graduate STEM Education
Pages 63-90
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From page 63... ...
The crosscutting issues include: • improving STEM graduate education by adjusting faculty rewards and incentives as they pertain to teaching and mentoring; • collecting and disseminating data to increase transparency for prospective and current STEM graduate students about institutional degree and career outcomes, among other metrics; • increasing diversity, equity, and inclusiveness throughout STEM graduate programs to cultivate talent from all backgrounds and promote continued scientific leadership; • building the ability of the STEM graduate education system to adjust to the dynamic nature of the scientific enterprise and the career options available to its students; and • optimizing the experiences that graduate students have while in their programs. One of the main themes of this report is its call for cultural change at the nation's universities that puts students at the center of the graduate school experience.
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From page 64... ...
ADJUSTING FACULTY REWARDS AND INCENTIVES TO IMPROVE GRADUATE STEM EDUCATION At most research universities, the incentive and reward system for faculty emphasizes publication rate and amount of grant funding as the main metrics for tenure and promotion. Although the evaluations of the quality of teaching and mentoring activities are collected, these qualities do not receive as much emphasis in the overall evaluation (NAS/NAE/IOM, 1996, 1997)
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From page 65... ...
, at least a few institutions have overcome faculty objections to reward such activities as they relate to undergraduate students (Purdue University, 2015; University of Arkansas, 2011)
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From page 66... ...
• Federal and state funding agencies should align their policies and award criteria to ensure that students in the programs they support experience the kind of graduate education outlined in this report and achieve the scientific and professional competencies articulated here, whether they are on training or research grant mechanisms. • Institutions should increase priority and reward faculty for demonstrating high-quality teaching and inclusive mentoring practices for all graduate students, including the recognition of faculty teaching in master's degree programs, based on the results of restructured evaluations.
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From page 67... ...
INCREASING DATA COLLECTION, RESEARCH, AND TRANSPARENCY ABOUT GRADUATE STEM EDUCATION OUTCOMES The ability to understand the current state of and emerging trends in the graduate STEM enterprise depends on the quality, breadth, and transparency of data and research about graduate education. For data, a number of organizations collect information ranging from longitudinal datasets to periodic collections held by institutions or professional societies.
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From page 68... ...
Disciplinary professional societies also collect information on graduate education as a part of the information-gathering activities on the state of the field. In December 2017, a coalition of 10 university presidents -- the Coalition for Next Generation Life Sciences -- announced plans for their institutions to collect and report comprehensive data on graduate student outcomes (Blank et al., 2017)
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From page 69... ...
granting colleges, schools and departments, to make a commitment to providing prospective and current students with easily accessible information." The AAU stated explicitly that such data should include student demographics, average time to finish a degree, financial support, and career paths and outcomes both inside and outside academia. The presidents of 10 leading research-intensive universities announced that they would collect and make publicly available comprehensive data on graduate student outcomes (Blank et al., 2017)
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From page 70... ...
IPUMS Higher Ed provides a user-friendly data extraction system to track career trajectories of Ph.D.'s across different occupations, including in academia, government, industry, and other types of research involvement. These actions are important steps toward addressing the information gap and increasing transparency about STEM graduate education and career outcomes.
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From page 71... ...
While there has been increased attention to the pedagogy and practice in effective STEM undergraduate education, which includes critical components of active learning, blended classrooms, and discipline-based education research, there is a relatively smaller proportion of educational research targeted toward understanding effective models and practices in graduate education.14 Given the importance to the future of the STEM research enterprise of increasing retention and degree completion rates for historically underrepresented minorities, there is a critical need for research on the programs and models that most effectively support those students (NAE, 2014; NAS/NAE/IOM, 2011)
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From page 72... ...
• Prospective students should use these data to inform graduate program selection, educational goal development, and career exploration. RECOMMENDATION 3.4 -- Funding for Research on Graduate STEM Education: The National Science Foundation, other federal and state agencies, and private funders of graduate STEM education should issue calls for proposals to better understand the graduate education system and outcomes of various interventions and policies, including but not limited to the effect of different models of graduate education on knowledge, competencies, mind-sets, and career outcomes.
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From page 73... ...
. The STEM graduate education enterprise as a whole must seek to enable students of all backgrounds to succeed by implementing mentoring practices and pedagogies that create an inclusive institutional environment in terms of gender, age, culture, ethnicity, and nationality; that make available opportunities for productive dialogue; and that encourage diverse perspectives that can lead to a deeper understanding of how people from different backgrounds may approach learning and problem solving in different ways (Gibbs, 2014)
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From page 74... ...
The past few decades have seen increases in the participation of students from historically underrepresented groups and female students; however, progress toward parity looks different from discipline to discipline. Overall, data from the NSF show that the number of minority students pursuing graduate STEM degrees more than doubled in the two decades from 1989 to 2009, with the number of Hispanic and Latino/a graduate students in STEM programs nearly tripling and the number of black or African American students more than doubling (Einaudi, 2011, p.
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From page 75... ...
Similarly, the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate18 (AGEP) program seeks to advance knowledge about models to improve pathways to the professoriate and success for historically underrepresented minority doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty in specific STEM disciplines and/or STEM education research fields.
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From page 76... ...
, most racial and ethnic groups other than whites and some Asian groups remain underrepresented in the STEM graduate student population compared to the composition of the U.S. population.21 Research has demonstrated that GRE scores used in isolation may have only modest predictive power for many measures of graduate school performance and that reliance on standardized tests can lead to disproportionate selection bias against women and scientists from URM backgrounds (Hall et al., 2017; Miller and Stassun, 2014; Moneta-Koehler et al., 2017)
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From page 77... ...
This may require hiring faculty, administrators, or other experts within each school. RECOMMENDATION 3.5 -- Ensuring Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Environments: The graduate STEM education enterprise should enable students of all backgrounds, including but not limited to racial and ethnic background, gender, stage of life, culture, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and nationality, to succeed by implementing practices that create an equitable and inclusive institutional environment.
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From page 78... ...
STEM graduate education must actively embrace and integrate these new areas and approaches to scientific research to continue educating and training the STEM workforce of the future. Many fields of science were historically rather solitary activities that, over time, evolved into a "typical" form where a single principal investigator pursued research projects along with a small cadre of graduate students and perhaps a few postdoctoral fellows.
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From page 79... ...
Again, the graduate STEM education enterprise will need to adapt to prepare students to contribute meaningfully to the solutions to those challenges. For example, a 2009 National Research Council report articulates a future world "where there is abundant, healthful food for everyone; where the environment is resilient and flourishing; where there is sustainable, clean energy; and where good health is the norm" (NRC, 2009, p.
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From page 80... ...
. Today, all STEM graduate students supported by NSF and NIH training grants must take courses on the responsible conduct of research -- the "microethics" of authorship rules, research misconduct, and publishing norms, among others -- but few graduate programs teach or discuss the "macroethics" of scientific and technological impacts on society (Herkert, 2004)
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From page 81... ...
and supported 600 doctoral students who have graduated within a traditional academic discipline and earned an Education Sciences Certificate. Current and previous participants noted that the structure of the IES program, which includes interdisciplinary lectures, provided them with exposure to new subject matter and helped them gain understanding of different disciplines.
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From page 82... ...
RECOMMENDATION 3.6 -- A Dynamic Graduate STEM Education System: The STEM education system should develop the capabilities to adjust dynamically to continuing changes in the nature of science and engineering activity and of STEM careers. This includes mechanisms to detect and anticipate such changes, experiment with innovative approaches, implement appropriate educational methods, and support institutional mechanisms on a larger scale.
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From page 83... ...
Another issue related to campus climate is the ways in which institutions address sexual harassment. Reports from graduate students of sexual harassment
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From page 84... ...
Graduate programs could help with these student-driven efforts by encouraging students to engage in activities and experiences outside of the laboratory with fellow graduate students from within and outside of their departments. Research has shown that such group-based activities can reduce student isolation and improve student success (Fenning, 2004; Wisker et al., 2007)
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From page 85... ...
• Institutions should take extra steps to provide and advertise accessible mental health services, such as those already available to veterans and most undergraduate students, at no cost to graduate students. • Institutions should develop clear policies and reporting procedures for instances of sexual harassment and bullying.
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From page 86... ...
Journal of STEM Education 18(3)
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From page 87... ...
2016. Educational outcomes from the Maximizing Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (MARC U-STAR)
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2010. High-performing institutions and their implications for study ing underrepresented minority students in STEM.
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From page 89... ...
Bridge Program: Recognizing, enlisting, and cultivating unrealized or unrecognized potential in underrepresented minority students. American Journal of Physics 79(4)
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From page 90... ...
Policy 403.20. Available: http://ualr.edu/policy/home/facstaff/faculty-roles-and-rewards-i/ (accessed January 22, 2018)
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