ECR Projects

Explore past and current fundamental STEM education research projects across the three research areas that NSF's EDU Core Research (ECR) program funds, as well as across ECR funding types. Other search filters draw from both NSF's data and the ECR Hub's hand coding of award abstracts.

Ninth-grade biology students create cell models using clay.

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STEM Workforce Development STEM Workforce Development  STEM Learning and Learning Environments STEM Learning and Learning Environments  
Broadening Participation in STEM Broadening Participation in STEM

Convening for EHR Core Research: Fundamental Research - Progress, Issues, and the Future

Effective Years: 2017-2018

The Education and Human Resources Core Research (ECR) program funds fundamental research on education and workforce development in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) focused on STEM Learning and Learning Environments, Broadening Participation in STEM, and STEM Workforce Development. The convening will bring together researchers who have been funded by ECR to share their research results and ongoing studies to better inform the continuing research funded by the program. Principal Investigators supported with ECR funding will attend a 2-day meeting where they will share their own work, but also hear from luminaries in the field on the broad issues converging across the research areas supported by ECR. The goals of the convening are to engage interdisciplinary leaders around the findings of their research, identify big issues related to fundamental research in STEM education, solicit PI feedback on opportunities and barriers to rapid advancement within the ECR research community, and help shape the field's future research and development efforts. The meeting will strengthen and deepen understanding of project activities and results, the challenges encountered by PIs conducting fundamental research, and the foundational knowledge that has been developed and accumulated by these projects. Additionally, the meeting will increase the PIs' knowledge of the wide range of research topics in STEM education that are addressed by the ECR program, and identify opportunities and gaps in the research.

The approach to planning and executing the convening will include appointing program committee members, identifying session formats, coordinating participation of keynote speakers and panelists, developing a web site to support the event, facilitating and participating in sessions at the event, writing a report based on the content of the event, and promoting and disseminating information after the event (e.g., press releases, blogs, and social media). During the planning process, the team will actively seek input from potential attendees. They will use the input to focus the convening on what matters most to attendees. They will broadly disseminate the resources produced by the event and a final report on the convening's outcomes through social media channels, newsletters, and other connections we have throughout the research community, including through resource centers supported by NSF. The online resources will be open, broadly advertised, and permanently available. Additional stakeholders, practitioners, and policymakers will be invited as panelists and keynote speakers to help encourage discussions toward broader impacts aligned with overall ECR goals.