Phase 2 (Incorporating The Results):

The Goal:

Expand the successful content, process, and assessment components of the Contemporary Worlds intervention to a broad range of engineering majors and higher education settings.

Expanding the Content:

The Professional Development Modules are integrated into Contemporary Worlds interventions at two additional higher education institutions (one faith-based and one teaching-based) to complement the Research 1 offerings in Phase 1. Lessons Learned will be used to modify the modules for adaptation to a wide range of engineering and STEM audiences. Professional Development Modules are also disseminated to the larger community.

Expanding the Process:

In Phase 1, social and active instruction principles based on the highly successful Community of Learners principles developed for middle and high school audiences were implemented in the Contemporary Worlds classroom. Lessons learned from a far reaching historical basis of research in active learning and related departures from passive instruction clearly show that no "one size fits all" approach to social instruction is available for STEM classrooms. Adaptive instruction and learning strategies are investigated in Phase 2.

Expanding the Assessment:

In Phase 1, affective and metacognitive outcomes are influenced by the Contemporary Worlds Intervention and are affected by gender, demographics, and other student characteristics. Continuing to assess these outcomes provides meaningful insight into academic performance (including retention and persistence) as well as a complement to the wealth of cognitive factors research in the engineering education literature. Validated measures and descriptors of important affective constructs and metacognitive outcomes to engineering and STEM education are available as well.