Institute Goals

The LASER Institute is a year-long professional development program for early- and mid-career researchers that aims to build their capacity for leveraging new data sources and applying computational research methods to support their existing research. The overarching goal of the LASER Institute and associated curriculum materials is to build the capacity of participating scholars in three core areas:

  1. Disciplinary Knowledge. Scholars will deepen their understanding of LA methodologies, literature, applications and ethical issues as they relate to STEM education and equity.

  2. Technical Skills Scholars will develop proficiency with R/Python, Quarto, GitHub and other tools used for collaboration, reproducible research and computational analysis.

  3. Social Capital: Scholars will expand their professional networks, connecting with researchers and experts in LA related fields, as well as other scholars focused on STEM education.

Learning Objectives

The LASER curriculum is intentionally designed and carefully scaffolded to help current and future educational researchers in to:

  • Formulate Research Questions. Learners will understand which research questions/issues appropriately addressed by LA as compared to other analytical approaches and advanced methods;

  • Leverage Digital Data. Learners will be able to identify relevant sources of education data to address both theoretical and practical issues in STEM education;

  • Apply Computational Methods. Learner will understand how LA techniques can be applied in STEM context and Apply computational techniques (e.g., machine learning and text mining) using a choice of packages (R or Python) to prepare, explore, and model education data;

  • Evaluate their Research. Learners will be able to evaluate the technical feasibility, ethical issues, and societal constraints in using analytics to support STEM teaching and learning;

  • Collaborate with Practitioners. Collaborate with educational organizations to help them learn from their own data and identify new ways to support students.

Broadening Impacts

Through renewed funding from the National Science Foundation (DRL-2321128, and DRL-2321129), the next iteration of the LASER Institute: Broadening Education in Advanced Methods (LASER BEAM) aims to greatly expand the the number of education researchers capable of leveraging advanced research methods to understand and improve student learning. To address this goal, LASER BEAM has three primary objectives:

  • Learn from LASER. A significant portion of the Summer Workshop and Fall Online Learning Community consists of module sessions focused on a range of research methods. Modules sessions are conducted in small groups and differentiated for participants based on your selected method of interest. 

  • Teach with LASER. Each LASER Scholar works on a self-determined “SHARK” Goal and instructional plan for teaching other faculty or students at their home institutions. These plans are developed during the Summer Workshop and implemented during the academic year.

  • Network at LASER. Community building activities are designed to facilitate personal and professional networking and include morning icebreakers and opportunities to connect and collaborate with fellow Scholars throughout the year.

To support participants in both learning and teaching with the LASER curriculum, this grant has three major activities designed to broaden the impact of this work:

  1. Module Development. LASER BEAM aims to create a modular curriculum composed of 25-30 distinct instructional modules that can be incorporated into semester-long courses or used individually for workshops, webinars, or other training venues. To ensure that materials can be readily adapted and implemented in a wide range of contexts, evaluation efforts will focus in part on gathering ongoing feedback from instructors to improve the curriculum.

  2. Train the Trainer. Faculty will participate in an intensive, week-long Summer Institute with ongoing supports during the academic year. Both of these components are designed to prepare them in these advanced methods and to incorporate curriculum resources into graduate-level programs, courses, or workshops at their home university or research institution.

  3. Teach it Forward. Ultimately, LASER BEAM aims to greatly expand the number of STEM education researchers who have the expertise necessary to leverage LA and big data to support their research. To that end, the project team will provide faculty ongoing support throughout the academic year to pilot curriculum resources within graduate-level programs, courses, or workshops at their local university or research institution.