The Structure and Dynamics and the Culture and Motivations that Define a National Network to Advance STEM Education B. B. Goldberg, BU Marilyn Amee, MSU Russ Faux, DSRA Bob Mathieu, UW Holly Bender, ISU Lucas Hill, MSU

Central Guiding Questions What is the structure and dynamics of the CIRTL national cross-institution network and why do the participants act as they do to create and evolve it? What is the structure of CIRTL university networks, what actions do students take and why do they take them, and overall, how do these structures, actions and motivations lead to student learning outcomes?

CIRTL Cross-Network Community Qualitative study of cross- network and CIRTL leaders: Exploring motivations, and attaching meaning to actions Quantitative Network Analysis of cross-network and CIRTL leaders: Frequency, awareness value, and advice network. Qualitative study provides attributes for participants, allows interpretation of network structure and dynamics Qualitative study of cross- network and CIRTL leaders: Exploring motivations, and attaching meaning to actions Quantitative Network Analysis reveals clustering, dyadic strength, knowledge diffusion and how the network operates Quantitative Network Analysis of local Univ CIRTL community. Data on local CIRTL participants – actions, events, training. Data on local CIRTL participants – learning outcomes Qualitative surveys on local CIRTL participants – motivations, career paths, aspirations Data on local CIRTL participants connects actions to learning outcomes Local CIRTL network: connects structure to activities, and then to participants CIRTL participants interact in cross-network courses and MOOC Local University CIRLT Community Local CIRTL Communities National CIRTL Understating of local CIRTL communities leads to design changes that increase CIRTL outcomes

Timeline and study descriptions for cross- and local-network communities

Opportunity for 2-3 local learning communities Find out how your local network operates. Connect your program events to student actions and to student learning outcomes. Understand why you are having success (or facing challenges). Get funding for 4 years for this activity. Requirements: – Use the CIRTL IT backbone to organize events, track participants in your program. – Work with the X-Net/L-Net IUSE proposal team to develop the proposal. Describe your existing structure and programs and student learning outcomes. Describe how you see the study integrating with your program design and evolution. – Enter into a discussion after 1.5yrs on what the data and analysis says about your program and be willing to consider jointly agreed program changes. Be willing to discuss exploring the outcomes of these design-based changes. (Example – do less of the events that don’t lead to student participation and more of those that do; change the structure to reduce an information flow bottleneck