Changing the Teaching Culture in Introductory STEM Courses at a Large Research University.
Changing the Teaching Culture in Introductory STEM Courses at a Large Research University.
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改变大型研究型大学 STEM 入门课程的教学文化。
DOI：
10.2505/4/jcst18_047_06_32
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发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Matthew West
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Geoffrey L. Herman;J. Greene;L. Hahn;J. Mestre;J. Tomkin;Matthew West
我们描述了在伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校教授大型科学和工程入门课程的重大转变，每年影响超过17,000名学生。这种转变是紧急的，不是规定的，通过包括工程系和科学系在内的两个项目进行。在实践社区(COPS)中，由系内少数教员和教学专业人员组成的社区合作，教职员工采用和实施基于证据的教学实践，目标是随着时间的推移维持这些实践。为了让研究人员能够理解改革过程，我们采用了一句谚语：“教得像做研究一样”，意思是不仅使用迭代的、基于证据的决策，而且还参与一个学术、协作的社区，推动每个成员走向卓越。改革的另一个基本特点是在缔约方会议中安排既了解循证改革又有在其课程中实施循证改革的记录的教员，作为缔约方会议的资源。我们描述了课程改革的进程和经验教训，并为我们的努力取得成功提供了证据。尽管越来越多的文件表明，基于证据的教学实践(EBIP)在教授STEM(科学、技术、工程和数学)入门课程方面比传统的讲授方法更有效(Freeman等人，2014)，但显著改变研究型大学的传统教学实践仍然是一项艰巨的任务(比奇、亨德森和芬克尔斯坦，2012)。对STEM课程门户进行的改革通常是基于教师对良好做法的偏见和直觉，而不是基于研究证据，可能是因为STEM教师对EBIP的知识既不被期望也不会得到回报(Handelsman等人，2004年)。即使教员通过采用一些EBIP来改革一门课程，它通常也是由当时教授该课程的教师发起并“拥有”的，当新教师接管该课程时，进步就会消失。我们在这里报告了两个相关的、成功的努力，即在伊利诺伊大学14个系的大型门户本科STEM课程中实施EBIP，使用实践共同体(COP)模式来解决这些变革障碍。
We describe a major transformation in teaching large introductory courses in the sciences and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, impacting over 17,000 students yearly. The transformation was emergent, not prescribed, and occurred through two programs that included both engineering and science departments. Working collaboratively in Communities of Practice (CoPs), made up of a small number of faculty and teaching professionals formed within departments, faculty adopted and implemented evidence-based instructional practices with the goal of sustaining them over time. To make the reform process understandable to research faculty, we adopted the adage of “teach like you do research,” meaning not only using iterative, evidence-based decision making but also engaging in a scholarly, collaborative community that pushes each individual member toward excellence. Another essential feature of the reform was embedding faculty members within the CoPs who had both knowledge of and a track record of implementing evidence-based reforms in their courses to serve as resources to the CoP. We describe the course-reform process and lessons learned and provide evidence for the success of our efforts. Despite mounting documentation that evidencebased instructional practices (EBIPs) are more effective for teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) gateway courses than traditional lecture approaches (Freeman et al., 2014), significantly changing traditional teaching practices at research universities remains a daunting task (Beach, Henderson, & Finkelstein, 2012). Reforms made to gateway STEM courses are typically based on instructors’ biases and hunches about good practices, rather than on research evidence, perhaps because STEM faculty knowledge of EBIPs is neither expected nor rewarded (Handelsman et al., 2004). Even when faculty reform a course by adopting some EBIPs, it is typically initiated and “owned” by the instructor teaching the course at the time, and progress is lost when a new instructor takes over the course. We report here on two related, successful efforts to implement EBIPs in large gateway undergraduate STEM courses in 14 departments at the University of Illinois, using a Community of Practice (CoP) model to address such barriers to change.