Scaling cultures of collaboration: Evidence-based reform in portal STEM courses

该项目使用转型学习理论和对变化的免疫力模型作为成立实践社区(COPS)的理由，以改变伊利诺伊大学门户STEM课程的教学文化。改变免疫模式侧重于许多教学改革造成的不适，这些改革使教师摆脱了例行公事地向学生提供专业知识的角色，成为与学生互动的主要形式。当同样的讲师从事或代表他们的研究时，重要的是以展示他们专业知识的方式展示自己。这种不协调在许多情况下是改变研究活跃教师的教学实践的障碍，因为教学实践要求他们承担促进者的角色，而不是专家的角色。因此，这个项目的核心理念是，门户课程的教学应该由教师共同拥有和创造，而不是单独的、独立的教师的专属领域。这一进程是通过围绕设在两个学院--文理学院和工程学院--的十个系的每个本科生STEM学科建立实践社区(COPS)而启动的。通过COP过程，教学文化正在改变，教职员工正在适应以证据为基础的改革，并改变他们在入门课程中的指导。这些入门课程在两所大学的十个系，每年招收超过17,000名学生，其中几门课程是校园里几乎所有STEM专业的必修课。同业共同体办法既在每个部门内部运作，也在所有十个部门的总体一级运作。每个缔约方会议正在合作探索一个知识领域，通过将需要将其教学适应于循证教学的教师与其信念已经支持这些教学的教师联系起来，以支持改进实践的发展。COPS正在提供一种促进长期情境学习的组织结构，这种学习暴露和挑战了教师阻碍变革的默契。COPS还依赖于高水平的合作才能取得成功，并有效地传播隐性知识，这可以减少新手的学习曲线，减少多余资源的创造或失败的重演，并促进创造力。对COPS的重视将进一步产生对改革的共同所有权，对抗目前的个人主义教学文化，从而使改革制度化，以便在分配新教师授课时将其用于入门课程。COPS正在参与一个创新评估的开发周期，由一个大型评估团队和一个教学支持团队提供协助。评价小组正在使用定性(例如，学生态度)和定量(例如，成绩结果)措施向国家方案和方案提供形成性和总结性反馈，这些措施反过来又被用来改善教和学。此外，评价小组还在研究警察制度的运作情况，包括各小组作为警察制度运作的程度，并详细说明有效和不那么有效的警察制度的特点。指导支持小组通过参加警察每周会议和为所有警察组织每月聚会，为警察提供及时的培训。其余的私人机构督导正致力维持院长和部门首长的自上而下的行政支援，以维持警察的自下而上的改革工作。

This project is using transformational learning theory and an Immunity-to-Change model as justification for forming Communities of Practice (CoPs) to change the teaching culture in gateway STEM courses at the University of Illinois. The Immunity to Change model focuses on the discomfort caused by the many teaching reforms that take the instructor out of the role of routinely providing expertise to the students as the dominant form of interaction with them. When the same instructors are working in or representing their research, it is important to present themselves in ways that demonstrate their expertise. This dissonance is a barrier to changing the teaching practices of research-active faculty in many instances because the teaching practices require them to take on the role of facilitator rather than expert. Hence, this project is based on the core idea that teaching in gateway courses should be jointly owned and created by the faculty, rather than being the sole province of individual, independent instructors. This process is being initiated through the formation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) around each undergraduate STEM discipline in ten departments, which are located in two colleges - Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering. Through the CoP process, the teaching culture is changing, as faculty are adapting evidenced-based reforms and changing their instruction in gateway courses. These gateway courses in ten departments in two colleges enroll over 17,000 students annually, and several of the gateway courses are required for nearly all STEM majors on campus. The Community of Practice approach is operating both within each department and also at the aggregate level across all ten departments. Each CoP is collaboratively exploring a domain of knowledge to support the development of improved practice by connecting faculty who need to adapt their teaching to evidence-based pedagogies with faculty whose beliefs already support those pedagogies. CoPs are providing an organizational structure that promotes long-term situated learning that is exposing and challenging instructors' tacit beliefs that impede change. CoPs also depend on high levels of collaboration for success and effectively spread tacit knowledge, which decreases the learning curve for novices, reduces creation of redundant resources or reenactments of failures, and promotes creativity. The emphasis on CoPs will further engender common ownership of the reforms, countering the current individualistic teaching culture, thereby institutionalizing the reforms so that they are used in the gateway courses as new faculty are assigned to teach them. CoPs are engaging in a development cycle of innovate to evaluate, facilitated by a large evaluation team and an instructional support team. The evaluation team is providing both formative and summative feedback to CoPs using both qualitative (e.g., student attitudes) and quantitative (e.g., performance outcomes) measures that are in turn being used to improve teaching and learning. In addition, the evaluation team is also studying the functioning of the CoPs, including the extent to which teams are operating as CoPs, and providing detailed descriptions of features of effective and less effective CoPs. The instructional support team is providing just-in-time training to the CoPs by attending their weekly meetings and organizing monthly gatherings for all CoPs. The remaining PIs are working to maintain the top-down administrative support from deans and department heads to sustain the bottom-up reform efforts of the CoPs.