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

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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.