Collaborative Research: Promoting instructional change in introductory STEM courses through Faculty Learning Communities focused on the transition from high school to college

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Recent national reports note that fewer than half of first-year undergraduate students who start in STEM fields have graduated with a STEM degree six years later. Most of this attrition occurs between the first and second year of college, and students often cite instructional practices used in introductory college courses as a prominent reason for leaving. Furthermore, students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in STEM fields, including first-generation college students, leave STEM majors at higher rates than their classmates. Emerging data suggest that the instructional practices used in introductory college STEM courses differ significantly from those used in high school science classes and that incoming college students hold expectations that are often not well aligned with actual college teaching practices. This project is important because it is addressing directly the teaching practices differences in high school and college and how to ameliorate the negative impact on students. Building on these earlier findings, this project will develop Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) at the University of Maine and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in which faculty who teach introductory STEM courses will meet regularly over the course of a year. Participating faculty will examine data about instructional differences in high school and college; discuss student transitions with high school teachers; and explore emergent data that provide insight into why students, especially those who are first-generation, struggle during the first semester of college. These groups will develop materials about instructional transitions that can be used in a variety of courses and will respond to questions from first-year undergraduate students regarding how to achieve success in STEM fields.In conjunction with the formation of FLCs at two universities, this project will conduct research to understand how the FLCs affect participants' teaching beliefs and course practices as well as how the FLCs ultimately impact students in introductory classes. This research will use a multi-methods approach that includes qualitative interviews with FLC participants, video recording and observational scoring of participants' teaching practices, collection of survey data on student perceptions of their learning environments, and measurement of student academic performance. This project will also use online surveys to ask students about their expectations regarding the teaching practices used in undergraduate courses and differences they perceive between high school and college STEM courses. By developing and researching FLCs focused on the transition from high school to college, this project will produce a model for how to design FLCs focused on introductory STEM courses; an understanding of the conditions and experiences that enable faculty to change their instructional practices and how these changes impact students; and materials that instructors, first-year advisors, and administrators can use to help students with instructional transitions.