NSF Award
0942293
This project is contributing to the national effort to transform Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education to use what is now known about student learning and effective instructional practices in the classroom. Success depends on more than educating instructors to become confident and able users of instructional practices that are learner-, knowledge-, assessment-, and community-centered. Much work has been done to develop instructors and curriculum, but structural barriers have impeded the spread of this type of active learning methods in science and mathematics at the college and K-12 level. Scaling up change requires not only changing individual instructors' beliefs but also the cultural norms, time pressures, reward systems, and preparation of science and math instructors. <br/>This project is engaged in an important first step of institutional transformation in science instruction at Western Kentucky University, an institution with a history and tradition for valuing teaching. (It is also designed to affect K-12 instruction through building on and strengthening the "SKyTeach" program at this university, a replication of the UTeach STEM teacher preparation program.) The SkyTeach approach is to develop learning communities for STEM faculty. These nascent communities inform interested instructors about effective teaching, build community, and support faculty already engaged in this transformation. The communities are engaged in identifying and recognizing exemplary courses and supporting the development of additional ones. <br/>An emphasis in this project is the education of pre-service teachers. New curriculum development work strives to include pre-service teachers in development, implementation, and revision of curricula. Active learning in large introductory courses is being supported by a Learning Assistant (LA) program that also serves to recruit students into teaching. Learning assistants collaborate with faculty and graduate students in instruction in order to reduce a structural barrier (limited instructor time) to active learning. Classroom observations and measures of student learning gains are being used to model alternative ways of evaluating instruction. Colleagues are learning about these efforts through different forums ranging from informal hallway conversations to organized conference sessions. Formative evaluation is being used to guide the design of this pilot project, and is also being used to inform the host college, university, and other institutions.
