Promising Practices in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Summary of Two Workshops (2011) / Chapter Skim
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8 Systemic Change: Barriers and Opportunities
8 Systemic Change: Barriers and Opportunities
Pages 60-68
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From page 60... ...
However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the impact of this research has been minimal in undergraduate science classrooms and that typical classroom practice remains largely lecture-based. According to Dancy, change is not happening quickly because change strategies are based largely on a development and dissemination model.
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From page 61... ...
For their part, instructors blame the change agents. Interviews with five tenured physics faculty who are considered by their peers to be effective teachers revealed high levels of frustration with the research community (Henderson and Dancy, 2008a)
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From page 62... ...
Building on Dancy's points, Henderson discussed the literature on undergraduate STEM reform. He began by identifying three stakeholder groups: disciplinary STEM education researchers (generally in STEM departments)
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From page 63... ...
The change strategy is to encourage or support individuals to develop new teaching practices; faculty developers are the primary community employing this strategy. Third, with a prescribed final condition and changing environments or structures, the strategy is to develop new environmental 1A prescribed final outcome means that the change agent defines what constitutes success before implementing the change (i.e., if this strategy is successful, student learning will increase)
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From page 64... ...
The fourth category combines a focus on changing the environment with an emerging final condition. Higher education researchers are the primary change agents in this category, and the strategy is to empower the collective development of environmental features that support new teaching ideas or practices (e.g., institutional transformation and learning organizations)
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From page 65... ...
Fairweather went on to observe that evaluation practices themselves sometimes confound the ability to truly determine the effectiveness of innovative practices. For example, most evaluation in undergraduate STEM education focuses on in-class events, making it difficult to compare and characterize the entire body of knowledge.
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From page 66... ...
They cited the need to forge stronger connections among discipline-based instructors, discipline-based education researchers, education researchers, cognitive scientists, higher education policy researchers, and disciplinary societies. Strengthening these connections, they said, would further scholarship with respect to STEM education and provide opportunities for professional development targeted at implementing research-based practices.
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From page 67... ...
Ideas in this regard included a concerted research initiative around the broad question of what influences faculty members' teaching decisions; research that examines the drivers for change, the resistance for change, and strategies for overcoming that resistance; the role of influential leaders in promoting change; and a deeper analysis of change strategies that do not work. Finally, the groups mentioned the importance of disseminating research in a way that makes it enticing and easy for "hungry adopters" to change their practice.
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From page 68... ...
She observed that, similar to scientific research, the process of change is iterative and requires both types of research. She also cited a need to develop a broader theoretical framework to guide STEM education research within and across disciplines, expressing the hope that this workshop series is the beginning of a conversation along those lines, rather than the end.
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