Reaching Students What Research Says About Effective Instruction in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (2015) / Chapter Skim
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1 Thinking About Learning and Teaching as a Researcher Would
1 Thinking About Learning and Teaching as a Researcher Would
Pages 1-28
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Drawing on this research base, they designed ways to help their students develop a better understanding of the fundamental concepts of a science or engineering discipline, become more engaged in their own learning, and begin to think and reason as sci entists and engineers do. These instructors often started with modest changes and refined their techniques over time.
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These cases also illustrate how research-based strategies can be feasible -- exciting, even -- in settings ranging from community colleges to large research institutions, and from small classes to big introductory lecture courses. Research on Learning Spurs Changes in Teaching Practices For Eric Mazur,1 a professor of physics at Harvard University, the desire to change his teaching took shape in 1990, when he came across a series of papers by Ibrahim Halloun and David Hestenes (1985, 1987)
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work by Lazry, Mazur, and Watkins (2008) found similar improvements in knowledge and skills, as well as decreased attrition in introductory physics courses, among community college students taught with Peer Instruction.
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grant to develop a systematic, campus-wide approach to improve science instruction for students who were preparing to become middle and high school teachers, and his oceanography class became the "test bed," he explains. He and his colleague Mark Leckie designed a series of in-class exercises that students could carry out with their peers sitting next to them after a brief lecture by the 4 Reaching Students
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And these strategies are feasible not only for instructors who are interested in doing formal studies of teaching and learning in their discipline, but also for anyone who is open to incorporating ideas from existing research and reflecting on their teaching practices in a systematic way. As the following case study illustrates, that's what Kaatje van der Hoeven Kraft did when she set out to improve her physical geology course at a community college with a large Hispanic enrollment.
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At the time of the interview, Kraft was teaching at Mesa Community College in Arizona. She has since moved in sites ranging from Chile to Sumatra.
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As the other students listen to these presentations, Kraft asks them to think about the commonalities and differences among the six earthquakes. Their ideas come into play during a final class discussion about the characteristics that tend to produce earthquakes of large magnitude and the factors that could lead to differences in intensity and damage for earthquakes of similar magnitude.
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To expand her own knowledge affect students' behavior and performance (van der of effective teaching strategies, she attended work- Hoeven Kraft et al., 2011)
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The information in the notebooks also Using notebooks to encourage student helps Kraft reflect on her own teaching and modify reflection her lessons to answer students' questions and clarify Student notebooks can be a valuable tool for concepts that are not well understood. encouraging students to "think about how they As part of the national Geoscience Affective think," writes Kraft (2012)
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And although community colleges do not gener ally require faculty to conduct research, a good way for faculty to maintain their scholarly practice is to participate in faculty development workshops, as Kraft has done. Her experience also shows the value of learning from the research of others, collaborating with a network of colleagues, and closely monitoring the impact of gradual changes in one's teaching practice.
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But too many students abandon STEM majors during their first two years of college, citing such reasons as "uninspiring introductory courses," difficulty with the math required in introductory STEM courses, and an "unwelcoming atmosphere" from faculty who teach these courses (p.
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DBER has generated insights that can be used to improve science and engineering education for all students. In particular, DBER sheds light on how students learn concepts and ways of thinking in a discipline and which types of teaching strategies can help students learn more effectively and retain what they have learned.
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Theories of learning as a basis for instruction The purpose of instruction is to help students learn. DBER starts from the premise that a more complete and nuanced understanding of how people learn science and engineering can lead to better instruction.
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In general, DBER scholarship and related studies clearly show that student-cen tered instructional strategies are more effective in improving students' conceptual understanding, knowledge retention, and attitudes about learning in a discipline than traditional lecture-based methods that do not include student participation. A limited amount of research suggests that making even incremental changes toward more student-centered approaches can enhance students' learning.4 The following excerpts from literature reviews, including several commis sioned by the NRC to inform its DBER study, highlight the positive impacts of student-centered instruction in specific disciplines: • In physics, results from conceptual and problem-solving tests administered to thousands of students "strongly suggest that the classroom use of [interac tive engagement]
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. • Frequent assessment in combination with active student engagement has been shown to significantly improve student performance in biology.
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She later took a sabbatical to become a Science Teaching and Learning Fellow in the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia. When she took a teaching position at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
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Research has identified a variety of instructional strategies that can enhance student learning, including several discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. These strategies range in scope and complexity from increasing student interaction with in a basic lecture format to devoting the bulk of class time to activities in which students work together to solve complex problems.
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The department had a problem with hundreds of students took General Chemistry, and student attrition. The general chemistry introductory the graduate student population was too small course enrolled several hundred students, including to provide a sufficient number of peer leaders for many who did not plan to major in the subject.
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School of Education to incorporate research on col- The workshop sessions can be particularly laborative learning. empowering for introverted students, says Ashea A critical component of this model, called Peer- West,c who served as a peer facilitator in spring Led Team Learning (PLTL)
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These sessions also engender a sense of community and encourage students to learn from each other and take responsibility for their own learning. Students gain experience with working in teams and communicating better, while peer leaders hone their teach ing and group management skills and strengthen their self-confidence.
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express concerns about possible negative reactions from students accustomed to traditional types of teaching, the time involved in redesigning a course, the chal lenge of learning new teaching methods, the feasibility of supporting active stu dent engagement in a large lecture hall, or the need to drop important content to make time for student interaction. Other research on factors that influence faculty decisions about teaching practices points to challenges in the areas of institutional leadership, departmen tal peers, tenure and reward systems, and the beliefs and values of the individual faculty members themselves (Austin, 2011; Fairweather, 2008)
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class time for active learning exercises that chal 3. Founder events establish small populations in iso lenge students to apply concepts, analyze data, and lated habitats (low likelihood of gene flow, after reflect on their reasoning with expert guidance and the founder event)
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Freeman chooses clicker ques- you have to parse: first, is it true, and then, is it tions that are difficult enough to stimulate students' addressing the issue you're raising now? Is it causthinking and include common student misconcep- ative -- would that be a mechanism why small poputions among the possible answers.
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These ungraded additions didn't From lecture to highly structured active work very well, says Freeman. "I didn't see any change in student performance." learning Starting in 2005, when technology made it prac "What motivated me was failure," says Freeman tical to use clickers in a large class, Freeman made about the evolution of his introductory biology time during his lectures for daily clicker questions course.
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. and a model in which students learn basic information why I think that way." outside of class and work on collaborative projects The class redesign did not require more money, and problems during class time that are designed to smaller class sizes, or more class time (Haak et al., deepen their understanding.
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slightly more difficult, across the years of the study. Working in groups of three for about 20 minutes, Particularly encouraging was the disproportion students create their trees, using a data table that ate drop in the failure rate for students from educa shows whether a specific group has a particular trait, tionally or economically disadvantaged backgrounds such as internal bones, limbs, and amniotic eggs.
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• Simply injecting clicker questions into a lecture does not mean an instructor is implementing a research-based practice. As discussed at more length in Chapter 5, it matters a great deal whether the questions are appropriate in their level of difficulty, address common student misconceptions, are nested within a larger research-based course design, and, most importantly, are presented in a format that allows students to discuss their ideas with their peers.
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I wanted to have interesting discus sions with them.'" Simon adds: "And that's something we've seen frequently." Resources and Further Reading Center for Peer-Led Team Learning https://sites.google.com/site/quickpltl Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (National Research Council, 2012) Chapter 2: The Emergence and Current State of Discipline-Based Education Research Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
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