Barriers and Opportunities for 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Degrees Systemic Change to Support Students' Diverse Pathways (2016) / Chapter Skim
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6 Leading and Sustaining Change
6 Leading and Sustaining Change
Pages 141-158
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From page 141... ...
• Lasting change most often occurs when reform strategies in clude supporting learning communities and networks aimed at creating leaders and change agents who can scale up and sustain changes; developing intensive national and regional on going programs; building faculty and academic leader capacity to use data to create and improve reform efforts; and creating intermediary organizations or supporting a coordinating entity. • To understand better the effect of systemic reform efforts, research will need to focus on reform strategies that are con ceptualized broader than just instructional reform and that examine the interlocking qualities of student success (includ ing preparation, advising, supplemental instruction, pedagogy, faculty culture, and articulation between 2-year and 4-year institutions)
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From page 142... ...
STEM REFORM EFFORTS TO DATE The empirical research summarized below illustrates that almost all research related to improving STEM education in 2-year and 4-year institutions has had a narrow focus on faculty pedagogy rather than a systemslevel approach (Austin, 2011; Fairweather, 2008; Henderson et al., 2011) , and there has been very little research on other issues addressed in this report, such as differential tuition or articulation agreements.
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From page 143... ...
, and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) , have initiated efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education across their member universities and colleges.
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From page 144... ...
. Also, NSF funded the enter C for the Advancement of Engineering Education project that conducted research on engineering student pathways, engineering educator teaching practices, and methods to build capacity in the field to conduct engineering education research.
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The AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative3 seeks to achieve systemic and sustained improvements in STEM learning at its member institutions, which are major public and private research universities. The initiative supports 8 institutions directly, and 41 others focused on improving STEM education as members of the AAU STEM Network.
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From page 146... ...
In addition to the primary outcome of using exchange of information to strengthen the ongoing work on members' initiatives, specific outcomes of the Coalition for Reform of Undergraduate STEM Education have included preparation of an initial matrix of relevant national-level activities and a meeting of practitioners and funders, supported by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Sloan Foundation.5 The meeting explored ways to deepen and scale needed reforms. Moving forward, the Coalition will strive to focus on mapping the space for reform and promoting commitment to the systemic changes needed to achieve widespread implementation of evidence-based practices.
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From page 147... ...
In addition to the inherent flaw in the narrow approach to scaling change by simple dissemination of information about good practice, there are other identified barriers in institutions to STEM reform that have led to systemic reform strategies. Those barriers are related to how institutions relate to each other and how they affect society.
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From page 148... ...
developing a shared vision. However, STEM education researchers largely write about change only in terms of disseminating curriculum and pedagogy, and this strategy has led to minimal change.
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From page 149... ...
There have been few efforts to create regional or national learning communities for STEM reform, but research on reforms in higher education outside STEM suggests that networks and learning communities have been among the most significant vehicles for scaling up such changes as service learning or undergraduate research (Kezar, 2011, 2013; Smith et al., 2004)
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From page 150... ...
Centers for teaching and learning can also offer an institution-based tool/ resource to support these changes. Organizational Learning and Data-Driven Decision Making While STEM reform research has until recently ignored organizational and institutional approaches to change, the notion of learning com unities m can be connected to research about organizational learning (Fulton and Britton, 2011)
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From page 151... ...
The recent initiatives noted above, such as the AAU and AACU/Keck Framework projects, use data, metrics, and organizational learning to develop appropriate policies. Faculty Development Research studies also support the role of robust faculty development efforts to improve STEM education.
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Deans, provosts, presidents, trustees, and regents are needed to examine policies around tuition, articulation, and course credit. Institutional leaders are known to be significant players in implementing changes, but they are not generally brought into STEM reform efforts (Kezar, 2013)
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From page 153... ...
. The recent development of the Coalition for Reform of Undergraduate STEM Education will further increase collaboration among various STEM reform efforts and reform advocates.
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From page 154... ...
Through out the process, campus administrators collected and analyzed data so that documented successes could be scaled up immediately. For example, the use of trained peer tutors and freshmen learning communities showed positive results, so GSU leaders introduced peer tutors into every class that had high failure or withdrawal rates and required all entering freshmen to join a learning community unless they specifically requested to opt out.
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From page 155... ...
that help change faculty belief systems and practices and that are aimed at creating leaders and change agents who can scale up and sustain changes; developing ongoing national, regional, and disciplinary faculty development programs; providing faculty and academic leaders the capacity to use data to create and improve reform efforts; and creating intermediary organizations or supporting a coordinating entity, such as the Coalition for Reform of Undergraduate STEM Education, to focus and support reform. To better understand the effect of such reform efforts, research is needed on reform strategies that are broader than just instructional reform and that examine the interlocking qualities of student success, which include preparation, advising, supplemental instruction, pedagogy, faculty culture, and articulation between 2-year and 4-year institutions.
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From page 156... ...
. Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM education.
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From page 157... ...
. Scaling up Undergraduate STEM Reform: Communities of Transformation–Their Outcomes, Design, and Sustainability.
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From page 158... ...
. Learning Communities: Reforming Undergraduate Education.
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