Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education Supporting Equitable and Effective Teaching (2025) / Chapter Skim
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6 Role of Academic Units in Achieving Equitable and Effective Teaching
6 Role of Academic Units in Achieving Equitable and Effective Teaching
Pages 136-166
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From page 136... ...
Where we refer back to specific Principles for Equitable and Effective Teaching to make connections to content in this chapter we use the shorthand names presented in Table 4.2. The academic unit plays an important role in shaping and understanding the impact of the collection of courses that comprises the curriculum, degree requirements, and other central elements that define the educational experience.
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From page 137... ...
The way that CTE programs are often designed to help students reach specific learning outcomes is presented as a model that might be more broadly applicable. Prepublication copy, uncorrected proofs
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From page 138... ...
Program-level learning outcomes can be both a central tenet of the intended curriculum (i.e., the outcome or degree defined by instructors) that ensures active engagement in disciplinary knowledge and a means for improving flexibility and transparency (related to Principle 6: Flexibility and responsiveness and Principle 7: Intentionality and transparency)
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From page 139... ...
However, students do not experience individual courses in a vacuum, but as a collection of courses within a curriculum designed by an academic unit. The ability to truly achieve both an equitable and effective learning experience requires understanding the interactions between the courses students take both simultaneously and sequentially, an understanding that the academic unit is particularly well-positioned to achieve.
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From page 140... ...
. In the context of undergraduate teaching reform, while the policies and practices of academic units can have an immediate and lasting impact, research on their role as a lever for impacting equitable and effective teaching is an emerging area.
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From page 141... ...
. THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC AND DISCIPLINARY CULTURE IN SETTING EXPECTATIONS Academic units are central to improving the quality of undergraduate education because they are the primary loci for cultural change.
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From page 142... ...
The role of professional standards and competence within academic freedom points to the important connection between academic units and professional societies and between disciplinary and departmental/unit culture. The culture within a unit may arise from the experience of the discipline's culture that is sometimes nurtured at professional meetings and within the practices of the larger profession (Austin, 1994, 1996; Finnegan & Gamson, 1996; Lee, 2007; Martin et al., 2015; Murzi et al., 2016; Murzi et al., 2021; Tierney & Lanford, 2018)
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From page 143... ...
. They accomplished this by drawing boundaries around themselves and those that were interested in similar subject matter, initiating "academic territories," which grew into what are now called academic disciplines (Becher & Trowler, 2001)
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From page 144... ...
. Curricular decisions by academic units may therefore reflect the dominant views in the discipline or compromises based on disagreements from faculty in different subdisciplines instead of thoughtful analysis of the desired learning outcomes for undergraduates.
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From page 145... ...
In terms of defining program outcomes, academic units may consider qualitative data ranging from student goals to the needs/expectations of future employers, graduate schools, and professional schools. Program learning outcomes can be measured by taking key assessments in relevant courses to demonstrate different levels of achievement of specific PLOs disaggregated by different student groups.
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From page 146... ...
the curriculum for a degree, major or minor program, or certificate, starting with program-level learning outcomes gives them the ability to use a backward design approach as discussed in Chapter 5 (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) to align the intended and enacted curriculums.
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From page 147... ...
ROLE OF ACADEMIC UNITS 147 1 2 FIGURE 6-1 Curriculum matrix sample for an undergraduate program in the geosciences. 3 NOTE: An example of a portion of a curriculum matrix for an undergraduate program in the geosciences showing program-level 4 learning outcomes and courses in which they are addressed.
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From page 148... ...
In general, the curriculum matrix is a way to visualize the extent to which a department is supporting its students in meeting their program learning outcomes: program learning outcomes are listed on one axis and individual courses on the other, and in each box, faculty can indicate whether a skill is introduced, developed, or expected in that course (the exact schema can vary) Figure 6-1 provides an example, and additional information on the use of matrices can be found at the link below.
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From page 149... ...
. To ensure that program learning outcomes are meaningfully designed and incorporated throughout a degree program in an intentional and transparent way, lessons can be learned from STEM disciplines for which accrediting bodies provide expected learning outcomes and use those as one basis for program Prepublication copy, uncorrected proofs
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From page 150... ...
. One important aspect of these acts is that, in contrast to way that traditional disciplinary academic units make decisions about course content and major requirements, local educational agencies (LEAs)
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CTE programs frequently recognize that employers value employees with more than just focused technical skills and include learning outcomes related to work skills as well. What used to be called "terminal" or "vocational" education is being transformed into what Kisker et al.
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From page 152... ...
The Curricular Analytics Project, 42 led by the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU) uses this software in its study of the connection between curricular structure and complexity and student outcomes such as time to degree, retention, and graduation rates across multiple research universities and STEM disciplines.
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From page 153... ...
. Some of the complexities that result from students taking courses across institutions and academic units is discussed further in the section on how to align policies and approaches later in this chapter.
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From page 154... ...
. Professional socialization may lead to the perpetuation of weed-out courses more so than explicit decisions by an academic unit or curriculum committee (Weston et al., 2019)
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From page 155... ...
Understanding the impact of approaches such as co-requisite remediation and supporting students in navigating these new pathways ultimately requires coordination across disciplines and academic as well as an institutional commitment to support the necessary changes to processes, policies, and institutional structures. ALIGN POLICIES AND APPROACHES Academic units and programs typically include members at different ranks with a range of emphases in their roles.
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From page 156... ...
The Departmental Action Team (DAT) approach described in Box 6-2 is one example of how members of an academic unit can work together to advance change and build consensus among unit members.
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In both cases, there is an external disincentive to modify or overhaul courses or change current teaching practices. While criteria for review are the purview of the unit, they can be modified to strengthen the role of effective and equitable teaching in review, tenure, and promotion.
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From page 158... ...
A study of Vision and Change efforts provided the ability to compare three levels of the curriculum: (a) intended curriculum: learning outcomes recommended at the program level or planned at the course level, (b)
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From page 159... ...
Many of the challenges lie in building the pathway across academic units and institutions, therefore institutional leaders may need to coordinate cross unit conversations to ensure alignment and consistency within their institution or to revisit articulation agreements with feeder colleges, which determine which courses transfer between institutions. The enacted and experienced curriculum spans academic units: (essentially all STEM disciplines require some courses that are "outside" the discipline and department in which the major is housed.
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From page 160... ...
Some campuses have minimized these issues by adopting a "common goods" approach to the introductory STEM courses whereby the instructors teaching these courses come together as a community to uncover and minimize toxic course combinations and unnecessary co- and prerequisites. For example, to increase student retention and success in engineering, Wright State University developed freshman-level engineering math course which did not require traditional math prerequisites and instead moved core engineering courses earlier in the program, redefining the way in which engineering math was taught (Klingbeil et al., 2004)
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From page 161... ...
The UERU Curricular Analytics Project mentioned earlier has developed a tool to help identify potential curricular bottlenecks and also logistical ones where students who may not succeed in a course the first time can be delayed up to a year in their degree progression if that course is only offered during one term each academic year. Groups that manage curricular programs can also discuss in detail which skills and knowledge are needed for particular courses (e.g., which specific quantitative skills are expected for an upper-level course)
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From page 162... ...
While articulation agreements can facilitate this process by providing documentation of what courses will transfer for credit at the new institution, many are based on outdated learning outcomes that may not have been revisited for many years. Community college faculty may feel they constrained in making changes to courses because they are articulated to a four-year college.
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From page 163... ...
Therefore, a message that these efforts are valued and supported by academic units and institutions can be a powerful motivator. Equitable and effective teaching is unlikely to happen in a widespread manner if the work is not valued by academic units, considered in teaching evaluations, and rewarded equitably and reliably.
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From page 164... ...
has seven dimensions: goals, content and alignment; teaching practices; class climate; achievement of learning outcomes; reflection and iterative growth; mentoring and advising; and involvement in teaching service, scholarship, or community. Each of these can be examined through more than one lens using varying forms of evidence.
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From page 165... ...
are located at a key level of institutional change where they may be able to influence the larger institutional policies and certainly can influence instructor behavior by providing opportunities, support, and incentives for attention to teaching and equity. When members of the academic unit agree to act collectively and come to agreement about course, major, or program learning outcomes, the unit provides a structure for developing a clearly articulated curricular structure that supports those learning outcomes.
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From page 166... ...
Conclusion 6.5: Focused attention on examining and improving the coherence of learning goals across course sequences, programs, and majors can (a) help educators clarify the overall goals for students and facilitate improvements in individual courses, (b)
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