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Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University

Four Incomplete Change Strategies: A Review of the Literature on Promoting High Quality Teaching Practices. Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado - Boulder. www.homepages.wmich.edu/~chenders.

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Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University

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  1. Four Incomplete Change Strategies: A Review of the Literature on Promoting High Quality Teaching Practices Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado - Boulder www.homepages.wmich.edu/~chenders DRIVERS OF CHANGE: WHAT CAN WE LEARN BY COMPARING U.S. AND EU UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL? June 18-19, 2010 Hyatt Regency Warsaw Warsaw, Poland

  2. Overview • Part I: What is STEM and what is the problemwith STEM instruction? • Part II: Literaturereview of changestrategies • -> ThreeIsolatedResearchCommunities • -> FourIncompleteChangeStrategies Most of my work on changestrategieshasbeenfocused on college-level STEM, but the resultsappearapplicableacrosshighereducation.

  3. What is STEM? • Science • Technology • Engineering • Mathematics • STEM skills are needed to address many global problems, such as: • Climate Change • Clean Energy • Disease

  4. What is the problemwith STEM instruction? • Research suggests that college STEM courses: • Do not help students develop meaningful understanding of the course content (e.g., Handelsman et al., 2004) • Do not help students develop meaningful problem solving skills (e.g., Maloney, 1994) • Turn away many capable students who find these courses dull and unwelcoming (e.g., Tobias, 1990) • Misrepresent the processes of science (e.g., Halloun and Hestenes, 1998) • Handelsman, J., Ebert-May, D., Beichner, R., Bruns, P., Chang, A., DeHaan, R., Gentile, J., Lauffer, S., Stewart, J., Tilghman, S. M. and Wood, W. B. (2004) Education: Scientific teaching. Science 304 (5670), 521-522. • Maloney, D. (1994) Research on problem solving: Physics. In Handbook of research on science teaching and learning (Gabel, D., ed.), MacMillan. • Tobias, S. (1990) They're not dumb, they're different: Stalking the second tier, Research Corporation. • Halloun, I. and Hestenes, D. (1998) Interpreting VASS dimensions and profiles. Science & Education 7 (6), 553-577.

  5. An Important Part of the Solution  Change the Way STEM is Taught • There is a need for inquiry-based learning that brings students “to a deep understanding of the nature of science, the language of mathematics, and the tools of technology.”(Project Kaleidoscope, Report on Reports II, 2006) • “Educators must provide more engaging, relevant content targeted to individual styles of learning and needs.”(Business Higher Education Forum, Building a Nation of Learners: The Need for Changes in Teaching and Learning to Meet Global Challenges, 2003) • “Departments and faculty need to utilize this educational research to guide curricular and pedagogical reform.”(National Research Council, BIO 2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists, 2003)

  6. Clicker use at UC Riverside White boards at Western Michigan University Workshop Physics Classroom at Dickinson College Traditional Physics class at University of Rochester SCALE-UP Physics class at Clemson University Some Examples of “Reformed” Instruction

  7. Starting Point:Current State of Knowledge • We know a lot about: • effective teaching and learning of STEM subjects • how to apply this knowledge in individual classrooms • An Important Question is: • How can we make these effective teaching strategies more widely used?

  8. Part II: Literaturereview of changestrategies • Collaborators(from L to R) • R. Sam Larson • Andrea Beach • Charles Henderson • Noah Finkelstein

  9. Three Groups Focused on Change in Undergraduate STEM Instruction • Disciplinary STEM Education Researchers (SER) • Housed in the STEM disciplines in College of Arts and Sciences or Engineering, Sometimes in College of Education or in STEM professional societies • Faculty Development Researchers (FDR) • Housed in Center for Teaching and Learning • Higher Education Researchers (HER) • Housed in College of Education, Administration, or Government Each group has their own professional societies, conferences, journals, etc.

  10. Three Literature Reviews • Disciplinary Science Education Researchers (SER) • Seymour, E. (2001) Tracking the process of change in us undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Science Education 86, 79-105. • Faculty Development Researchers (FDR) • Emerson, J. D. and Mosteller, F. (2000) Development programs for college faculty: Preparing for the twenty-first century. In Educational media and technology yearbook 2000 (Vol. 25) (Branch, R.M. and Fitzgerald, M.A., eds.), pp. 26-42. • Higher Education Researchers (HER) • Kezar, A. J. (2001) Understanding and facilitating organizational change in the 21st century: Recent research and conceptualizations. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 28 (4), 1-162. (Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aehe.2804)

  11. Clicker use at UC Riverside White boards at Western Michigan University Workshop Physics Classroom at Dickinson College SCALE-UP Physics class at Clemson University Traditional Physics class Three Groups - One Common Goal • Transform undergraduate education from the instruction paradigm to the learning paradigm* *From Barr, R. B. and Tagg, J. (1995) From teaching to learning - a new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change (November/December), 13-25.

  12. Three Groups – No Communication No communication between groups No overlap in references! 

  13. A Larger Literature Review • Literature Search • ~300 relevant journal articles identified • Preliminary Analysis (completedSpring 2008) • Developcategories and codingcriteriausing a subset of articles (N=130) • Final Analysis (completed Spring 2010) • Coding of all articles – using revised categories and coding criteria. *Supported by NSF DRL-0723699 • AdditionalDetails at homepages.wmich.edu/~chenders • Henderson, C., Finkelstein, N. & Beach A. (2010). Beyond Dissemination in College science teaching: An Introduction to Four Core Change Strategies, Journal of College Science Teaching, 39 (5), 18-25. • Henderson, C., Beach, A., & Finkelstein, N. (submitted) Facilitating Change in Undergraduate STEM Instructional Practices: An Analytic Review of the Literature, Submitted June 2010.

  14. Categories of Change Strategies Based on Two Dimensions • 1. What does the change effort intend to directly impact?

  15. Categories of Change Strategies Based on Two Dimensions 2. To what extent is the outcome prescribed in advance?

  16. Four Categories of Change Strategies Focus on Changing Individuals Encourage/support individuals to develop new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., reflective practice, (FDR), action research (FDR), curriculum development (FDR, SER) Tell/teach individuals about new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., dissemination (SER, FDR), focused conceptual change (FDR) Prescribed Final Condition Emergent Final Condition Develop new environmental features that require/encourage new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., policy change (HER), strategic planning (HER) Empower collective development of environmental features that support new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., institutional transformation (HER), learning organizations (HER) Focus on Changing Environment/Structures

  17. Each Type of Strategy has a Unique Emphasis Focus on Changing Individuals DEVELOPING Reflective Teachers DISSEMINATING Curriculum & Pedagogy Prescribed Final Condition Emergent Final Condition DEVELOPING Shared Vision DEVELOPING Policy Focus on Changing Environment/Structures

  18. 193 Articles in Final Analysis Focus on Changing Individuals DEVELOPING Reflective Teachers (N=64, 33%) DISSEMINATING Curriculum & Pedagogy (N=60, 31%) Prescribed Final Condition Emergent Final Condition DEVELOPING Shared Vision (N=16, 8%) DEVELOPING Policy (N=53, 28%) Focus on Changing Environment/Structures 19

  19. Each research community favors a different category of change strategy *Research community is defined based on the position of the first author at the time of publication.

  20. Each research community favors a different category of change strategy – Independent confirmation by experts (Delphi Process) 21

  21. Three Isolated Research Communities • Each has a different and important perspective. • There is little interaction between groups and minimal interaction within groups

  22. Articles in the largest cluster with 3 or more links (N=57) • 47% of articles have no link to other articles in the database • Another 18%) have only 1 link to another article in the database *Citation data from preliminary analysis of 267 articles with complete records.

  23. Articles typically claim success of the change strategy studied *88/193=46% of articles did not report on the implementation of a specific change strategy and are not included in this slide.

  24. Most articles do not offer strong evidence to suppot claims of success (or failure). EvidenceCriteria Strong: wellexplainedmethods, clearconnectionbeetweenclaims and evidence Adequate: evidencenotfullyexplainedorfullyconvincing Poor: anecdotalorvagueevidence None: no specificevidencepresented *88/193=46% of articles did not report on the implementation of a specific change strategy and are not included in this slide. 25

  25. Summary • Change agents frequently: • Favor a single type of change strategy: • For example HER change agents favor the change category of developing policy: • Need to allow for emergent outcomes (implementer autonomy) • Need to account for individual and disciplinarydifferences • do not attempt to test the effectiveness of their change strategies. • do not build their change strategies on the work of other change agents within their community or on knowledge of change strategies/models from other disciplines.

  26. Conclusion • Impovement of change strategies in higher education is a crucial area in need of careful interdisciplinary work. • ThreeIsolatedResearchCommunities • SER • FDR • HER • FourIncompleteChangeStrategies • Curriculum and Pedagogy • ReflectiveTeachers • Policy • Shared Vision

  27. One Resource is STEMReform.org

  28. Slides not used in presentation

  29. Article Selection Criteria • Key word searches on Web of Science and ERIC using combinations of terms such as “change”, “teaching”, “instruction”, “improvement”, “higher education”, “college”, and “university”. • Journal-specific searches • Reference lists of selected articles • 1995-2008 publication date • Abstracts were used to exclude articles

  30. Relationship to Change Literature Only ~50% of articles make a strong connections to change literature.

  31. STEM Education in the US The US has been engaged in STEM education improvement since 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit. • President Obama is making STEM education a top priority for his administration. • In April 2009, Mr. Obama announced a major goal for STEM education: • By 2020 American students will move “from the middle to the top of the pack [internationally] in science and math” • (from Education Week, April 27, 2009)

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