Education Redesigned: Impacting Teaching and Learning through a Faculty Development Course Redesign Program

Jason FitzSimmons; Chantal Levesque-Bristol; Emily M. Bonem; Erica A. Lott; Loran Carleton Parker

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Conference: 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Tampa, Florida
Publication Date: June 15, 2019
Start Date: June 15, 2019
End Date: June 19, 2019
Conference Session: Faculty Development Round Table
Tagged Division: Faculty Development Constituent Committee
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--32688
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/32688
Download Count: 521

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Paper Authors

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Jason FitzSimmons Center for Instructional Excellence, Purdue University

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Jason FitzSimmons received a B.S. (1998) and M.S. (2000) degree in Civil Engineering and a Ph.D. (2010) in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His primary areas of interest are active learning spaces, Engineering and STEM development as well as curriculum and program development.

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Chantal Levesque-Bristol Purdue University

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Chantal Levesque-Bristol is professor of Educational Studies and Director of the Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University. She holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Ottawa, and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Rochester and Professor of Psychology and Director of the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning at Missouri State University. She has taught courses in statistics and research methods at the undergraduate and graduate level. Her scholarly work is in the area of human motivation generally and academic motivation specifically. Using the theoretical framework of Self-Determination Theory, she conducts basic research in motivation and social psychology and applied research in education, learning, and student retention, and has been active in several Teaching and Learning program. As Director of the Center for Instructional Excellence, she provides support for the instructional community and resources to faculty interested in learning pedagogies and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). She is the recipient of several Teaching Awards and Research Awards. She is a grantee of the National Institute of Mental Health. She has lectured at several institutions of Higher Education on motivation and learning principles.

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Emily M. Bonem Purdue University

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Erica A. Lott Purdue University

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Dr. Erica Lott is an Instructional Developer at the Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. She earned her Ph.D in College Science Teaching specializing in Earth Sciences from Syracuse University. Her research interests include, but are not limited to: learners' understanding and representation of physical phenomena, departmental curriculum redesigns, course transformations and their implications for teaching and learning, discourse analysis of scientific classroom talk, and science teacher education.

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Loran Carleton Parker Purdue University

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Evaluation and Learning Research Center

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Abstract

This paper presents the evidence-based practices of how an institutionalized, faculty development program has influenced student success in the STEM fields. While many universities are prioritizing active learning and student success, few are doing so at the broad campus-wide scale necessary to affect culture change. Rarely do universities, especially research intensive universities, attempt large scale efforts over the extended period of time required to systematically improve the quality of undergraduate education, especially with faculty and instructors who have not received much support in teaching prior to their first teaching experience. One exception is the Purdue University's "Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation" (IMPACT) program. The Faculty Learning Community (FLC) model is a cornerstone of the IMPACT faculty development program. The FLC is informed by research-based practices in teaching and learning, as well as motivation theories, more specifically, the motivational principles of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). In designing and evaluating the effectiveness of IMPACT, we use the SDT framework to assess the extent to which course transformations create a student-centered learning environment. We measure the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as the levels of self-determined motivation. Instructors whose needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met, report more autonomous motivation for teaching, which in turn predict the implementation of effective teaching strategies, including higher order learning, collaborative learning, and integrative learning. Faculty view IMPACT as a valuable source of professional development that positively impacts both student learning outcomes and their own teaching practice. Participants, after implementing their transformed course, report significant increases in both student engagement and their own satisfaction with teaching as well as significant improvement in their pedagogical practices and experiences with classroom learning spaces. Over 80% of the courses taught by faculty who have gone through the IMPACT program are perceived by students to be highly student-centered. Students exposed to highly student-centered classrooms report significantly higher levels of perceived competence, ability to transfer knowledge to other relevant courses and experiences, and higher learning gains. Furthermore, autonomy supportive, student-centered learning environments are associated with positive outcomes, especially for students with lower levels of academic achievement, which appears can reduce the achievement gaps for underprepared students. Evidence of this can be seen in three, undergraduate STEM courses, redesigned through the IMPACT program, where there has been a marked improvement in student success improvements represented in a student getting a D, F, or withdrawing from the course. The three courses—a mechanical engineering course, Calculus, and Chemistry—have had a reduction of 20-30% in DFW rates since being redesigned. When presenting this paper as a part of a roundtable discussion, the presenters and audience will discuss how aspects of the IMPACT program connect to audience contexts and goals as well as new opportunities to improve student outcomes based on the discussion of our program.

Citation
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FitzSimmons, J., & Levesque-Bristol, C., & Bonem, E. M., & Lott, E. A., & Parker, L. C. (2019, June), Education Redesigned: Impacting Teaching and Learning through a Faculty Development Course Redesign Program Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32688

TY - CPAPER
AB - This paper presents the evidence-based practices of how an institutionalized, faculty development program has influenced student success in the STEM fields. While many universities are prioritizing active learning and student success, few are doing so at the broad campus-wide scale necessary to affect culture change. Rarely do universities, especially research intensive universities, attempt large scale efforts over the extended period of time required to systematically improve the quality of undergraduate education, especially with faculty and instructors who have not received much support in teaching prior to their first teaching experience. One exception is the Purdue University&#39;s &quot;Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation&quot; (IMPACT) program. The Faculty Learning Community (FLC) model is a cornerstone of the IMPACT faculty development program. The FLC is informed by research-based practices in teaching and learning, as well as motivation theories, more specifically, the motivational principles of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). In designing and evaluating the effectiveness of IMPACT, we use the SDT framework to assess the extent to which course transformations create a student-centered learning environment. We measure the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as the levels of self-determined motivation. Instructors whose needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met, report more autonomous motivation for teaching, which in turn predict the implementation of effective teaching strategies, including higher order learning, collaborative learning, and integrative learning. Faculty view IMPACT as a valuable source of professional development that positively impacts both student learning outcomes and their own teaching practice. Participants, after implementing their transformed course, report significant increases in both student engagement and their own satisfaction with teaching as well as significant improvement in their pedagogical practices and experiences with classroom learning spaces. Over 80% of the courses taught by faculty who have gone through the IMPACT program are perceived by students to be highly student-centered. Students exposed to highly student-centered classrooms report significantly higher levels of perceived competence, ability to transfer knowledge to other relevant courses and experiences, and higher learning gains. Furthermore, autonomy supportive, student-centered learning environments are associated with positive outcomes, especially for students with lower levels of academic achievement, which appears can reduce the achievement gaps for underprepared students. Evidence of this can be seen in three, undergraduate STEM courses, redesigned through the IMPACT program, where there has been a marked improvement in student success improvements represented in a student getting a D, F, or withdrawing from the course. The three courses—a mechanical engineering course, Calculus, and Chemistry—have had a reduction of 20-30% in DFW rates since being redesigned. When presenting this paper as a part of a roundtable discussion, the presenters and audience will discuss how aspects of the IMPACT program connect to audience contexts and goals as well as new opportunities to improve student outcomes based on the discussion of our program.
AU - Jason FitzSimmons
AU - Chantal Levesque-Bristol
AU - Emily M. Bonem
AU - Erica A. Lott
AU - Loran Carleton Parker
CY - Tampa, Florida
DA - 2019/06/15
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Education Redesigned: Impacting Teaching and Learning through a Faculty Development Course Redesign Program
UR - https://peer.asee.org/32688
DO - 10.18260/1-2--32688
ER -