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Work in Progress: The Impact of Faculty Development Workshops on Shifting Faculty Teaching Beliefs and Classroom Practice toward Student Centeredness

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Conference

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Columbus, Ohio

Publication Date

June 24, 2017

Start Date

June 24, 2017

End Date

June 28, 2017

Conference Session

Pedagogy and Its Impact on Faculty and Students

Tagged Division

Continuing Professional Development

Page Count

6

DOI

10.18260/1-2--29184

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/29184

Download Count

424

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Paper Authors

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Elizabeth Lopez Arizona State University

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Elizabeth Lopez is a Master’s student at Arizona State University studying biomedical engineering. She has undergone the undergraduate engineering curriculum and has facilitated the implementation of evidence-based instructional strategies in the biomedical senior design course. In JTFD, she has evaluated and analyzed the shift in instructor fidelity towards student-centered learning.

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Yong Seok Park California State University, Fullerton

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Yong Seok Park is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at California State University Fullerton. He earned his Master’s degree at George Washington University and his Doctorate at the Virginia Tech. Prior to joining California State Fullerton, Dr. Park was a postdoctoral research associate at Arizona State University. His research interests lie in undergraduate STEM education research and engineering design education.

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Bethany B. Smith Arizona State University

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Bethany Smith is currently a master’s student in materials science and engineering at Arizona State University. She has been involved in STEM education research since 2012 under the direction of Professor Stephen Krause. Her research interests in STEM education include faculty development, best classroom practices, and improving undergraduate engineering student retention through understanding what makes students leave engineering. She will be pursuing her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering starting in 2016 at the University of California Berkeley.

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James A. Middleton Arizona State University

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James A. Middleton is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology at Arizona State University. For the last three years he also held the Elmhurst Energy Chair in STEM education at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Previously, Dr. Middleton was Associate Dean for Research in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University, and Director of the Division of Curriculum and Instruction. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, where he also served in the National Center for Research on Mathematical Sciences Education as a postdoctoral scholar.

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Keith D. Hjelmstad Arizona State University

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Keith D. Hjelmstad is Professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University.

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Eugene Judson Arizona State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0124-8476

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Eugene Judson is an Associate Professor of for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He also serves as an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). His past experiences include having been a middle school science teacher, Director of Academic and Instructional Support for the Arizona Department of Education, a research scientist for the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (CRESMET), and an evaluator for several NSF projects. His first research strand concentrates on the relationship between educational policy and STEM education. His second research strand focuses on studying STEM classroom interactions and subsequent effects on student understanding. He is a co-developer of the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) and his work has been cited more than 1800 times and his publications have been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals such as Science Education and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

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Robert J. Culbertson Arizona State University, Department of Physics

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Robert J. Culbertson is an Associate Professor of Physics. Currently, he teaches introductory mechanics and electrodynamics for physics majors and a course in musical acoustics, which was specifically designed for elementary education majors. He is director of the ASU Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) Project, which strives to produce more and better high school physics teachers. He is also director of Master of Natural Science degree program, a graduate program designed for in-service science teachers. He works on improving persistence of students in STEM majors, especially under-prepared students and students from under-represented groups.

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Ying-Chih Chen Arizona State University

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Ying-Chih Chen is an assistant professor in the Division of Teacher Preparation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

His research takes two distinct but interrelated paths focused on elementary students’ learning in science and engineering as well as in-service science teachers’ professional development. The first focus involves how language as a learning tool improves students’ conceptual understandings, literacy, and representation competencies in science. His second research focus is on how in-service teachers develop their knowledge for teaching science and engineering in argument-based inquiry classrooms. This research is aimed at developing measures of teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for adopting the argument-based inquiry approach, as well as developing tools to capture the interactive nature of PCK.

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Lydia Ross Arizona State University

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Lydia Ross is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant at Arizona State University. She is a second year student in the Educational Policy and Evaluation program. Her research interests focus on higher education access, equity, and inclusion.

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Lindy Hamilton Mayled

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Lindy Hamilton Mayled is a PhD candidate at Grand Canyon University. She is pursuing her PhD in Psychology of Learning, Education, and Technology. Her background in in K-12 education where she has served as a high school science teacher, Instructional and Curriculum Coach, and Assistant Principal. Her research and areas of interest are in improving STEM educational outcomes for Low-SES students through the integration of active learning and technology-enabled frequent feedback. She currently works as the Project Manager for the NSF faculty development program based on evidence-based teaching practices.

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Stephen J. Krause Arizona State University

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Stephen Krause is professor in the Materials Science Program in the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches in the areas of introductory materials engineering, polymers and composites, and capstone design. His research interests include evaluating conceptual knowledge, misconceptions and technologies to promote conceptual change. He has co-developed a Materials Concept Inventory and a Chemistry Concept Inventory for assessing conceptual knowledge and change for introductory materials science and chemistry classes. He is currently conducting research on an NSF faculty development program based on evidence-based teaching practices. The overall goal is to develop disciplinary communities of practice across the college of engineering. The approach is being promoted through semester-long faculty workshops and then through a semester of supported implementation of faculty classroom innovations. Changes in faculty beliefs and classroom practice should positively impact student performance and retention. He was a coauthor for the best paper award at the FIE convention in 2009 and the best paper award in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2013.

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Casey Jane Ankeny Arizona State University

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Casey J. Ankeny, PhD is lecturer in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. Casey received her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2006 and her doctorate degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in 2012 where she studied the role of shear stress in aortic valve disease. Currently, she is investigating cyber-based student engagement strategies in flipped and traditional biomedical engineering courses. She aspires to understand and improve student attitude, achievement, and persistence in student-centered courses.

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Abstract

Just-in-Time-Teaching with Two Way Formative Feedback for Multiple Disciplinary (JTFD) Programs is an NSF-funded Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) project at a large southwestern university. This project aims to promote a shift in faculty beliefs and classroom practice towards student-centeredness through professional development workshops with pairs of faculty members from multiple engineering disciplines. During the 9-week training period, 8 JTFD faculty (4 disciplinary pairs) were trained in the JTFD pedagogy and evidence-based instructional strategies (EBIS). In this paper, we are reporting the impact of the faculty development program on the change in faculty beliefs and their classroom practice as well as student outcomes with respect to four factors. These factors include: 1) quantification of the degree of classroom student centeredness through the Reformed Teaching Observational Protocol (RTOP) and measured average RTOP gains (%); 2) measured RTOP gain (%) to determine which sessions were most effective for JTFD faculty; 3) measured workshop participation rate (%) to examine how this metric influences average RTOP gains; and 4) impact on student outcomes before and after JTFD implementation. This impact was determined by comparing the grade ratio (i.e., AB/CDEW: A’s and B’s to C’s, D’s, E’s and course withdrawals) between two consecutive semesters for participating faculty. Preliminary results showed the average baseline RTOP measurement showed a score of 36.6 out of 100. During this 9-week program, minimum and maximum average RTOP gain per JTFD Disciplinary Pair Leader were 33.6% and 64.6% respectively, compared to baseline RTOP measurements. Among disciplinary pair leaders, 3 faculty exhibited the greatest RTOP gain (%) after workshop 4 (Implementing Active Engineering). Three faculty also displayed the most RTOP gain (%) after workshop 5 (Cooperative Learning). Thus, sessions 4 and 5 had the most positive impact on faculty teaching practice. The result of the one-way ANOVA (p=0.0124 with confidence level of 95%) displays a statistically significant difference between low and high RTOP performing groups in workshop participation rate (%). This allows for identification of significant workshops and quantification of the resulting classroom implementation. With respect to student outcomes, three faculty members were observed for the same course and curriculum between two consecutive semesters before and after JTFD implementation. Two of the three JTFD faculty exhibited improved student outcome performance ratios from 0.94 and 1.00 to 1.92 and 2.20, respectively. Student outcomes from the third JTFD faculty member was maintained between the consecutive semesters. The preliminary results of our work indicate that JTFD workshops promote a positive impact on both shifting faculty beliefs and classroom practice to student centeredness as well as student performance. The full paper will further discuss the details of the JTFD program's effectiveness as well as future plans for the program.

Lopez, E., & Park, Y. S., & Smith, B. B., & Middleton, J. A., & Hjelmstad, K. D., & Judson, E., & Culbertson, R. J., & Chen, Y., & Ross, L., & Mayled, L. H., & Krause, S. J., & Ankeny, C. J. (2017, June), Work in Progress: The Impact of Faculty Development Workshops on Shifting Faculty Teaching Beliefs and Classroom Practice toward Student Centeredness Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--29184

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