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1. Developing Emergent Codes for the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS)

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8659116  

   Liu, Sin-Ning Cindy ; Lang, Cynthia K. ; Merrill, Brooke A. ; Leos, Adrian ; Harlan, Kaitlin N. ; Sandoval, Carolyn L. ; Bergman, Mindy E. ; Froyd, Jeffrey E. ( October 2018 , 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)

   This Research Work-in-progress paper presents a project that intends to increase student engagement, retention, and success through the implementation of a faculty development program focused on implicit bias and active learning. To assess the extent to which the program resulted in transformative changes in instructor teaching, the project team conducted classroom observations using minute-by-minute environmental scans and the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS). The project team found that the COPUS could not capture all the behaviors that needed to be observed to assess the faculty development project. Thus, 12 emergent COPUS codes were developed to code the required behaviors. Each code is defined, examples are provided, and excerpts of classroom observations with and without the emergent COPUS codes are examined. The project team thinks the emergent COPUS codes, generally focused on faculty behaviors related to classroom climate, will be useful in other classroom observation projects. 

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2. Which evidence-based teaching practices change over time? Results from a university-wide STEM faculty development program

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-022-00340-4  

   Jackson, Mallory_A ; Moon, Sungmin ; Doherty, Jennifer_H ; Wenderoth, Mary_Pat ( March 2022 , International Journal of STEM Education)

   There is overwhelming evidence that evidence-based teaching improves student performance; however, traditional lecture predominates in STEM courses. To provide support as faculty transform their lecture-based classrooms with evidence-based teaching practices, we created a faculty development program based on best practices, Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate STEM Education (CAUSE). CAUSE paired exploration of evidence-based teaching with support for classroom implementation over two years. Each year for three years, CAUSE recruited cohorts of faculty from seven STEM departments. Faculty met biweekly to discuss evidence-based teaching and receive feedback on their implementation. We used the PORTAAL observation tool to document evidence-based teaching practices (PORTAAL practices) across four randomly chosen class sessions each term. We investigated if the number of PORTAAL practices used or the amount of practices increased during the program.

   We identified identical or equivalent course offerings taught at least twice by the same faculty member while in CAUSE (n = 42 course pairs). We used a one-way repeated measures within-subjects multivariate analysis to examine the changes in average use of 14 PORTAAL practices between the first and second timepoint. We created heat maps to visualize the difference in number of practices used and changes in level of implementation of each PORTAAL practice. Post-hoc within-subjects effects indicated that three PORTAAL practices were significantly higher and two were lower at timepoint two. Use of prompting prior knowledge and calling on volunteers to give answers decreased, while instructors doubled use of prompting students to explain their logic, and increased use of random call by almost 40% when seeking answers from students. Heat maps indicated increases came both from faculty’s adoption of these practices and increased use, depending on the practice. Overall, faculty used more practices more frequently, which contributed to a 17% increase in time that students were actively engaged in class.

   Results suggest that participation in a long-term faculty development program can support increased use of evidence-based teaching practices which have been shown to improve student exam performance. Our findings can help prioritize the efforts of future faculty development programs.

    

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3. Board 103: EAGER: Barriers to Participation in Intensive Professional Development Opportunities

   Jarek, Stephanie ; McCord, Rachel ; Hixson, Cory ; Ingram, Ella Lee ; Williams, Julia M. ( June 2019 , 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience program (REEFE) is a professional development program that connects graduate students in engineering education with faculty members at teaching-focused institutions. The program goal is to simultaneously support faculty growth in engineering education and graduate student growth as academic change agents. Our program has transitioned from a partnership between one engineering education graduate program and one engineering institution to a consortium of engineering education graduate programs that sends students to multiple institutions across the country. The REEFE Consortium also developed a unique partnership with the Making Academic Change Happen initiative to offer continuous training to graduate students during their REEFE experience. Many positive outcomes have come from the development of the REEFE Consortium, including better graduate training in research at the coordinating institution, a better understanding of program logistics, and new and strengthened professional relationships. We discovered a number of challenges associated with providing intensive professional development opportunities to graduate students, including timing of experiences relative to degree progress, loss of connection to the home research community, and financial impact, especially as it relates to travel and housing. While a search of existing literature in professional development in higher education has provided best practices for existing programs, there is little to no available research highlighting barriers that exist to offering different types of professional development opportunities to graduate student populations. These barriers are important to highlight as they provide critical information needed in the design and decision making for those seeking to create useful professional development opportunities for graduate populations. This paper provides an updated description of the Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience program as we attempt to scale the program. We summarize the existing literature on barriers to participation in professional development opportunities for graduate students. Finally, we describe how REEFE both addresses and fails to address these barriers. 

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4. Improving Student Experiences to Increase Student Engagement (ISE-2)

   Liu, S.-N. C. ; Lang, C. K. ; Sandoval, C. L. ; Bergman, M. E. ; Froyd, J. E ( January 2018 , 2018 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   “Improving Student Experiences to Increase Student Engagement” (ISE-2) was awarded to Texas A&M University by the National Science Foundation, through EEC-Engineering Diversity Activities. ISE-2 is a faculty development program focused on reducing implicit bias and increasing active learning, with the goals of (a) increasing student engagement, success, and retention, and (b) ultimately seeing greater increases for underrepresented minority (URM), women, and first-generation students. Ten faculty teaching first- and second-year Engineering courses participated in the first cohort of ISE-2 in Summer 2017, which consisted of three workshops and six informal “coffee conversations”. At the conclusion of the workshops, each faculty was tasked with completing a teaching plan for the Fall 2017 semester, to incorporate the strategies and knowledge from ISE-2 into the courses they plan to teach. Focus groups with the ISE-2 faculty were conducted in Fall 2017 to obtain feedback about the faculty development program. Classroom observations were conducted using environmental scans and the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS)1 to assess the classroom climate of faculty in the experimental (ISE-2) and control groups. Student surveys were also administered to students who were taught by ISE-2 faculty and control group faculty to assess student engagement and classroom climate. While the project is still ongoing, feedback from faculty regarding ISE-2 have been positive. 

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5. Factors that influence STEM faculty use of evidence-based instructional practices: An ecological model

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281290  

   Sansom, Rebecca L. ; Winters, Desiree M. ; St. Clair, Bryn E. ; West, Richard E. ; Jensen, Jamie L. ( January 2023 , PLOS ONE)

   Dalby, Andrew R. (Ed.)

   Traditional teaching practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses have failed to support student success, causing many students to leave STEM fields and disproportionately affecting women and students of color. Although much is known about effective STEM teaching practices, many faculty continue to adhere to traditional methods, such as lecture. In this study, we investigated the factors that affect STEM faculty members’ instructional decisions about evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs). We performed a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with faculty members from the Colleges of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Engineering who took part in a professional development program to support the use of EBIPs by STEM faculty at the university. We used an ecological model to guide our investigation and frame the results. Faculty identified a variety of personal, social, and contextual factors that influenced their instructional decision-making. Personal factors included attitudes, beliefs, and self-efficacy. Social factors included the influence of students, colleagues, and administration. Contextual factors included resources, time, and student characteristics. These factors interact with each other in meaningful ways that highlight the hyper-local social contexts that exist within departments and sub-department cultures, the importance of positive feedback from students and colleagues when implementing EBIPs, and the need for support from the administration for faculty who are in the process of changing their teaching. 

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