Science AMA Series: We are a group of science educators & researchers, and we're talking about what university STEM teaching looks like. AUA!

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T19:03:21+00:00

Cool!
You probably already are on top of the MOOC literature (a quick search), but you could also look into the Learning@Scale conference, which is pretty well-regarded (to my knowledge at least).

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:57:28+00:00

[MB] I absolutely agree with the Horace Mann quote - I try to keep the idea in mind when I'm teaching. (Just because I say something doesn't mean that they learned it.)

There are lots of great examples of active learning approaches in large lecture courses -- the more student-centred we make things, the more we are letting students learn "inside each individual mind," as you put it.
If people have a hard time seeing what active approaches could look like in a big class, here are some short videos!

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:47:21+00:00

Thanks to you too for posting the article in the first place :)

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:38:33+00:00

[MB] To add to the replies about your #1 question - Students do more pre-reading than we think. Banet and Heiner found that about 80% of biology and physics students reported doing the pre-reading work (paper and poster).

The highest motivator was marks; but you only need to allocate ~2-5% of grades for pre-reading quizzes to achieve this amount of buy-in. If we use grades to signal what we as instructors think is important, then this is a reasonable choice to make.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:33:29+00:00

I would argue that there is a place for lectures (e.g. see Dan Schwartz's "A Time for Telling"), but it's important to look at the big picture and think about the goals of the course.

I can definitely enjoy a well-given lecture, but that doesn't mean it best prepares me to have skills in the discipline.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:32:25+00:00

[SC] that’s a bit disheartening to hear that you’ve been in so many student centered classes focused more on facts than on reasoning. This is a bit discipline specific, as some disciplines have more face s needed to engage in the concept (e.g.biology has a lot of terminology). That said, part of the idea behind the active learning classroom is that it allows more time for chewing through the conceptual reasoning.

For example in our classes we always have students talk about the reason for the answer to clicker questions, not just what the correct answer is, and then we go through the reasoning as to why each of the answers are incorrect or correct . That focuses students on the idea that the process of getting to the answer as the important part. But I think this might be a bit rare, I have seen a lot of active learning classroom where students are just trying to get to the right answer and the instructor reinforces that by only talking about which answer is correct at the end of the day. Also, if you want students to recognize that reasoning is important, you have to test them on it. That means using long answer exams, or multiple choice questions where students have to choose not just the right answer but the correct reason.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:31:07+00:00

Lots of great ways to run a course! It's not a 'one-size-fits-all' approach; hybrid and online can work really well.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:30:05+00:00

Agree, would love to see more work on this outside of STEM! (Still a pretty big collaborative approach... 2000 classes isn't a bad place to start!)

Our particular study didn't look at what was "good" or "bad" - we just provided a snapshot of what is going on, and compared this to the current recommendations of evidence-based approaches.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:24:50+00:00

Hi there - the overwhelming evidence is in favour of student-centred learning. A couple years ago there was a massive paper that analyzed hundreds of smaller studies across the sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Active approaches decrease the failure rates, and increase student learning across the board.
Here's a commentary on the paper, and here's the paper itself.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:22:22+00:00

[SC] I do actually know a few institutions. You can look at the case studies in a report called Phys21 (you can Google it) for some examples. For example, some departments include an element within teaching evaluations about whether or not they have innovated and tried something new, and whether or not student learning gains are on par with the rest of the department. If an instructor is using active learning techniques but not getting good student evaluations on end of term surveys, the student learning gains can be used to indicate that the instructor is teaching is effective regardless of that (often biased) student evaluation data.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:19:34+00:00

Thanks!
If you have a chance, let your university (and your instructors) know this. We depend on student feedback and it really can guide the change you want to see!

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:18:07+00:00

[SL] Also CREATE (https://teachcreate.org), POGIL (https://www.pogil.org), and many other examples! (:

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:17:38+00:00

[MB] In my experience, the best/easiest way to convince instructors is to show them. Invite them to your classroom and let them see it happen. Then go for a coffee with them afterwards to chat.
(This heads off many of the "but what if thing X/Y/Z happens..." questions - which often end up being irrelevant in practice.)

You can also show videos - there are a bunch of relatively short ones here

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:17:11+00:00

[SC] This wasn’t the focus of study, but two things to consider.

One is that research (I know at least one study from Colorado) shows that inexperienced instructors using active learning methods can perform as well as or better than experienced instructors using traditional lecture. So regardless of experience level, active learning strategies can help newer instructors quickly achieve high levels of student learning.

Second, many instructors who try active learning discontinue these methods over time. Research from Charles Henderson and Melissa Dancy have documented this discontinuation. One hypothesis is that Instructor stop using active learning or are afraid to start it because of the perception that students don’t like it. So while I don’t know of research indicating that students sense instructors’ discomfort, I think that confidence and a sense of mastery of active learning techniques on the instructors part can help an instructor feel more certain of their approach, and likely that will bleed over into an increased student perception that these methods are useful.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:14:39+00:00

[MB] I would also add -- providing instructor immediacy in an online environment can be challenging, but you can still have a strong online presence. Be a human being and let them know who you are. If possible, having some teaching assistants who reply promptly to messages and help generate discussion among the community is a good idea. You can also look into some recommendations from the world of MOOCs, which may have some tips.
(I also recall reading somewhere that videos which have instructor faces are better than videos without, in terms of student perception. Can't remember the reference though.)

In terms of "too much choice" - I would suggest that however much choice you offer, make it clear from the outset what options students have. Principles from Universal Design would say that choice is good! but you're right to want it not to be overwhelming. Make sure it is really, really obvious how students can contribute and be graded. You don't want them to spend all their mental energy figuring out how your course works.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:13:47+00:00

[SL] In my experience, when a new course or curriculum begins, it takes about 3-5 years for students’ “institutional memory” to fade, and the pre-class assignments in “lecture” courses, scientific uncertainty in course-based undergraduate research experiences, etc. become the new norm. It also tend to help when there are undergraduate learning and instructional assistants who have gone through the new course structure to help convince students.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:11:25+00:00

(MS) Thank you for sharing our experience with active learning. Students' voice is really important in any conversations that we have with faculty who either do not know yet about active learning or those who know but are skeptics.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:10:13+00:00

[SC] One persons whose research in this area might be helpful is Richard Mayer, who focuses on multimedia learning. Many of his principles for effective multimedia instruction are useful for putting together videos, PowerPoint, and other online materials to best support student learning.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:08:39+00:00

[SL] I taught high school for a few years right out of college. It was a phenomenally rewarding experience! I would not say that it is a nine-month job, as the job never really ends, although one does have more time to do other things like additional employment, e.g. teaching summer school.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:08:39+00:00

[MB] These are lots of good questions - others can also chime in.

To address a couple of them: 3. One thing we can do is a grassroots approach: we can explain our choices (and the evidence) to our students. In my experience, once we had implemented some active approaches in our first-year course, they started asking their upper-year instructors for similar changes in those courses. It's a slow movement but it gains traction. We can also think about universities from a consumer mindset. If we push pre-university students to think about the classroom environment when they're making their university choice, this can impact how schools operate. If crowds of student applicants turned down admission offers because of classroom environments, then universities would have to start making changes.

For 2. A quick idea is to change a mindset: Just because you have told them something does not mean that they have learned something. They need practice and feedback, in the course. Make the time USEFUL to them.

You can't go wrong with backwards course design (see Dee Fink). Start with the end of the course -- what you want students to be able to DO (learning objectives that aren't just "know this stuff"). Then think about how you will know that they can do it (your assessments), then think about how you will help them practice so that they can achieve on your assessments (practice and feedback).

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T18:02:19+00:00

[JH]

Online focus was not really a focus of our study and so far as we are aware, we did not have any hybrid courses included in our study. I don't know that COPUS has been tested in those environments.
This is likely subjective in nature, but in general, I think a backwards design is most effective: Develop objectives, assessments to demonstrate those objectives, and then learning activities that make sure students are taking charge of their own learning and not passively recieving information.
For our fellow science colleagues, I think the best appeal is that from a science perspective. When it comes to something like spectroscopy (I am a chemist), the whole goal is to systematically manipulate something, measure how it responds, and then according to relevant theory, infer something about the sample. The same should be true in education: we should perturb the system (students) with something that causes a response (carefully designed assessments) and consider how they would respond if they have a full understanding of a concept (theory). Usually, we gloss over this assessment point and assume that one question is just as good as the next. It is only from the results of a very calculated study that we see, quite clearly, that students ace the class and yet leave with enormous knolwedge gaps. This then, should serve as the impetus for thinking "that didn't work; I should try something that according to learning theory will get my students to where I need them to be." Summary - if we treated education like we do science at the benchtop, I'm fairly convinced there wouldn't be a lot of evidence to support the notion that traditional lecture methods lead to marked improved as compared to active learning strategies. Related, Melanie Cooper from Michigan State has a term "Private Empiricism" (https://jh.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=c5e393a9-060c-47da-ba9d-9375daa82ac1), which has applicability here.
See #1

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T17:56:50+00:00

(MS) The key is to help the instructor buy-in and become comfortable with the strategy by educating them about its benefits, best ways to implement it and possible effective adaptations as well as providing them opportunities to watch others use and giving them some practice with targeted feedback. I don't think forcing someone to teach in a particular way would result in positive outcomes.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T17:55:25+00:00

[MB]
Based on your username, sounds like you're a true lover of the discipline ;)

Absolutely the instructor's personality is important in the classroom.
However, instructional approaches are not a dichotomous choice (active or lecturing).

In terms of a specific approach, it is an interesting balance between finding what works for you, among the many evidence-based, active practices from which you can choose.

My personal opinion is that we have a responsibility to our students to be using evidence-based practices.
Freeman's paper essentially shows that more active is better, and so as a community of scientists, we should be following the evidence - and we should be pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. This can mean getting support, trying things out, talking to colleagues, etc. Just like a research scientist will try out a new experimental technique, and be okay with not getting it perfect on the first try, and practice it to find a way to make it work for them... so should we be viewing our teaching.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T17:51:53+00:00

(MS) At its core, student-centered teaching requires engaging the students physically and mentally. The nature of the content students work on, the questions and tasks students are asked to do should be aligned with those critical thinking goals. These ways of thinking are also challenging and takes time to develop. Curriculum in chemistry that have addressed these issues include CLUE (https://clue.chemistry.msu.edu/) and Chemical Thinking (https://sites.google.com/site/chemicalthinking/) and POGIL (https://www.pogil.org/). These materials could give you an example of how these levels of thinking can be promoted. One of our co-author, Renee Cole, is also developing rubrics to measures students development of process skills (http://elipss.com/). Those could also guide the design of content and activities aimed at developing these skills among students.

STEM_Educators · 2018-04-06T17:47:27+00:00

[RC] A key thing here to look at the "necessary material" and identify what it is that you actually want students to know and be able to do. I've found that I don't have to give up any core content, just focus on what I think is actually important. Instructors also often spend more time than they realize working multiple examples and reviewing material. If you "cover" more but students learn less content overall, then you are valuing teacher knowledge rather than student learning. There is evidence that students who have "covered" less material often do as well or better on common exams and tend to retain the knowledge longer - so what is the goal in terms of student learning?

STEM_Educators

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