Learning Communities as Engines of Innovation in STEM Education

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Learning Communities as Engines of Innovation in
STEM Education

• Norman L. Fortenberry, Sc.D.
• Director, CASEE
• Learning Communities for STEM Academic
  Achievement
• Howard University
• April 24, 2007

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A Learning Community

• Is a group of trans-disciplinary faculty,
  graduate students and professional staff group
  engaging in an active, collaborative, program of
  study about enhancing teaching and learning.
• Is a collegial group of of faculty and staff
  united in their commitment to student learning
  and working collaborative to enhance their own
  learning in pursuit of that vision.
• Explores how communities of learners can motivate
  and support one another's learning experiences.
• community of practice is a joint enterprise of
  socially negotiated mutual engagement focused on
  a topic continually renegotiated by its members
  that seeks to develop, over time, a shared
  repertoire of routines, sensibilities, artifacts,
  vocabulary, style, etc.

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Why a Learning Community in STEM Education?

• The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)
  is of increasing concern in STEM disciplines.
• Discipline-based education research is also
  emerging within STEM fields.
• The aims are
• To better communicate the joy of STEM study to
  new populations
• To better attract and retain new populations in
  STEM study
• To better prepare STEM professionals to meet the
  multi-faceted challenges of the new millennium
• Better prepare faculty to foster the learning
  needed to the new millennium

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Boyers Definition of Scholarship

• Discovery
• Application
• Integration
• Teaching reflective practitioner
• All three can be forms of scholarship are
  relevant for STEM discipline-based education
• Research on education
• Teaching
• Synthetic meta analysis
• Faculty (self-)Development

Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered, CFAT (1990)
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CASEEs Role

• Foster excellence in the engineering workforce by
  enabling improvements to the effectiveness,
  engagement, efficiency of engineering education
  such that it better meets the needs of employers,
  educators, students, and society.
• Use a research and development approach.
• Build Communities
• Advance Knowledge
• Transfer Knowledge to Improved Practice

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CASEE Communities

• Research Activities
• Research Community and Corresponding Centers
• Senior Fellows, Post-docs, Scholars-in-Residence
• Annals of Research of Engineering Education
  (on-line)
• Strengthening HBCU (and HSI) Engineering
  Education Research Capacity
• Implementation Activities
• Implementation Network
• Peer Reviewed Research Offering Validation of
  Effective and Innovative Teaching (on-line)
• Instructional Metrics
• Diversity Metrics
• Dissemination Activities
• Dissemination Channels
• Engineering Education Leadership Institute
• Engineering Equity Extension Service
• CASEE Chronicles
• DISTILATE e-newsletter

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CASEE Fostering Research-Based Practice in
Engineering Education
Dissemination Channels
ACADEME
Post- docs
Research Community
EEES
AREE
Senior Fellows
DIVERSE GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE 21ST
CENTURY ENGINEERING WORKFORCE
PR2OVE-IT
INDUSTRY
MSI Project
EELI
INCREASE KNOWLEDGE
Implementation Network
BUILD R D CAPACITY
SHARE KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFORM ENGINEERING EDUCATION
GOVERNMENT
BUILD COMMUNITY
DISTILATE
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
Chronicles
CASEE Annual Meeting
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SHEERC - A CASEE Community

• OBJECTIVE Enhance ability of engineering
  faculty from HBCUs and HSIs to engage in rigorous
  engineering education research.
• OUTCOMES
• Campus teams of engineers and social scientists
  formed
• Three classes of faculty from the 11 HBCUs
  engineering colleges and 12 HSIs with highest
  engineering graduation rates participated in
• Workshops on conducting rigorous research on
  engineering education
• Seminars on building effective STEM learning
  environments
• CASEE annual meetings to network with other
  innovators
• 2004, 2005, and 2006 FIE and 2006 and 2007 ASEE
  annual meetings
• Engineering deans produced campus plans to build
  upon faculty experiences

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Guiding Principles

1. Focus on education research as well as the
   scholarship of teaching and learning.
2. Work with those with relevant expertise from the
   social, learning, and education sciences
   disciplines.

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Education as a Transformation Process
Goals/objs of Depts, Univs, Prof. Socs, Emplrs,
etc.
Goals/Objectives Depts., Univs., Prof.
Societies, Employers, etc.
Tools (e.g., Curriculum, Labs, Technology, etc.)
Teachers Learners
Constraints and Ext. Influences
Constraints and Ext. Influences
Teachers Learners
Tools (Curriculum Labs, Tech, etc.)
Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Processes
Teaching and Learning Processes
Input
Output
Transformation Process Model Inspired by Hubka
and Eder (1988)
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A Lesson Learned

• Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Processes
• Cognitive Science can inform effective
  instructional practices (e.g, The National
  Academies published How People Learn and
  highlighted the classroom implications)
• ? CASEE Community Activities
• CASEE is partnering with the EngineeringPathway
  Digital Library to provide improved access to its
  free resource on instructional interventions,
  assessment practices, and student learning
  outcomes
• http//www.pr2ove-it.org

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A Lesson Learned

• Educational Tools
• Educational progress is promoted by thematic
  coherence and reduced competition among courses.
  (van der Hulst Jansen, Higher Education.
  43489-506, 2002)
• ? CASEE Community Activities
• ASCE is piloting a new Body of Knowledge in a
  sample of civil engineering departments.

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Two Lessons Learned

• Teachers and Learners
• Faculty are reluctant to engage in SOTL
  activities if it is not clear how such activities
  will be rewarded
• Sociology/Psychology (e.g., Literature on
  stereotype threat on how sensitive it is to
  positive and negative triggers Cohen et al.
  Science 313 (5791) pp. 1307-1310 Steele and
  Ambady Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
  40 (2004) pp. 401-408 http//www.wjh.harvard.edu/
  jmitchel/research/2004_Ambady_stereotypeThreat_JES
  P.pdf
• ? CASEE Community Activities
• CASEE is working on metrics of instructional
  scholarship
• CASEEs EEES project is building an on-line
  library related to research-based practices in
  gender equity at http//eees.nae.edu/

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A Lesson Learned

• Management and Goal Systems
• Engineering curricula are shaped by an array of,
  sometimes competing, stakeholder groups both
  within and outside of the department and
  university. (Silar and Johnson, ASEE 2004)
• ? CASEE Community Activities
• The Dane and Mary Louise Miller Symposium brings
  together a variety of constituencies to share
  common ground and build shared understanding

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A Lesson Learned

• Constraints and External Influences
• A group at Duke has been questioning the number
  and quality Chinese and Indian engineers (its
  only 200K not 300K to our 75K). Wadhwa et al.
  Issues in Science and Technology Vol. 23, No. 3,
  2007
• ? CASEE Community Activities
• CASEE focuses on the quality of the workforce and
  recognizes that Japan once made cars that people
  shunned, so also focuses on innovation and looks
  for the next frontier

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Implementing the Principles

• Focus on education research as well as the
  scholarship of teaching and learning.
• CASEE supports workshops and seminars aimed at
  helping faculty gain expertise in this new area
• ? You can support discipline-based education
  research (and faculty rewards) on your campus

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Implementing the Principles

• Work with those with relevant expertise from the
  social, learning, and education sciences
  disciplines.
• CASEE partnered with the American Sociological
  Association to look at inhibitors to faculty
  educational innovation http//www.nae.edu/nae/cas
  eecomnew.nsf/weblinks/NFOY-6XETVC?OpenDocument
• ? You can seek out and pursue such opportunities

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What Next?

• The next big challenge is moving knowledge into
  practice. Dissemination is not equal to
  diffusion
• http//www.foundationcoalition.org/publications/br
  ochures/change_one_pager.pdf
• CASEE is studying the diffusion of innovations
  and applying that learning to education research
  and SOTL.
• ? You can be an early adopter and a change
  leader.