Creating Small Interactive Teaching Development Groups

This paper describes two aspects of an ongoing faculty development model that uses small interactive teaching development groups. We used the model with engineering faculty at five institutions. The groups focused their work on the design and implementation of research-based, interactive teaching strategies. The focus of this work is using ongoing faculty development as a means to broaden the use of research-proven instructional practices in engineering courses. Jamieson and Lohmann explain the need for pedagogical research to connect with the needs of instructors . There is a long-standing gap between research about interactive teaching strategies and the implementation of those strategies in classrooms. In our project, we attempted to bring research-based practices into classrooms via small groups of instructors working on interactive teaching. Interactive teaching, for our purposes, can include almost any strategy that can support instructors shifting from only lecturing toward including more active participation in class sessions. For example, having students solve problems in class is a strategy increasing in prominence with the advent of the “flipped” classroom where students may watch video of lectures outside of class time. Using less technology, interactive teaching could also include pausing the lecture for students to solve problems on their own or in small groups in class. This is consistent with models for learning that emphasize that students need to learn facts, algorithms and procedures as well as higher order thinking and problem solving at a conceptual level . We recognize that these shifts in format may be challenging for instructors who do not have models for interactive instruction in their own background as learners or as teachers. In addition, it is challenging to know where to start when creating a more interactive classroom even when the benefits may be evident in terms of students’ learning and overall experience. It is especially difficult without support from colleagues in the department who can share their successes and challenges with interactive teaching. In this paper, we focus on two characteristics of small teaching development groups that can support successful use of interactive teaching strategies. The first is scaffolding the groups’ discussion with outside resources (e.g., books and videos) and organization by a facilitator. The second characteristic is balancing the external resources with a focus on the needs of participants and having needs-driven participation in the group. Background literature This paper addresses a strategy faculty can use to create teaching development groups for discussion, learning and implementation of more interactive teaching. Part of our theory relies on the idea that increasing student engagement in learning will require increased instructor engagement in teaching , recognizing that interactive teaching requires that the instructor break the fourth wall. To be interactive in class, the instructor needs to be engaged in thinking about teaching outside the classroom, as well. This requires developing new knowledge about teaching engineering. As an example, the instructor needs to be able to select appropriate problems for class work, as well as build a system for providing feedback to students about their work (either in class or after class). P ge 24334.2 Shulman described this knowledge for instructors as pedagogical content knowledge or the knowledge of engineering that faculty need to teach. This knowledge is different than the knowledge required to practice engineering in the sense that it requires understanding learning and teaching of engineering as well as engineering itself as a discipline. The goal of our small groups was to provide a means for developing instructors’ pedagogical content knowledge in an ongoing, supportive setting in which they were simultaneously trying and refining interactive teaching strategies in their own classrooms. The design of ongoing, small groups draws on research in K-12 teacher professional development that emphasizes the need for more than isolated workshops or seminars about teaching. While such seminars are useful for sharing ideas and finding resources, it can be challenging for instructors to implement new strategies without ongoing support and feedback. Since teaching could be considered a design profession where the instructor is the designer of a learning environment (similar to how engineers design tools, procedures and products for specific environments), instructors need time for testing and revision as well as modifying innovations for local contexts. In this sense, the small group becomes a professional learning community in which ideas, knowledge and resources for teaching are shared. In K-12 settings, such professional learning communities often consist of teachers of similar grade levels or courses. In the university engineering setting, the members are other engineering (or STEM) faculty who have similar needs in terms of teaching and similar dilemmas due to the nature of the content. Small group structure We worked with engineering faculty at five institutions to develop a structure for ongoing teaching development groups to support interactive teaching strategies. These groups include the following characteristics: small, ongoing, needs driven, and scaffolded. We focus in this paper on the need for scaffolding and the needs-driven nature of the groups. Small groups for discussion create a supportive environment for both discussing results from research and other resources and examining an individual’s current teaching strategies. The ongoing group structure shifts from a workshop model for sharing strategies toward an ongoing conversation that can provide support and feedback over time as instructors try and revise new strategies in their classrooms. Overall, the groups should be small enough to foster discussion (4-6 people) and provide a supportive environment. In our project, the group leaders first met for a year in a small, teaching development group. Since the leaders were geographically dispersed, these meetings (with the exception of a kickoff meeting) took place virtually. In the second year of the project, each group leader formed a group at their own institution. Each group consisted of 4-6 members drawn from STEM departments, primarily engineering disciplines. Groups included tenured and tenure-track faculty members as well as term instructors and (in one case) a graduate student instructor. The group leaders used a variety of recruiting strategies but primarily relied on personally identifying instructors who would likely be interested in focusing on interactive teaching. One group also used the university’s center for teaching for advertising and to create a forum for presenting their results in a panel P ge 24334.3 discussion. We designed the structure to focus on interactive teaching, but with a great deal of logistical flexibility to accommodate local needs and constraints. Groups typically met either weekly or every other week for 1-2 hours (often over lunch). This small but informal structure allowed for greater participation of the members and provided a supportive, low-risk forum for discussing teaching. Our previous papers include additional detail about the professional development structure.