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Creating a Course in Science Teaching to Address the Needs of Graduate Trainees
Author(s) -
Downey Ryan M,
Mulroney Susan E,
Myers Adam K
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.766.11
Subject(s) - syllabus , class (philosophy) , mathematics education , teaching method , course (navigation) , active learning (machine learning) , curriculum , medical education , psychology , computer science , pedagogy , medicine , engineering , artificial intelligence , aerospace engineering
Graduate students and post‐doctoral fellows who wish to pursue academic careers have a desire and need for formal instruction to become effective science educators. To meet this need within our own academic programs, a new course was created for the fall of 2018: Learning Design for Science Education. The primary goals of this course were to introduce students to fundamental theories of science teaching and to provide students with hands‐on experience with planning, administering, and teaching a science course. Our course was divided into two components: 1) a 9‐week instructional block in which foundational pedagogical theory was introduced and current best practices in active learning, feedback, and evaluation were role modeled by course faculty; and 2) a 4‐week practical application block in which student groups designed and conducted a mini‐course incorporating active learning methods and modern teaching technologies. The final week of the course was dedicated to providing detailed debriefings of the mini‐courses. Throughout the semester, students created a portfolio of their work, including a personal teaching statement, course syllabus, any lecture materials they generated for the mini‐course, and peer and faculty evaluations from their teaching. Mid‐semester student feedback was positive with one exception. The primary criticism given by the students was that too much in‐class time was dedicated for working on the mini‐course and that students desired more time to be dedicated to delivering content. This was adjusted mid‐course and in‐class time for working on the mini‐course was eliminated for the final four weeks of the instructional block. Based on student feedback, this dedicated in‐class time was no longer useful after week three and future versions of this course will reflect that. Overall, students reported through evaluations that the course was beneficial and significantly improved their confidence in conducting lectures, engaging in active learning techniques, and in preparing for future teaching. Several students reported being able to immediately apply the knowledge and techniques in other courses in which they teach directly or provide supplemental instruction. Course directors and faculty from those courses noted the improved performance of those students in those duties. In conclusion, we report that student teaching performances and their use of active learning is improved after participation in this new course. In addition, students self‐report that the course has increased their confidence in conducting science teaching. The addition of learning best‐practices in teaching may be important for optimizing trainee success. Support or Funding Information Supported by the American Physiological Society and the National Science Foundation IUSE: Education and Human Resources (DUE 1822245 ). This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .