COVID-19 Recommended Resources from ASCN

Posted: Mar 25 2020 by

Kate White
Temple University

Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director

Updated: 6/4/20

We know that many of you are dealing with changes at your institutions as we all come together to flatten the curve. Many organizations have been sharing resources and guidance for remote work, online teaching, and more. In this post you'll find links to some recommended resources that we have collected. Our regular events (webinars, working group meetings, etc.) are continuing -- please contact us if you would like to get involved!

We will continue to update this post as needed. More

Understanding how instructional change works

Posted: Jan 22 2020 by

Stephanie Chasteen
University of Colorado at Boulder

Stephanie Chasteen, University of Colorado at Boulder

Recommended article: "It's Personal: Biology Instructors Prioritize Personal Evidence over Empirical Evidence in Teaching Decisions," by Tessa Andrews and Paula Lemons, CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14 (2015).

I am involved in several projects which aim to help faculty learn about and implement effective teaching practices. To design or evaluate such programs, it's useful to have a model of how faculty take up new teaching practices. I want to highlight an article by Andrews and Lemons which recently influenced my thinking. (Note that Tessa Andrews co-leads ASCN Change Theories working group). One model that is often used in faculty change projects is the Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations model, which suggests that in order to adopt a new idea a person must become aware of it, be persuaded that it is useful, decide to use it, implement it, and then decide to continue to use it More

When it comes to teaching, is there a universal law that you cannot save time or use it differently?

Posted: Apr 4 2017 by

Judith Ramaley
Portland State University

Lorne Whitehead
University of British Columbia

Judith Ramaley and Lorne Whitehead

This blog post is about teaching, and time, a topic that we briefly discussed during one of our ASCN Working Group 2 meetings.

We begin with time. Throughout history, people have pondered it in many ways. One way is to study the quantities of time required for specific tasks in order to find ways to improve overall results. This can be helpful because time is a limited resource that is best spent wisely. For example, when this approach is applied to manufacturing, it can yield significant benefits for companies and their customers. In situations like this, efforts to save time and improve efficiency make sense. Not all situations have that character. In a second category of situations, most people don't find it appropriate to quantify and optimize time and results. Consider, for example, social interactions. We can't really measure them, and even if we could, who would want to? Many seek social interactions but very few wish to measure them or be so measured. More