Getting Active: Exercise in pedagogical transformation for STEM student success

The focus of this interactive session is to engage the ASCN community on the success of active learning pedagogical change catalyzed by a 5-year National Science Foundation (NSF) project 'Gateway2STEM' on Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) at George Mason University. The positive impact of active learning teaching practices on student success is well documented in the literature. The challenge noted across multiple studies is to identify models that support faculty pedagogy change beyond the individual faculty, facilitating change at the department level and among graduate teaching assistants. This session will focus on one set of findings of the larger project that examines how faculty learning communities organized around several highly enrolled STEM courses can support the adoption and diffusion of active learning pedagogies across groups of faculty. The findings reveal the efficacy of departmental faculty learning communities to build faculty and graduate student capacity to support active learning.
Additionally, the results support learning communities as capacity builders in designing and engaging in change strategies to diffuse the value of active learning beyond early adopters of the pedagogical practices. Challenges to the learning communities are also discussed. The results from this study contribute to the literature on faculty pedagogy change, faculty learning communities, and organizational change in higher education initiated by local departments.