2018 Webinars
Collectively Improving Our Teaching: A department-wide professional development program resulting in widespread change
November 7, 2018 at 9:00 am PT | 10:00 am MT | 11:00 am CT | 12:00 pm ET
Presenter: Kimberly Tanner (San Francisco State University)
Many efforts to improve teaching in higher education focus on a few faculty members at an institution at a time, with limited published evidence on attempts to engage faculty across entire departments. In this webinar, we give an example of a program which achieved the widespread faculty engagement that is often lacking. We created a long-term, department-wide collaborative professional development program, Biology Faculty Explorations in Scientific Teaching (Biology FEST). Over three years of Biology FEST, 89% of the department's faculty completed a weeklong Scientific Teaching Institute, and 83% of eligible instructors participated in additional semester-long follow-up programs. We will share a variety of evidence showing that a majority of Biology FEST alumni adding active learning to their courses (including self-report, survey, and decibal analysis), that this engagement was sustained, as was a sense of belonging in the department. We will share insights from our change story for other campuses wanting to spark widespread change in teaching practices – including ways to move away from a "deficit" model of faculty learning, towards positive support of instructor professional identity.
Registration is closed.
Using an Evidence-Based Approach to Develop a Culture of Shared Leadership for Change
October 29, 2018 at 11:00 am PT | 12:00 pm MT | 1:00 pm CT | 2:00 pm ET
Presenters: Susan Elrod (University of Wisconsin - Whitewater), Judith Ramalay (Portland State University)
Colleges and universities are increasingly under pressure to reach improved student success outcomes (e.g., improve student learning, increase retention and graduation rates, close equity gaps, shorten time to graduation) more quickly and at lower cost to the state and to their students. Programs in STEM education are frequently at the center of these efforts for a variety of reasons (workforce development, challenging gateway courses, direct connection to problem-solving, complexity of advanced skill development, tech-driven society, etc.). Responding to this pressure to achieve improved outcomes requires new ways of working together, knowledge sharing and collaboration. Solutions at the individual departmental level are no longer adequate; cross departmental and divisional collaborations will be necessary. Strategic and evidence-based approaches are also required to maximize impact and ensure success. While project leaders may have ideas of their own, they must learn to embrace concepts of shared leadership. In other words, they must move from "me" (my ideas) to "we" (our ideas). Leaders of all types must learn how to cultivate teams of people who share an interest in the issue, can use evidence to identify the problem, explore creative solutions, take risks (and possibly fail!) together, and develop new patterns of engagement and complementary experiences to develop a collective agenda for action. This approach builds ownership among the faculty and staff who are instrumental in implementing and sustaining the desired changes over time. It also enhances engagement of administrators who are also central to providing resources and support for the desired changes. Participants in this session will learn more about the benefits of shared leadership and how to develop the conditions required to build the capacity for shared leadership and success.
Registration is closed.
Change Leadership 101
September 26, 2018 at 9:00 am PT | 10:00 am MT | 11:00 am CT | 12:00 pm ET
Presenters: Julia M. Williams, Eva Andrijcic, and Sriram Mohan (Rose Hulman Institute of Technology)
Emerging STEM educators -- including graduate students close to completion of their doctoral work, and assistant professors who are just entering their fields -- are often asked to design and implement academic change in the form of new curricula, programs, and pedagogies. Research suggests that their graduate education does not prepare them well to fully comprehend the academic environments and resulting cultures, value systems and constraints. As a result they might not feel empowered or capable of implementing academic change. Furthermore, successful change agents must possess skills (like strategic thinking, obtaining buy-in, and creating partnerships) that are not a part of conventional faculty experiences. Preparation to be a change leader starts with the adoption of successful research-based change strategies, and this adoption can help encourage development of future academic change leaders. Only by developing nascent change leaders can we hope to sustain the growing community of practice in academic change in engineering education.
This webinar will focus on helping individuals begin their development as change leaders. The emphasis will be on practical, hands-on tools that are based in the research literature on change. The presenters are change leaders at different stages of their own development, so there will be multiple perspectives on the theme of change leadership. As part of the webinar, we will be promoting the Emerging Engineering Educators (E3) Making Academic Change Happen Workshop (MACH) that is being funded by NSF and will be occur on January 19 and 20 on the campus of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. E3 MACH will provide nascent change leaders with the opportunity to develop their change leadership skills in a supportive, dynamic environment with facilitation provided by members of the experience MACH leadership team.
Registration is closed.
The Change Maker's Toolkit: Preparing Faculty and Administrators to Make Academic Change Happen
May 16th, 2018 at 9:30 am PT |10:30 am MT | 11:30 am CT | 12:30 pm ET
Presenter: Julia M. Williams, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Change has been targeted at the course and curriculum levels, focusing on teaching and learning methods and proving their efficacy. These beneficial activities have not, however, fostered the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in motivation, communication, collaboration, and persuasion that are the foundation for change on larger, more institutional levels. These change strategies are well documented in the literature of other disciplines, such as organizational psychology and behavior, but have not been brought into the conversation within STEM education in a rigorous, accessible way. This presentation poses a central question: Can we overcome limits that prevent the diffusion of new ideas, can we overcome barriers to the adoption of effective practices, by focusing on the change agents themselves in terms of their skills and change expertise? The focus of this webinar is on the change maker's toolkit, the set of KSAs that can help change agents meet and conquer their change project challenges.
Registration is closed.
Creating a Unified Community of Support: Increasing Success for Underrepresented Students in STEM
March 28th, 2018 at 9:30 am PT |10:30 am MT | 11:30 am CT | 12:30 pm ET
Presenter: Elizabeth Holcombe, Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California
This webinar discusses the findings from a 3-year study of the California State University (CSU) STEM Collaboratives project, funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust. The project selected 8 CSU campuses to rethink the ways in which they support first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented minority students in STEM as they transition to college and experience their first year. Each participating campus implemented three integrated high-impact practices (HIPs) through collaboration among faculty and student affairs. The three HIPs included a summer experience, a first-year seminar or first-year experience, and redesigned introductory STEM courses. The goal of these programs was to create a seamless, connected, and integrated experience for students, with curricular and co-curricular support as well as socioemotional support. This project is an example of a systemic approach to STEM student support, targeting both academic and student affairs and working across multiple levels of both individual organizations and university systems to effect change. The major takeaways from this project have important implications for practitioners who are interested in experimenting with this new way of organizing transitions to college for underrepresented students in STEM. Lessons learned that we will cover in the webinar include:
- Knowledge necessary to support underrepresented students in STEM
- Value of the project for students and broader campus communities
- Facilitators and challenges to collaboration and implementation
Registration is closed.
Developing and Sustaining Effective Partnerships to Advance Change in STEM Higher Education
February 21st, 2018 at 9:30am PT |10:30 am MT | 11:30 am CT | 12:30 pm ET
Presenters: Marilyn Amey, Michigan State University; Sarah Rodriguez, Iowa State University; and Lucas Hill, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Successful STEM projects, especially those aiming to influence cultural and structural changes, involve working across organizational levels (e.g., disciplines, departments, colleges, institutions). Funders and administrative directives encourage collaborative efforts but typically focus more on reform mission of the collaborative rather than the functional developmental components. Experience clearly shows there is more to creating and sustaining effective educational partnerships. First, using a partnership development model, this session will help participants identify challenges to partnership development and strategies to address them. Then, lessons learned will be shared from experiences connecting with colleagues across campus and suggestions offered on how to utilize a wide-range of team expertise in campus partnerships/teams. Participants interactively will explore practical steps that can help overcome challenges working in interdisciplinary teams. Next, this session will offer a look at research findings and insights from two multi-institutional collaborations, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), a network of 41 universities focused on preparing future faculty, and CIRTL's NSF INCLUDES launch pilot. Participants will learn what are the key activities and characteristics of individuals who can successfully span the boundary between their organization and a larger partnership collective in service to local and national reform goals.
Registration for this webinar is closed.
Faculty Adoption of STEM Education Reforms: From Constraint to Possibility
January 17th, 2018 at 9:30am PT |10:30 am MT | 11:30 am CT | 12:30 pm ET
Presenter: Cassandra Volpe Horii, Founding Director, Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach at the California Institute of Technology; President-Elect of the POD Network in Higher Education
With decades of growing evidence on effective teaching practices in STEM disciplines, much of it field-specific thanks to the Discipline Based Education Research (DBER) communities, information about what to do to improve STEM education is readily available. Yet, national adoption of evidence-based teaching practices in STEM fields lags behind, with abundant examples of short-lived individual efforts and institutional reforms that don't "stick." Something else is going on. One factor at play may be the deeper tensions between new approaches to teaching and faculty members' concepts about identity and the nature of their work in higher education. This webinar will explore key ideas from the literature on faculty work/life, identity, and adoption in an approachable way. Participants will interactively explore tools for identifying and resolving tensions, guiding faculty toward sustainable adoption of evidence-based teaching practices, and engaging or changing institutional structures to address these tensions.
Registration for this webinar is closed.