For more effective teaching and learning in undergraduate engineering education, there is a strong need for evidence-based faculty professional development to shift from instructor-centered teaching to student-centered, active learning, which is more effective (Freeman, et al., 2014). The NSF's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program funded a large-scale faculty development program at a large, public university which uses a train-the-trainer approach, similar to Pimmel, et al., to engage faculty in a year-long modeling program with a semester of eight biweekly workshops, followed by a semester of six biweekly Community of Practice innovation discussions.
Here, we describe the creation, scaling, and evaluation of this evidence-based faculty development program. More specifically, we outline the benefits and barriers to faculty development; structure and management; strategies, topics, and materials; assessment; and lessons learned and takeaways in an interactive format.
In the “benefits and barriers” component, attendees will learn about foundational research by Prince, Freeman, Smith, and others in the area of engagement and active learning as well as learn about how the represented university addressed barriers to implementation. Attendees will discuss and brainstorm participation incentives from both the administrative and faculty perspectives.
During “structure and management”, presenters will discuss the program overview in more detail, including recruitment, organization, and workshop and community of practice structure. Attendees will consider different types of faculty development options and think about implementation and structure in the context of a particular type of institution.
During the “strategies, topics, and materials” component, we will describe the project’s models of change, including Rogers’ model of Diffusion of Innovation and Coburn’s model of Sustainable Innovation Scaling. Presenters will also share all workshop materials by Google Drive on topics such as learning objectives, Bloom’s taxonomy, interactive classes, implementing active learning, cooperative learning, student motivation, and inclusive learning environments. Attendees will discuss topics that would be most important for faculty development at their institution.
In the “assessment” section, we will provide an overview of how we assessed our faculty development program in terms of the evaluation framework. We will discuss what the instruments measure and the outcomes from the instruments in our setting. Attendees will discuss other potential assessment techniques and how to implement. Throughout the presentation, facilitators will present key lessons learned from the project as well as important points about support and sustainability.
In summary, participants will not only learn evidence-based strategies for the class but learn how to structure, implement, scale, and evaluate a faculty development program using lessons learned from a successful, large-scale example.
Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.