2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Enhancing STEM Education at Oregon State University - Year 2

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session I

Enhancing STEM Education at Oregon State University – Year 2

Development and implementation of innovative instructional practices are currently underway in courses in many STEM programs at Oregon State University (OSU). Not surprisingly, they tend to be largely sequestered within a discipline, target different, specific elements, and are at varying stages of implementation. However OSU is witnessing elements of transdisciplinary collaboration emerging. The ESTEME@OSU Program presents an opportunity to catalyze broad institutional change through scaling and cross-pollination of efforts utilizing two evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs), interactive engagement with frequent formative feedback and formal cooperative learning, in targeted classes in five STEM departments (biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics). Project EBIPs are based on an interactive lecture environment combined with a studio workshop-based cooperative recitation environment; targeted outcomes are students’ well-connected conceptual knowledge structures and abilities to non-linearly and iteratively solve problems utilizing conceptual understanding. The courses we have initially selected for implementation of EBIPs are the calculus-based introductory courses. Normalizing effort across these courses ensures that there will be opportunities for students to have multiple synergistic experiences (especially in years 1 and 2) early in demanding STEM majors.
Our efforts are based on a strategic interaction of socio-cultural and cognitive theories of organizational change (communities of practice, social capital and diffusion of innovations, organizational learning), impacts on individual learning (conceptual change regarding cognitive schemas, motivation, self-efficacy, social resources), and evidence based instructional practices (interactive engagement, frequent formative feedback, and formal cooperative learning).
We use communities of practice (CoP) as the primary mechanism for implementation and scaling of EBIPs. CoPs will be directed towards two areas (i) curricular development and (ii) instructional practice. In the first area, CoPs allow faculty who have been independently developing and implementing similar innovative instructional practices to regularize across departments. This activity supports further development – allowing innovators to borrow from one another and to collectively address problems they cannot solve independently. In the second area, CoPs permit faculty and student instructors to explicitly address and negotiate an essential tension: developing one’s skill in instruction requires an educator to deepen her/his understanding and metacognition concerning what she/he is teaching (disciplinary content) and how she/he is teaching it (instructional strategies). In both these areas, the CoPs facilitate evolving relationships amongst members developed around things that matter. Our approach is based on the premise that in the inclusion of three interacting elements - (i) using community-agreed upon EBIPs; (ii) while working to increase scale, and (iii) learning about what other units are doing and how they are doing it through CoPs - we have components for emergent organizational change.
This poster presentation reports on Year 2 of this project.

Authors

Dr. Milo Koretsky Oregon State University [biography]

Milo Koretsky is the McDonnell Family Bridge Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and in the Department of Education at Tufts University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley,
Dr. Jana Bouwma-Gearhart Oregon State University [biography]

Jana L. Bouwma-Gearhart is an associate professor of STEM education at Oregon State University. Her research widely concerns improving education at research universities. Her earlier research explored enhancements to faculty motivation to improve undergra
Dr. Shane A. Brown P.E. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-8407 Oregon State University [biography]

Shane Brown is an associate professor and Associate School Head in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. His research interests include conceptual change and situated cognition. He received the NSF CAREER award in
Prof. Thomas Dick Oregon State University [biography]

Thomas Dick is a professor of mathematics at Oregon State University. He serves as the Coordinator of Collegiate Mathematics Education, as Faculty Director of the OSU Math Learning Center, and as the OSU Math Excel (Treisman Emerging Scholars) program. His main mathematics education research interests are in the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning of mathematics. He was recognized in 2009 with the Pacific Northwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America Distinguished Teaching Award. He most recently served on an Equity Task Force for the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.
Dr. Susie J Brubaker-Cole Oregon State University [biography]

Dr. Susie Brubaker-Cole is vice provost for student affairs at Oregon State University. Prior to this appointment, she served for six years as OSU's associate provost for academic success and eight years as Stanford's associate vice provost for undergraduate education. She earned her bachelors' degrees in French and Comparative History of Ideas from University of Washington, and master's and doctoral degrees from Yale in French literature. She is interested in student perceptions of innovative pedagogies and course designs, and the impact of co-curricular engagement on student success.
Ann Sitomer Oregon State University [biography]

Ann earned a PhD in mathematics education from Portland State University in 2014. Her dissertation examined informal ways of reasoning about ratio, rate and proportion that adult returning students bring to an arithmetic review class and how these ways of thinking interacted with the curriculum. Other research interests include teachers’ professional noticing of learners’ mathematical thinking and organizational change. Ann works on both the implementation and research sides of the ESTEME@OSU project.
Dr. Kathleen Quardokus Fisher Oregon State University [biography]

Dr. Kathleen Quardokus Fisher is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University. She is currently participating in a project that supports the use of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses through developing communities of practice. Her research interests focus on understanding how organizational change occurs in higher education with respect to teaching and learning in STEM courses.
Ms. Christina Smith Oregon State University [biography]

Christina Smith is a graduate student in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. She received her B.S. from the University of Utah in chemical engineering and is pursuing her Ph.D. also in chemical engineering with an emphasis on engineering education. Her research focuses on how the beliefs of graduate students around teaching and learning interact with and influence the environments in which they are asked to teach.
Mr. John David Ivanovitch Oregon State university [biography]

I am a fourth year doctoral student studying organizational change and STEM education at the collegiate level. My education includes a BA in cell and molecular Biology and a MSc. in integrated biochemistry/microbiology. Prior to entering the Doctoral program at Oregon State University I worked for over a decade as a biomedical researcher, with projects ranging from biochemistry to molecular virology. My current education research interests include transdisciplinary integration of STEM, and teaching-related cultures at the micro-, meso- and macro levels (i.e., discipline, departmental, institutional).
Julie Risien Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning [biography]

Julie is the Associate Director of the the Oregon State University Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning. In this role she focuses on investigating and enhancing the quality of research impacts, working to redefine undergraduate success, and working across campus to support transformation of undergraduate STEM education practices. Julie brings experience working with research organizations at OSU including Oregon Sea Grant and the Institute for Natural Resources. Prior to her work as research administrator Julie spent many years working for non-profit organizations and as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer on marine conservation issues including state and regional research planning and policy initiatives, citizen-science water quality monitoring and enforcement, marine habitat restoration, marine reserves establishment and monitoring, endangered species conservation and management, and community-based conservation programing in the Pacific Islands. Julie has a MSc. in Marine Resource Management from OSU. She serves as an advisor to the office of research development, and serves on the National Alliance for Broader Impacts steering committee.
Dr. Lori J. Kayes Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University
Dr. Devon Quick Oregon State University [biography]

Dr. Quick is an Instructor in the Integrative Biology Department at Oregon State University where she teaches life science students anatomy and physiology. Dr. Quick promotes student learning and success through incorporating evidence based instructional approaches into both the large lecture and laboratory courses, including active learning techniques that foster student interaction.

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