Nsf-reese Pi Meeting Poster - Feb 2009

Facilitating Change in Underrgraduate STEM Instruction:

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Synthesis y of Change g Strattegies g across Disciplines p Andrea L. Beach and Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University U - Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado, Boulder

Analysis

A review of the literature on change g strategies g used in the improvement p of undergraduate STEM instructional practices identified over 300 journal articles published in 176 distinct journals Preliminary results based on: •130 articles (randomly selected) to develop four categories of change h strategies t t i •43 articles (subset of the 130) to characterize i) connections to change literature and ii) strength of data presented •267 articles (all complete records) to develop citation maps TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008

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2. To what extent is the outcome prescribed in advance? Prescribed Final Condition The desired final state for the individual or environment is known at the beginning of the change process.

Emergent Final Condition The desired final state for the individual or environment is developed as part of the change process.

Empower collective development of environmental features that support new teaching conceptions and/or practices. f (HER), ( ) e.g., institutional transformation learning organizations (HER)

Citation network of all 267 articles with complete records. Color represents number of links. links

N 6 N=6

Shared Vision

Policy

Less th L than hhalf lf (21/43) off the th articles made any connection with anyy change literature (despite a very liberal definition of change literature literature”)) “change

Curriculum & Pedagogy

5/12 = 42%

Reflective Teachers

5/12 = 42%

Policy

Shared Vision

7/13 = 54%

4/6 = 67%

5/6 = 83%

Reflective Teachers

1/11 = 9% (All success)

(2 success, 3 no success)

P li Policy

Sh d Vision Shared Vi i

3/9 = 33%

3/4 = 75%

(1 success, 2 no success)

(All success)

More Information

http://www.wmich.edu/science/facilitating-change htt // i h d / i /f ilit ti h http://homepages.wmich.edu/~chenders

Articles in the largest cluster with three or more links (N (N=57). 57).

Focus on Changing Environment/Structures

Developing

Only12/30 (40%) presented at least moderate evidence off success/lack /l k off success.

Focus on Changing Individuals

N 18 N=18

Developing

Curriculum & Pedagogy

Discipline of Authors Correlates with Strategy Choice

N=40

Reflective Teachers

Evidenced of Success

Focus on Changing Environment/Structures

N=39

Curriculum & Pedagogy

Relationship to Change Literature

Focus on Changing Individuals

Develop new environmental features that require/encourage new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., policy change (HER), strategic planning (HER)

Developing

Disseminating

Focus on Changing Environment/Structures

Four Categories of Changes Strategies

Tell/teach individuals about new Encourage/support individuals to develop teaching conceptions and/or practices. new teaching conceptions and/or practices. e.g., dissemination di i ti (SER (SER, FDR) FDR), e.g., reflective practice and action research focused conceptual change (FDR) (FDR), curriculum development (SER)

Category Labels F Focus on Changing Ch i Individuals I di id l Final Condition Emergent F

The change g intends to directly y impact p extraindividual characteristics of the system such as rules, physical characteristics of the environment, norms, etc.

Em mergent F Final Cond dition

• Four core categories of change strategies. strategies • Change agents in each field primarily operate within only g one or two of the four core categories. • Little communication between or within fields. • Few change agents appear to treat the improvement of change strategies and theories as a scientific problem to be solved: ƒ Most articles do not reference anyy change g literature ƒ Most articles do not document the success (or failure) of change efforts

g intends to directly y impact p The change personal characteristics of single individuals, such as beliefs, knowledge, behaviors, etc.

126 articles (47%) have no link to other articles in the database. Another 50 (18%) have only 1 link to another article in the database.

Environments and Structures

Final Condition Emergent F

Key Findings

Individuals

Prrescribed Final Con ndition

This goall off thi Thi this project j t is i to t critically iti ll review, i iintegrate, t t and d align li the th research literatures and perspectives of the SER, FDR, and HER communities and identifyy promising g areas for future work.

Little Communication Within or Between Fields

1. What does the change effort intend to directly impact?

Prescribed d Final Condition

For decades, scholars in three primary fields have engaged in efforts to promote the use of instructional strategies in STEM subjects that are consistent with current educational research. research STEM Education Researchers (SER) have appointments in a STEM department or as a STEM education specialist in a College of Education. Faculty Development Researchers (FDR) are connected with a center for teaching and learning. Higher Education Researchers (HER) have appointments pp in a College g of Education or are universityy administrators. Efforts in all areas, despite significant funding and study, have met with only modest success. Further, although the fields share an overriding goal goal, the research generated by each rarely “crosses over” to inform the others.

Two Categorization Criteria

Prescribed d Final Condition

Research Problem

•Henderson, C., Beach, A., Finkelstein, N., & Larson, R. S., (2008, June). “Preliminary Categorization of Literature on Promoting Change in Undergraduate STEM”, Paper presented at the Facilitating Change in Undergraduate STEM symposium, Augusta, MI. http://www.wmich.edu/science/facilitating-change/PreliminaryCategorization.pdf •Henderson, C., Beach, A. Finkelstein, N., Larson R. S. (2008) “Facilitating Change in Undergraduate STEM: Initial Results from an Interdisciplinary Literature Review”, Proceedings g of the 2008 Physics y Education Research Conference,, AIP Conference Proceedings Volume 1064, p. 131-134.