Enhancing Critical Thinking in STEM Disciplines: A Faculty Development Model

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Multidisciplinary or Interdisciplinary (99) Northwestern University's Searle Center for Teaching Excellence together with the City Colleges of Chicago (CCCs) are piloting a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) faculty development program focused on improving higher order learning outcomes of STEM students. This pilot program consists of STEM faculty from two very different higher education institutions (a Private Research university and a large urban Community College and) with very different missions, faculty and student populations. Equal numbers of faculty from each institution participate in a linked series of workshops spanning one and a half academic years. This faculty development program is designed to assist STEM faculty in developing skills in critically reflecting on key issues in learning and teaching in higher education to improve STEM students' higher order learning outcomes. The project includes a rigorous evaluation plan to examine the effectiveness of the program both sites with respect to changes in (i) instructional and assessment practices, (ii) faculty approaches and conceptions of teaching, and (iii) student learning outcomes. In addition the effectiveness of this program is compared to the effectiveness of other Faculty Development programs. A unique model of faculty development is incorporated that goes beyond both traditional teaching-focused and student-focused conceptions and focuses on learning-centered conceptions and approaches to teaching. The program draws upon the latest research, scholarship and best practices on learning, teaching and faculty development. Participants design discipline-specific assessments based on the Critical Thinking Assessment Test (CAT), to collect data on their students' learning outcomes, across two successive cohorts, for the purpose of informing their teaching and ultimately improving their students' learning. The project addresses a very wide gap in the research and literature on the impact of STEM faculty development with respect to bringing about meaningful change in faculty teaching and, more importantly, in the higher order learning outcomes of their students and the national use of assessment in program and school accreditation. More immediate impacts include those on the higher order learning outcomes of undergraduate STEM students across a wide level of expertise and preparedness. The project's research findings and program model have the potential to impact STEM faculty and their students across the spectrum of higher education.