Collaborative Research: The Common Problem Pedagogy Project

Suny College At Cortland, Cortland NY

Investigators

Abstract

The economic prosperity of the United States relies on progress in science, the advancement of national health initiatives, and overall national prosperity in an increasingly technical economy. This prosperity relies on a talented workforce with the ability to nimbly address new challenges and develop innovative technologies. The Common Problem Pedagogy project seeks to improve STEM teaching and learning through the integration of cross-disciplinary experiences and applied learning opportunities in ways that will strengthen STEM workforce preparation and produce a more STEM-literate public. STEM faculty will partner with one or more colleagues from the arts and humanities to identify a community partner with a significant problem or issue relevant to their disciplines. Each faculty member will incorporate problem-based learning activities in their courses to address the problem. Interdisciplinary teams of students from their classes will work together, applying the perspectives and tools of inquiry from their respective disciplines, to develop potential solutions that will be presented to the community partner at the end of the semester. This project will be implemented on four SUNY Campuses: Cortland, Oneonta, Oswego, and Plattsburgh. The goals of the project are to demonstrate the effectiveness of Common Problem Pedagogy on student learning within STEM disciplines, to increase the number of STEM instructors proficient in this pedagogy, and to identify strategies for scaling up this methodology for large-scale adoption across the SUNY system and beyond. Thirty-two faculty members from the four campuses will participate in professional development opportunities to learn about the new pedagogy, implement it in their classes, and then evaluate the impact of this approach on the achievement of student learning outcomes related to problem-solving using interdisciplinary approaches. A train-the-trainer model will be adopted, whereby participating faculty members recruit additional faculty members to participate in future semesters. The principal investigators will gather data from participating faculty and community partners to identify challenges associated with implementing this method, and to evaluate students' success in working with community partners in cross-disciplinary teams to address meaningful, real-world problems.