Faculty Seminars on the Improvement of Teaching in the STEM Disciplines

Council Of Independent Colleges, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Science educators benefit from professional development to learn about and implement evidence-based teaching practices. To this end, the Council of Independent Colleges is convening a Seminar on STEM Pedagogy, to be held July 15-19, 2019 in Oakland, California. Teams from ten independent colleges will attend the seminar to study how students learn and to develop teaching practices that can improve STEM learning at their institutions. Three highly experienced STEM faculty members will serve as facilitators for the seminar to help participants develop activities integrating evidence-based practices that they will then implement at their home institutions. The Seminar in STEM Pedagogy seeks to disseminate ideas developed by Nobel prize-winner Carl Wieman for improving STEM teaching and learning. Teams of faculty and administrators from ten independent colleges will participate in the seminar where they will explore the psychology of learning, student motivation, and deliberate practice as they develop learning goals and assessment activities for courses at their home institutions. Seminar activities will be recorded and materials disseminated to the 656 member institutions of the Council of Independent Colleges to further spread evidence-based teaching practices to small independent colleges. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.