Promoting Inclusive Teaching through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Faculty Learning Community Model

Florida International University, Miami FL

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this project aims to support the adoption of inclusive teaching practices by Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) faculty through establishing a faculty learning community focused on systematic inquiry into student learning. The focus of the learning community’s efforts will be on inclusive teaching practices and concepts centered on serving student needs while taking into account students’ complex experiences; these practices will engage students, across their differences, in learning activities. Faculty adoption of inclusive teaching practices is key to realizing students’ academic success, and this project will address challenges faculty face in implementation of inclusive teaching practices by determining the necessary support they need to achieve this vision. Faculty learning community members will collect data in their classrooms to investigate how their students' backgrounds and classroom context influences the implementation of evidence-based educational practices relating to inclusiveness and servingness. This process will result in faculty translating education research results into teaching practice, both to improve local outcomes and to disseminate broadly to other STEM faculty. A faculty learning community built around the process of inquiry focused on student learning will empower faculty to explore, adopt, and use evidence to refine teaching practices. This project will contribute novel findings and knowledge through the faculty's research projects on inclusive teaching, as well as through the work of the research team who will investigate how this systematic inquiry into student learning can be a mechanism for supporting faculty change towards inclusive teaching. The specific aims of the project at Florida International University (FIU) are to develop a three-year faculty learning community in which faculty will learn educational theory regarding inclusiveness and servingness and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) skills to investigate their application of these practices. Through interviews, observations, and analysis of learning community documents, the research team will investigate questions related to SoTL as a mechanism for building faculty-level support for teaching initiatives. This research will provide insight into ways in which implementing a faculty learning community could enable HSI administrators to build local support for their institutional vision. The project will also explore the articulation of the complementary roles of scholarly inquiry and discipline-based education research (DBER) at FIU, and additionally determine the contributions SoTL and DBER make to each other, in the classroom, to a department, and to the university. The project’s faculty SoTL investigations will likely result in improved classroom experiences for students and significant change in faculty teaching practices that could improve the classroom experiences of their future students. In addition, the project will create structures and resources for other faculty to conduct SoTL investigations and to build relationships with DBER faculty. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity for institutional transformation at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves understanding of how to increase institutional capacity at HSIs. 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.