Research Based Undergraduate Science Teaching

Research in Science Education (RISE) Volume 6, Research Based Undergraduate Science Teaching examines research, theory, and practice concerning issues of teaching science with undergraduates. This RISE volume addresses higher education faculty and all who teach entry level science. The focus is on helping undergraduates develop a basic science literacy leading to scientific expertise. RISE Volume 6 focuses on research-based reforms leading to best practices in teaching undergraduates in science and engineering. The goal of this volume is to provide a research foundation for the professional development of faculty teaching undergraduate science. Such science instruction should have short- and longterm impacts on student outcomes. The goal was carried out through a series of events over several years. The website at http://nseus.org documents materials from these events. The international call for manuscripts for this volume requested the inclusion of major priorities and critical research areas, methodological concerns, and results of implementation of faculty professional development programs and reform in teaching in undergraduate science classrooms. In developing research manuscripts to be reviewed for RISE, Volume 6, researchers were asked to consider the status and effectiveness of current and experimental practices for reforming undergraduate science courses involving all undergraduates, including groups of students who are not always well represented in STEM education. To influence practice, it is important to understand how researchbased practice is made and how it is implemented. The volume should be considered as a first step in thinking through what reform in undergraduate science teaching might look like and how we help faculty to implement such reform.

Too many universities remain wedded to outmoded ways of teaching. Too few departments ask whether what happens in their lecture halls is effective at helping students to learn and how they can encourage their faculty to teach better. But real change is possible, and Carl Wieman shows us how it can be done—through detailed, tested strategies.

The mission of the book series, Research in Science Education, is to provide a comprehensive view of current and emerging knowledge, research strategies, and policy in specific professional fields of science education. This series would present currently unavailable, or difficult to gather, materials from a variety of viewpoints and sources in a usable and organized format. Each volume in the series would present a juried, scholarly, and accessible review of research, theory, and/or policy in a specific field of science education, K-16. Topics covered in each volume would be determined by present issues and trends, as well as generative themes related to current research and theory. Published volumes will include empirical studies, policy analysis, literature reviews, and positing of theoretical and conceptual bases.

The National Science Foundation funded a synthesis study on the status, contributions, and future direction of discipline-based education research (DBER) in physics, biological sciences, geosciences, and chemistry. DBER combines knowledge of teaching and learning with deep knowledge of discipline-specific science content. It describes the discipline-specific difficulties learners face and the specialized intellectual and instructional resources that can facilitate student understanding. Discipline-Based Education Research is based on a 30-month study built on two workshops held in 2008 to explore evidence on promising practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This book asks questions that are essential to advancing DBER and broadening its impact on undergraduate science teaching and learning. The book provides empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences, explores the extent to which this research currently influences undergraduate instruction, and identifies the intellectual and material resources required to further develop DBER. Discipline-Based Education Research provides guidance for future DBER research. In addition, the findings and recommendations of this report may invite, if not assist, post-secondary institutions to increase interest and research activity in DBER and improve its quality and usefulness across all natural science disciples, as well as guide instruction and assessment across natural science courses to improve student learning. The book brings greater focus to issues of student attrition in the natural sciences that are related to the quality of instruction. Discipline-Based Education Research will be of interest to educators, policy makers, researchers, scholars, decision makers in universities, government agencies, curriculum developers, research sponsors, and education advocacy groups.

Numerous teaching, learning, assessment, and institutional innovations in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education have emerged in the past decade. Because virtually all of these innovations have been developed independently of one another, their goals and purposes vary widely. Some focus on making science accessible and meaningful to the vast majority of students who will not pursue STEM majors or careers; others aim to increase the diversity of students who enroll and succeed in STEM courses and programs; still other efforts focus on reforming the overall curriculum in specific disciplines. In addition to this variation in focus, these innovations have been implemented at scales that range from individual classrooms to entire departments or institutions. By 2008, partly because of this wide variability, it was apparent that little was known about the feasibility of replicating individual innovations or about their potential for broader impact beyond the specific contexts in which they were created. The research base on innovations in undergraduate STEM education was expanding rapidly, but the process of synthesizing that knowledge base had not yet begun. If future investments were to be informed by the past, then the field clearly needed a retrospective look at the ways in which earlier innovations had influenced undergraduate STEM education. To address this need, the National Research Council (NRC) convened two public workshops to examine the impact and effectiveness of selected STEM undergraduate education innovations. This volume summarizes the workshops, which addressed such topics as the link between learning goals and evidence; promising practices at the individual faculty and institutional levels; classroom-based promising practices; and professional development for graduate students, new faculty, and veteran faculty. The workshops concluded with a broader examination of the barriers and opportunities associated with systemic change.

"Reaching Students presents the best thinking to date on teaching and learning undergraduate science and engineering. Focusing on the disciplines of astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, geosciences, and physics, this book is an introduction to strategies to try in your classroom or institution. Concrete examples and case studies illustrate how experienced instructors and leaders have applied evidence-based approaches to address student needs, encouraged the use of effective techniques within a department or an institution, and addressed the challenges that arose along the way."--Provided by publisher.

This book is written for all science or engineering faculty who have ever found themselves baffled and frustrated by their undergraduate students’ lack of engagement and learning. The author, an experienced scientist, faculty member, and educational consultant, addresses these issues with the knowledge of faculty interests, constraints, and day-to-day concerns in mind. Drawing from the research on learning, she offers faculty new ways to think about the struggles their science students face. She then provides a range of evidence-based teaching strategies that can make the time faculty spend in the classroom more productive and satisfying.Linda Hodges reviews the various learning problems endemic to teaching science, explains why they are so common and persistent, and presents a digest of key ideas and strategies to address them, based on the research she has undertaken into the literature on the cognitive sciences and education. Recognizing that faculty have different views about teaching, different comfort levels with alternative teaching approaches, and are often pressed for time, Linda Hodges takes these constraints into account by first offering a framework for thinking purposefully about course design and teaching choices, and then providing a range of strategies to address very specific teaching barriers – whether it be students’ motivation, engagement in class, ability to problem solve, their reading comprehension, or laboratory, research or writing skills.Except for the first and last chapters, the other chapters in this book stand on their own (i.e., can be read in any order) and address a specific challenge students have in learning and doing science. Each chapter summarizes the research explaining why students struggle and concludes by offering several teaching options categorized by how easy or difficult they are to implement. Some, for example, can work in a large lecture class without a great expenditure of time; others may require more preparation and a more adventurous approach to teaching. Each strategy is accompanied by a table categorizing its likely impact, how much time it will take in class or out, and how difficult it will be to implement.Like scientific research, teaching works best when faculty start with a goal in mind, plan an approach building on the literature, use well-tested methodologies, and analyze results for future trials. Linda Hodges’ message is that with such intentional thought and a bit of effort faculty can succeed in helping many more students gain exciting new skills and abilities, whether those students are potential scientists or physicians or entrepreneurs. Her book serves as a mini compendium of current research as well as a protocol manual: a readily accessible guide to the literature, the best practices known to date, and a framework for thinking about teaching.