CONCLUSION
Our work provides a comprehensive, campus-wide view of
STEM teaching at a university. We found that faculty members:
1) demonstrate a range of teaching practices that impact
student experience, 2) are generally but not always influenced
by class size when selecting practices, and 3) have
an awareness of how often they use specific teaching practices
in their courses. This work has important implications
for faculty professional development. In part, it provides
further confirmation that providers of professional development
should explicitly speak to and build upon the fact
that most faculty members fall somewhere in the continuum
between pure lecturing and primarily active-engagement
instruction. Emphasis should be on programs that increase
awareness of teaching practices currently in use across campus
and on strategies that can help faculty members gradually
shift where they are on the continuum in order to better
meet the needs of their students. In addition, our findings
suggest that many faculty members have experiences that
could contribute substantively to faculty professional development
programs. Indeed, drawing upon the diverse levels
of faculty teaching expertise during professional development
also offers an opportunity to effectively model a valuable
instructional strategy: honoring the prior knowledge of
the learners. Perhaps most importantly, this strategy helps
learners “remember, reason, solve problems, and acquire
new knowledge” (National Research Council, 2000) and, by
extension, will also help maximize the impact of the professional
development experience on faculty.
CONCLUSIONOur work provides a comprehensive, campus-wide view ofSTEM teaching at a university. We found that faculty members:1) demonstrate a range of teaching practices that impactstudent experience, 2) are generally but not always influencedby class size when selecting practices, and 3) havean awareness of how often they use specific teaching practicesin their courses. This work has important implicationsfor faculty professional development. In part, it providesfurther confirmation that providers of professional developmentshould explicitly speak to and build upon the factthat most faculty members fall somewhere in the continuumbetween pure lecturing and primarily active-engagementinstruction. Emphasis should be on programs that increaseawareness of teaching practices currently in use across campusand on strategies that can help faculty members graduallyshift where they are on the continuum in order to bettermeet the needs of their students. In addition, our findingssuggest that many faculty members have experiences thatcould contribute substantively to faculty professional developmentprograms. Indeed, drawing upon the diverse levelsof faculty teaching expertise during professional developmentalso offers an opportunity to effectively model a valuableinstructional strategy: honoring the prior knowledge ofthe learners. Perhaps most importantly, this strategy helpslearners “remember, reason, solve problems, and acquirenew knowledge” (National Research Council, 2000) and, byextension, will also help maximize the impact of the professionaldevelopment experience on faculty.
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