Enabling and challenging factors in institutional reform: The case of SCALE-UP

Abstract

While many innovative teaching strategies exist, integration into undergraduate science teaching has been frustratingly slow. This study aims to understand the low uptake of research-based instructional innovations by studying 21 successful implementations of the Student Centered Active Learning with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) instructional reform. SCALE-UP significantly restructures the classroom environment and pedagogy to promote highly active and interactive instruction. Although originally designed for university introductory physics courses, SCALE-UP has spread to many other disciplines at hundreds of departments around the world. This study reports findings from in-depth, open-ended interviews with 21 key contact people involved with successful secondary implementations of SCALE-UP throughout the United States. We defined successful implementations as those who restructured their pedagogy and classroom and sustained and/or spread the change. Interviews were coded to identify the most common enabling and challenging factors during reform implementation and compared to the theoretical framework of Kotter's 8-step Change Model. The most common enabling influences that emerged are documenting and leveraging evidence of local success, administrative support, interaction with outside SCALE-UP user(s), and funding. Many challenges are linked to the lack of these enabling factors including difficulty finding funding, space, and administrative and/or faculty support for reform. Our focus on successful secondary implementations meant that most interviewees were able to overcome challenges. Presentation of results is illuminated with case studies, quotes, and examples that can help secondary implementers with SCALE-UP reform efforts specifically. We also discuss the implications for policy makers, researchers, and the higher education community concerned with initiating structural change.

Designing for institutional transformation: Six principles for department-level interventions

“…Understanding how to propagate and institutionalize educational changes is important to both research and practice. These challenges and opportunities motivate national calls to improve undergraduate education [5][6][7], as well as interest in physics education research (PER) [8][9][10] to better understand change.…”

“…In recent years, PER and other discipline-based education research fields have made increasing strides toward understanding the institutionalization of educational transformation [4,8,9]. This work has revealed valuable practical knowledge for how to enact institutional transformations.…”

Teaching Introductory Ecology with Problem‐Based Learning

“…, Foote et al. ). In order for faculty to commit time and energy to pedagogical change, their efforts must be recognized, supported, and valued by their institutions.…”

“…Often notable challenges must first be overcome at the institutional level to support faculty implementation of active learning. These challenges include a lack of administrative support, physical learning spaces which inhibit student interaction, and insufficient faculty training opportunities in active-learning strategies (Duch et al 2001, Seymour 2002, Miller and Metz 2014, Plush and Kehrwald 2014, Aksit et al 2016, Foote et al 2016. In order for faculty to commit time and energy to pedagogical change, their efforts must be recognized, supported, and valued by their institutions.…”

Student satisfaction in interactive engagement-based physics classes

“…These IE learning environments are known to yield learning gains better than those of traditional lecture or lab classes, and RBIS exist in the literature as resources for instructors who want to improve their students' understanding of physics. However, implementation of RBIS within the context of an IE learning environment is a highly complicated process, involving many factors [2]. One key factor that decision makers need to understand is that the adoption of an IE learning environment changes the fundamental nature of the interpersonal relationships between the instructor and the students.…”