Evaluating the extent of a large-scale transformation in gateway science courses

Matz, Rebecca L.; Fata-Hartley, Cori L.; Posey, Lynmarie A.; Laverty, James T.; Underwood, Sonia M.; Carmel, Justin H.; Herrington, Deborah G.; Stowe, Ryan L.; Caballero, Marcos D.; Ebert-May, Diane; Cooper, Melanie M.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau0554

Cited by 56 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Of particular interest in the structural frame is the nature of how teaching assignments are made with respect to the instruc-tor's disciplinary background. Physics stands out as a discipline in which faculty are expected to be able to teach across the undergraduate curriculum regardless of their particular research areas or graduate school training, and they regularly rotate through different courses (Matz et al, 2018). This expectation might lead to different-perhaps more collaborative and distributed-structures for course ownership in physics compared with biology, chemistry, and mathematics and would differentially impact efforts to change physics curricula.…”

Section: Background Required and Expectations For Teaching Assignmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They also serve as an entry point into STEM majors and so play a critical role in student persistence (PCAST, 2012). For these reasons, change in introductory courses can have a large impact (Matz et al, 2018), which is why these courses are a typical focus for change efforts. Finally, introductory courses often have some structure for coordination across multiple sections with multiple instructors, graduate TAs, and undergraduate learning assistants.…”

Section: Empirical and Theoretical Considerations (Symbols)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is evidence already that factors affecting change in education vary across disciplines (Matz et al, 2018). For example, a study of 10 STEM departments in the early stages of a university-wide effort to shift instructional practice identified both barriers and drivers for change (Shadle et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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STEM Is Not a Monolith: A Preliminary Analysis of Variations in STEM Disciplinary Cultures and Implications for Change

Reinholz

Matz

Cole

et al. 2019

LSE

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Research suggests that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments are a productive unit of focus for systemic change efforts. In particular, they are relatively coherent units of culture, and cultural changes are critical to creating sustainable improvements. However, the STEM disciplines are often treated as a monolith in change literature, and unique aspects of these different disciplinary cultures—and consequences for change efforts—remain somewhat underdeveloped. This exploratory study focuses on similarities and differences among STEM disciplinary cultures, drawing on data gathered from scholars in discipline-based education research who attended two sessions at the 2017 Transforming Research in Undergraduate STEM Education conference. Our analyses of these data help begin to characterize disciplinary cultures using the theoretical lens of four frames: structures, symbols, power, and people. We find preliminary evidence for both similarities and differences among the cultures of STEM disciplines. Implications for change efforts and future directions for research are discussed.

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Section: Background Required and Expectations For Teaching Assignmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empirical and Theoretical Considerations (Symbols)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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STEM Is Not a Monolith: A Preliminary Analysis of Variations in STEM Disciplinary Cultures and Implications for Change

Reinholz

Matz

Cole

et al. 2019

LSE

Self Cite

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“…Although The Framework and the NGSS are meant to inform K‐12 STEM education, the literature base that underpins them is equally applicable to higher education. Accordingly, a number of ongoing efforts focus on supporting 3‐Dimensional learning and measuring knowledge‐in‐use in college learning environments …”

Section: Approaches To Chemistry Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment in Chemistry Education

Stowe

Cooper

2019

Israel Journal of Chemistry

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Knowing what students know and can do is challenging business, as we cannot directly examine what any given person is thinking. Instead, we must construct opportunities for students to make their thinking visible and interpret the evidence elicited from these opportunities to infer progress toward desired outcomes. Here we describe the approach of "assessments as evidentiary arguments" and examine several types of assessments that are used to evaluate the learning of college chemistry students. Throughout this discussion, we will pay especial attention to the assumptions (or lack thereof) that particular assessment strategies make about how students learn. We have limited discussion to what students know and can do with regards to chemistry and chemical phenomena. That is, we are not concerned here with assessment of affective constructs (e. g. motivation, identity). Figure 3. Assessment items representative of prompts found on communally developed, normed assessments ("traditional assessment prompt"), concept inventories, [23] and 3-dimensional assessments.

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“…Here, we report on our continuing work to transform gateway science courses by moving beyond active learning to incorporate what has become known as three-dimensional learning (3DL) which originates from A Framework for K-12 Science Education (the Framework), a consensus report from the National Research Council [12]. Based on the best available research on student learning in the sciences, the Framework put forth a vision for science education in which curricula would be restructured as scaffolded progressions for each of the three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas (fundamental concepts that underpin a discipline), scientific and engineering practices (what scientists do with their knowledge), and crosscutting concepts (tools or lenses used across disciplines for making sense of phenomena) [9,[12][13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing college science instruction: The Three-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol

Bain

Bender

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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The importance of improving STEM education is of perennial interest, and to this end, the education community needs ways to characterize transformation efforts. Three-dimensional learning (3DL) is one such approach to transformation, in which core ideas of the discipline, scientific practices, and crosscutting concepts are combined to support student development of disciplinary expertise. We have previously reported on an approach to the characterization of assessments, the Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol (3D-LAP), that can be used to identify whether assessments have the potential to engage students in 3DL. Here we present the development of a companion, the Three-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol (3D-LOP), an observation protocol that can reliably distinguish between instruction that has potential for engagement with 3DL and instruction that does not. The 3D-LOP goes beyond other observation protocols, because it is intended not only to characterize the pedagogical approaches being used in the instructional environment, but also to identify whether students are being asked to engage with scientific practices, core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. We demonstrate herein that the 3D-LOP can be used reliably to code for the presence of 3DL; further, we present data that show the utility of the 3D-LOP in differentiating between instruction that has the potential to promote 3DL

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Evaluating the extent of a large-scale transformation in gateway science courses

Abstract: An institutional effort to transform gateway science courses is evaluated using a novel approach based on course assessments.

Cited by 56 publications

References 43 publications

STEM Is Not a Monolith: A Preliminary Analysis of Variations in STEM Disciplinary Cultures and Implications for Change

STEM Is Not a Monolith: A Preliminary Analysis of Variations in STEM Disciplinary Cultures and Implications for Change

Assessment in Chemistry Education

Characterizing college science instruction: The Three-Dimensional Learning Observation Protocol

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