West, M., & Herman, G. L. (2015, June), Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24469

\bibitem{asee_peer_24469}
  West, M., \& Herman, G. L. (2015, June), \emph{Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24469

Matthew West and Geoffrey L Herman.  "Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/24469 Internet.  25 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_24469}
  Matthew West and Geoffrey L Herman.
  "Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/24469 Internet.  25 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24469
author = "Matthew West and Geoffrey L Herman"
title = "Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/24469}
number = {10.18260/p.24469}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods               in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of PracticeThe recent literature reviews and studies of Henderson and colleagues have highlightedanew the critical difficulties of creating large scale, sustainable change in Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instruction. They have shown that,while faculty are often aware of Research-Based Instructional Strategies (RBIS), theyrarely try, or maintain their use of, these RBIS. Borrego and colleagues have furtherrevealed that maintaining the fidelity of the implementation of these RBIS providesanother critical challenge in the successful adoption and translation of RBIS acrossinstructors and courses. In summary, there are two key challenges for educationalreforms: spreading innovations and sustaining adoption.Under a campus-wide NSF-funded WIDER (Widening Implementation & Demonstrationof Evidence Based Reforms) project, we are addressing these two challenges by formingseveral Communities of Practice (CoPs) of faculty and lecturers. These CoPs are creatingcollaborative joint ownership of sets of gateway STEM courses so that communities offaculty rather than individual faculty are responsible for implementing RBIS andsustaining their use. Additionally, these CoPs are interconnected by embedding facultyand observers across departments to cross-pollinate RBIS between CoPs.In this paper, we present part of an evaluation of this CoP-based approach to institutionalchange by tracing the spread and adoption of one RBIS through the WIDER effort:collaborative, context-rich problem solving. The use of this RBIS originated inCalculus 2 and spread to other STEM courses as shown in Figure 1. We summarize thepath and history of this spread, and identify the two key factors that enabled efficientdissemination and sustainability: (1) the use of CoPs as “concentrators”, and (2) theembedding of faculty across departments.                                                                                Comp Arch         Calculus 2       ECE CoP          Intro to EE                                                            CS CoP                 Data Struct          Dynamics                           TAM CoP                                         Disc Math                                               MatSE Mech              Statics                                           CS1 non-major                          Solids                                             MatSE CoP                                                                  Thermal & Mech       Figure 1: Spread sequence of the RBIS innovation from the source in Math 231E (top       left) to ten other courses, via four Communities of Practice (CoPs) in TAM       (Theoretical and Applied Mechanics), MatSE (Materials Science and Engineering),       ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and CS (Computer Science).
AU  - Matthew West
AU  - Geoffrey L Herman
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Mapping the Spread of Collaborative Learning Methods in Gateway STEM Courses via Communities of Practice
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/24469
DO  - 10.18260/p.24469
ER  -