“It’s Been a While”: Faculty Reflect on Their Experiences Implementing What They Learned During an Intensive Summer Program

Ariana C. Vasquez; Amy Hermundstad Nave; Sam Spiegel

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Research! Research! Research! in Faculty Development
Tagged Division: Faculty Development Division
Page Count: 17
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--33971
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/33971
Download Count: 278

Paper Authors

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Ariana C. Vasquez Colorado School of Mines

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Ariana Vasquez is the DeVries Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado School of Mines. She earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin. Ariana’s research focuses on motivation, learning, and achievement. Her research is driven by a desire to find solutions to educational problems in the classrooms. Her work experience while at UT Austin, included time at the Charles A. Dana Center, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and as a project manager for a large scale longitudinal research study in high school science classrooms. Prior to joining Mines Ariana was a Survey Team manager at GLG in Austin, TX.

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Amy Hermundstad Nave Colorado School of Mines orcid.org/0000-0001-6561-3455

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Amy Hermundstad Nave is a Faculty Developer in the Trefny Innovative Instruction Center at the Colorado School of Mines. She earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University before going on to earn her PhD in Engineering Education and MEng in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. Her research has focused on conceptual understanding in core engineering courses, opportunities to support engineering students’ professional development, and efforts to support underrepresented students in engineering. Her current work in faculty development focuses on supporting faculty members in incorporating research-based practices into their own classrooms.

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Sam Spiegel Colorado School of Mines

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Dr. Spiegel is the Director of the Trefny Innovative Instruction Center at the Colorado School of Mines. He previously served as Chair of the Disciplinary Literacy in Science Team at the Institute for Learning (IFL) and Associate Director of Outreach and Development for the Swanson School of Engineering's Engineering Education Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, he was a science educator at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS). Dr. Spiegel also served as Director of Research & Development for a multimedia development company and as founding Director of the Center for Integrating Research & Learning (CIRL) at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University. Under Dr. Spiegel's leadership, the CIRL matured into a thriving Center recognized as one of the leading National Science Foundation Laboratories for activities to promote science, mathematics, and technology (STEM) education. While at Florida State University, Dr. Spiegel also directed an award winning teacher enhancement program for middle grades science teachers, entitled Science For Early Adolescence Teachers (Science FEAT).

His extensive background in science education includes experiences as both a middle school and high school science teacher, teaching science at elementary through graduate level, developing formative assessment instruments, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in science and science education, working with high-risk youth in alternative education centers, working in science museums, designing and facilitating online courses, multimedia curriculum development, and leading and researching professional learning for educators. The Association for the Education of Teachers of Science (AETS) honored Dr. Spiegel for his efforts in teacher education with the Innovation in Teaching Science Teachers award (1997).

Dr. Spiegel's current efforts focus on educational reform and in the innovation of teaching and learning resources and practices.

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Abstract

This research paper describes the study of 32 faculty members who participated in a Summer Intensive Course Revision (SICR) program. The SICR was a month-long learning and working session that included face-to-face instruction, reading, and time to work alongside pedagogy and curriculum experts to design or revise a targeted course. The SICR utilized an Engineering Learning (EL) framework that guided faculty through an intentional course design process. The EL framework shifts faculty from focusing on the delivery of content to the role of designer and facilitator of learning. The SICR took place during the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018. In this study, we examined the elements from the SICR that faculty continue to use in their courses after participating in the program. This is an important and fundamental study to consider as the long-term influences of educational development initiatives are rarely studied systematically years after their initial contact. In addition, changes in teaching practice are frequently not evident immediately after participating in professional development; often instructors need time to implement and incorporate what they have learned into their teaching practice. The purpose of our study is to explore the lasting impact of the SICR on faculty participants. In particular, this study focused on three research questions: 1) What elements from the SICR do faculty describe as practices that they continue to use in the design and implementation of their courses more than two years after participation?, 2) What do faculty describe as challenges in implementing their redesigned courses since participating in the SICR?, and 3) What do faculty describe as positive outcomes of participating in the SICR or implementing their redesigned course? We interviewed 32 faculty who had participated in the SICR in 2016 and 2017, using a semi-structured set of interview questions. In order to adequately capture sustained change over time, faculty from only the first two cohorts, summers 2016 and 2017, were interviewed, allowing for at least two academic years to have passed. Interviews were coded and analyzed using a six phase thematic analysis approach. Ten themes and 19 codes were identified fitting into the 5 phases of the EL Framework. Results indicated that learning outcomes were extremely important to participants, successes and challenged spanned 4 phases of the EL framework, and faculty were striving for continuous improvement. Implications of the study include the identification of practices that faculty perceive as relevant and continue to use even years after participating in faculty development programming. These results can help educational developers design programming that can have a lasting impact on faculty and their teaching practice. Our preferred presentation method for this paper is a traditional lecture.

Citation
Format

Vasquez, A. C., & Hermundstad Nave, A., & Spiegel, S. (2020, June), “It’s Been a While”: Faculty Reflect on Their Experiences Implementing What They Learned During an Intensive Summer Program Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--33971

TY - CPAPER
AB - This research paper describes the study of 32 faculty members who participated in a Summer Intensive Course Revision (SICR) program. The SICR was a month-long learning and working session that included face-to-face instruction, reading, and time to work alongside pedagogy and curriculum experts to design or revise a targeted course. The SICR utilized an Engineering Learning (EL) framework that guided faculty through an intentional course design process. The EL framework shifts faculty from focusing on the delivery of content to the role of designer and facilitator of learning. The SICR took place during the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018. In this study, we examined the elements from the SICR that faculty continue to use in their courses after participating in the program. This is an important and fundamental study to consider as the long-term influences of educational development initiatives are rarely studied systematically years after their initial contact. In addition, changes in teaching practice are frequently not evident immediately after participating in professional development; often instructors need time to implement and incorporate what they have learned into their teaching practice.
The purpose of our study is to explore the lasting impact of the SICR on faculty participants. In particular, this study focused on three research questions: 1) What elements from the SICR do faculty describe as practices that they continue to use in the design and implementation of their courses more than two years after participation?, 2) What do faculty describe as challenges in implementing their redesigned courses since participating in the SICR?, and 3) What do faculty describe as positive outcomes of participating in the SICR or implementing their redesigned course? We interviewed 32 faculty who had participated in the SICR in 2016 and 2017, using a semi-structured set of interview questions. In order to adequately capture sustained change over time, faculty from only the first two cohorts, summers 2016 and 2017, were interviewed, allowing for at least two academic years to have passed. Interviews were coded and analyzed using a six phase thematic analysis approach. Ten themes and 19 codes were identified fitting into the 5 phases of the EL Framework. Results indicated that learning outcomes were extremely important to participants, successes and challenged spanned 4 phases of the EL framework, and faculty were striving for continuous improvement. Implications of the study include the identification of practices that faculty perceive as relevant and continue to use even years after participating in faculty development programming. These results can help educational developers design programming that can have a lasting impact on faculty and their teaching practice.
Our preferred presentation method for this paper is a traditional lecture.

AU - Ariana C. Vasquez
AU - Amy Hermundstad Nave
AU - Sam Spiegel
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - “It’s Been a While”: Faculty Reflect on Their Experiences Implementing What They Learned During an Intensive Summer Program
UR - https://peer.asee.org/33971
DO - 10.18260/1-2--33971
ER -