Assessing Faculty and Organizational Change in a Professional Development Program with Workshops and Disciplinary Communities of Practice

Abstract

He teaches in the areas of introductory materials engineering, polymers and composites, and capstone design. His research interests include faculty development, evaluating conceptual knowledge change, misconceptions, and technologies to promote conceptual change. He has co-developed a Materials Concept Inventory and a Chemistry Concept Inventory for assessing conceptual knowledge and change for introductory materials science and chemistry classes. He is currently conducting research on a large scale NSF faculty development project. His team is studying how workshops on strategies of engagement and feedback with support from internet tools and resources affect faculty beliefs, classroom practice, and development of disciplinary communities of practice and associated student achievement. He was a coauthor for the best paper award in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2013 and this year has received the Michael Ashby Outstanding Materials Educator Award from the Materials Division of ASEE.

Writing Across Engineering: A Collaborative Approach to Support STEM Faculty’s Integration of Writing Instruction in their Classes

“…4 While we are continuing to evaluate the contributions of the weekly sessions distinct from the individualized mentoring, our observations suggest that the follow-on mentoring is a key component. These observations echo findings from a faculty development program at the University of Arizona, where unplanned, individualized coaching was added after requests from participants [23].…”

“…Truly integrating writing across STEM curricula, however, will require involvement of faculty who are not already engaged in this type Additional challenges to improving our students' writing skills exist, for example faculty time limitations and the large population of many courses in the COE. These challenges are not unique to our institution [23,24]. While a variety of evidence-based best practices exist in the Writing Studies literature, they have largely been developed and studied in small (30 student, or less) classes, due at least in part to a long advocacy for individualized attention [25].…”

AIChE Virtual Communities of Practice _ Supporting Faculty during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The effectiveness of VCPs for faculty development has been reported over more than 15 years. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Notably, VCPs have guided faculty into adopting different, and often novel, teaching methods. In one study, twenty faculty members from ten universities participated in a semester-long experience with an orientation and weekly on-line discussions.…”

Social Network Analysis of Faculty Connections in a Multi-year Professional Development Program

“…This proved to be useful and effective, however, there is scarce evidence that this is a better organizational scheme than cross-disciplinary cohorts. This is important in that while a supportive social system appears to be in place in at least one department in the current study, other work shows that some departmental cultures constrain individual faculty from going too far out of bounds in their instruction, and that some kind of collaborative effort both within and between departments that impact freshman success in engineering, is warranted [13]. More research on effective organization of learning communities is certainly needed.…”

“…And finally, faculty were observed using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol, and provided feedback from an expert observer, regarding their practice. Together, these dimensions were hypothesized to improve faculty collaboration, and over time, improve their instruction in first year courses [8].…”