Evidence that communities of practice are associated with active learning in large STEM lectures

Abstract

Background: With the increased attention on the need to retain students within STEM majors, it is important for STEM instructors to adopt evidence-based instructional practices that are student-centric and employ active learning techniques. However, traditional approaches for increasing student-centric, active learning practices such as workshops, seminars, and department or college mandates have been either inefficient or ineffective at motivating institutional change. This is particularly true for introductory STEM courses with large enrollments. One promising approach is to develop and support instructors in forming communities of practice around reforming introductory and foundational STEM courses. By engaging instructors within these communities of practice, and connecting the communities with each other, instructors may be more likely to experience an epistemological shift that will lead to adoption of active learning practices. To explore whether participating in a community of practice is related to the use of student-centered, active learning techniques, 25 undergraduate foundational STEM courses whose instructors were members of a community of practice were observed using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM Courses. The results were compared to a sample of 35 undergraduate foundational STEM courses whose instructors were not members of a community of practice. Results: Instructors who were members of a community of practice were much more likely to employ student-centric practices, such as asking questions, following up, and engaging in discussion, and much less likely to use instructor-centered practices, such as lecturing. In addition, students in these classes were more likely to be actively engaged in problem-solving activities rather than passively listening. We found that student-centric, active learning practices correlated with students attending and actively participating in class, an effect that is stronger for courses taught by instructors who were members of a community of practice. Conclusion: Communities of practice are a potentially effective mechanism for enhancing student learning and retention by increasing the use of active learning practices by STEM instructors. These communities are particularly effective when they consist of small, disciplinary teams working on the same course(s) and are linked with other individuals or groups that use evidence-based instructional practices.

A model of peer effects on instructor innovation adoption

“…A vast literature base already indicates that the rates of innovation adoption vary with environment (Bouwma-Gearhart et al 2016;Grunspan et al 2018;Lund and Stains 2015), instructors' perceptions of departmental climate impact their willingness to use innovations (Bathgate et al 2019;Landrum et al 2017;Shadle et al 2017), and persistence in using innovations is enhanced by a supportive community (Owens et al 2018;Thomson and Trigwell 2018;Tomkin et al 2019;Wieman et al 2013). We have developed a model that explicates the role of peer interaction in facilitating (or inhibiting) university STEM instructors' innovation adoption decisions.…”

“…It would also be reasonable to predict that departmental climates that encourage teaching interaction and seeking behavior would, by extension, produce more innovation adoption because they would increase the likelihood of supportive peer interactions. Similarly, peers within a supportive microclimate or community of practice would be more likely to both try and continue using innovations than peers without this support (Roxå et al 2011;Tomkin et al 2019;Wieman et al 2013).…”

“…However, while interactions between peers with homophily may be more efficient, the ideas may also be more limited in scope (Kezar 2014;Quardokus and Henderson 2015). Interactions between instructors with homophily within a department may produce micro-climates that share and reinforce a more narrow set of ideas (Roxå and Mårtensson 2015;Schein 2010;Tomkin et al 2019). Further, instructors who value teaching innovations may be more likely to limit their interactions to those that share their same teaching beliefs (Lane et al 2020).…”

“…The aim of this commentary is to expand on existing notions of instructors' decision-making to explicitly account for how academic peers influence the implementation of research-based instructional practices. To this end, we have incorporated literature regarding innovation adoption (e.g., Andrews and Lemons 2015;Marbach-Ad and Hunt Rietschel 2016;Rogers 2003), peer influence (e.g., Dancy et al 2016;Quardokus and Henderson 2015;Tomkin et al 2019), departmental climate (e.g., Knight and Trowler 2000;Landrum et al 2017;Lund and Stains 2015), and institutional change (e.g., Austin 2011; Kezar and Holcombe 2019;Marker et al 2015;Reinholz and Apkarian 2018) to model three mechanisms through which peer interactions affect instructors' innovation adoption decisions. We conclude with implications and suggestions for future research.…”

The STEM Faculty Instructional Barriers and Identity Survey (FIBIS): development and exploratory results

“…These approaches for addressing internal barriers align with aspects of effective faculty PD programs, such as sustained support for faculty during PD (e.g., Gehrke & Kezar, 2017;Rathbun, Leatherman, & Jensen, 2017), especially those who are disciplinary experts trained in pedagogy (Wieman et al, 2013). Recent work has also highlighted the importance of forming communities of practice to help faculty make the shift to using EBIPs, especially in large enrollment courses (Tomkin, Beilstein, Morphew, & Herman, 2019), and the necessity to focus on improving supports, such as developing social support networks for faculty implementing EBIPs rather than focusing on addressing barriers (Bathgate et al, 2019). Further research is warranted to understand the ways in which faculty PD can improve reported EBIP use, reduce barriers, and shift professional identity.…”