Studying Organizational Change: Rigorous Attention To Complex Systems Via A Multi-theoretical Research Model

Abstract

is an associate professor of STEM education at Oregon State University. Her research widely concerns improving education at research universities. Her earlier research explored enhancements to faculty motivation to improve undergraduate education. Her more recent research concerns organizational change towards postsecondary STEM education improvement at research universities, including the interactions of levers (people, organizations, policy, initiatives) of change and documenting the good, hard work required across disciplinary boundaries to achieve meaningful change in STEM education. Ann Sitomer, Oregon State UniversityAnn earned a PhD in mathematics education from Portland State University in 2014. Her dissertation examined the informal ways of reasoning about ratio, rate and proportion that adult returning students bring to an arithmetic review class and how these ways of thinking interacted with the curriculum. Other research interests include teachers' professional noticing of learners' mathematical thinking and organizational change. Ann works on both the implementation and research sides of the ESTEME@OSU project. Dr. Kathleen Quardokus Fisher, Oregon State UniversityDr. Kathleen Quardokus Fisher is a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University. She is currently participating in a project that supports the use of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses through developing communities of practice. Her research interests focus on understanding how organizational change occurs in higher education with respect to teaching and learning in STEM courses. Ms. Christina Smith, Oregon State UniversityChristina Smith is a graduate student in the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. She received her B.S. from the University of Utah in chemical engineering and is pursuing her Ph.D. also in chemical engineering with an emphasis on engineering education. Her research focuses on how the beliefs of graduate students around teaching and learning interact with and influence the environments in which they are asked to teach. Prof. Milo Koretsky, Oregon State UniversityMilo Koretsky is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in Chemical Engineering. He currently has research activity in areas related engineering education and is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals. Dr. Koretsky is one of the founding members of the Center for Lifelong STEM Education Research at OSU. AbstractThe purpose of this paper is two-fold. We first explore the question how mig...

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.…”

“…Research on change in higher education, and undergraduate STEM in particular, emphasizes the need to more fully understand individual teaching decisions within a broader institutional context if long-lasting changes are to be catalyzed and sustained (Austin 2011;Kezar 2014;Reinholz and Apkarian 2018). Indeed, undergraduate STEM instructors work within complex institutional systems that include formal and informal social networks (Bouwma-Gearhart et al 2016;Kezar 2014). It may therefore seem intuitive that social interactions are a critical aspect of context that shapes the likelihood of change in higher education, yet this basic assumption has seldom been reflected explicitly in the change literature (Kezar 2014).…”

Through the Eyes of Faculty: Using Personas as a Tool for Learner-Centered Professional Development

“…, 2003). Instructors who are on board to develop their thinking come against situational barriers at the classroom, departmental, and institutional levels (Henderson and Dancy, 2007, 2011; Kezar, 2014; Bouwma-Gearhart et al. , 2016).…”

A System Approach to Instructional Change in Academia

“…The institutional policies related to tenure and promotion influence the adoption of RBIS [22,28] predominantly by the weight the policies put on both teaching evaluations and teaching performance as a condition for decisions of advancement and continuation in the academy. Nonetheless, decisions for tenure and promotion are also influenced by departmental norms [29,34,35].…”