Journal article
Characteristics of well-propagated teaching innovations in undergraduate STEM
International Journal of STEM Education, Vol.4, 2
12/2017
DOI: 10.1186/s40594-017-0056-5
Abstract
The undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education community has developed a large number of innovative teaching strategies and materials, but the majority of these go unused by instructors. To help understand how to improve adoption of evidence-based education innovations, this study focuses on innovations that have become widely used in college-level STEM instruction. Innovations were identified via a questionnaire emailed to experts in STEM instruction. Descriptions of identified innovations were validated by preparing brief descriptions of each innovation and sending them to the original developers, when applicable, for feedback, and searching relevant literature. Publicly available funding data was collected for each innovation. STEM disciplines surveyed include biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, geoscience, mathematics, and physics.The 43 innovations identified were categorized based on two criteria: level of specificity (general, recognizable, branded) and type of change (pedagogical, content, both, neither). The 21 branded innovations were analyzed in more detail. The majority (14/21) require relatively modest changes in pedagogy and no changes in content. In addition, nearly all have received at least 3 million dollars in external funding over at least 10 years.This paper presents the full list of instructional innovations produced, which can be used by educational innovation developers to understand how their ideas fit within the broader landscape and to identify innovations in one discipline that may have promise for transfer. The findings regarding funding of the branded innovations have important implications for both educational innovation developers and funding agencies. In particular, the study indicates that a long-term mindset and access to long-term funding are vital for broad adoption of new teaching innovations.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Characteristics of well-propagated teaching innovations in undergraduate STEM
- Creators
- Raina Khatri - Department of Physics and the Mallinson Institute for Science Education Western Michigan University 1903 W. Michigan Ave Kalamazoo MI 49008 USACharles Henderson - Department of Physics and the Mallinson Institute for Science Education Western Michigan University 1903 W. Michigan Ave Kalamazoo MI 49008 USARenee Cole - Department of Chemistry The University of Iowa W331 Chemistry Building Iowa City Iowa 52242-1294 USAJeffrey Froyd - College of Engineering Texas A&M University 3127 TAMU College Station TX 77843-3127 USADebra Friedrichsen - School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering Oregon State University Corvallis OR 97331 USACourtney Stanford - Department of Chemistry The University of Iowa W331 Chemistry Building Iowa City Iowa 52242-1294 USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- International Journal of STEM Education, Vol.4, 2
- DOI
- 10.1186/s40594-017-0056-5
- ISSN
- 2196-7822
- eISSN
- 2196-7822
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing; Cham
- Grant note
- 1122446 / National Science Foundation (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/2017
- Academic Unit
- Chemistry
- Record Identifier
- 9983986089502771
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