Assessing how science faculty learning communities promote scientific teaching

• Published in: Biochemistry and molecular biology education 2010-05, Vol.38 (3), p.197-206
• Main Authors: Sirum, Karen L., Madigan, Dan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Achievement Gains; Active Learning; Best Practices; Communities of Practice; faculty learning community; Inquiry; Instructional Development; Instructional Improvement; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Professional Development; Science Education; Science education reform; Scientific Concepts; scientific teaching; Teacher Attitudes; Teaching Methods; Teaching Skills
• ISSN: 1470-8175; 1539-3429
• DOI: 10.1002/bmb.20364

Although there is a need for continued pedagogical advancement in science undergraduate education, what is needed more urgently is more widespread adaptation of pedagogical practices that research has already shown to promote learning. Those practices include interactive engagement pedagogies such as active learning and inquiry‐based learning. The need now is to find ways to integrate and institutionalize these evidence‐based strategies for teaching science and to help science faculty learn about and implement them. Scientific Teaching Learning Communities (STLCs) create a culture that values scholarly teaching within science departments, important for bridging the gap between science and education and for improving undergraduate science learning. Evidence for the impact of STLCs on the student‐learning environment was obtained through the development and use of the Participant Assessment of Learning Gains survey, an adaptation of the online Student Assessment of Learning Gains survey originally developed by Seymour et al. (Available at: http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/salgains/instructor/SALGains.asp, 1997 and Paper presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, 2000). Data reveal how STLCs are transforming faculty behavior and directly affecting what they do in their science classrooms.