New College of Science STEM education center awards instructional teaching grants

Psychology faculty Robin Panneton and Katherine Adams had been thinking for some time about how to make the very popular Introduction to Psychology course better for students — not to mention more viable for those teaching it.

The issue is one of numbers: Students from various majors all over the university take the introductory course, and enrollment swells to more than 1,000 students in the fall semester and more than 800 in the spring. Teaching that many students can exhaust faculty, and more to the point, standing in front of a group that large and talking began to not feel effective.

“We thought we could come up with a powerful online experience that was not just recording the lectures and sticking them online,” said Panneton, a professor of psychology. “Students tell me they actually like online courses, and it allows you to present information that’s much more appealing.”

As Panneton and Adams, instructor in the Department of Psychology, were exploring more creative methodologies, they saw a call for proposals from the College of Science. The college’s new Center for Advancing Undergraduate Science Education would be awarding teaching grants. Instructors, professors of practice, collegiate faculty, and tenure-track and tenured professors were invited to submit proposals for projects that would enhance student learning in existing courses offered by the college.

“We want to encourage faculty to continuously innovate,” said Estrella Johnson, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and the college’s assistant dean for inclusion and diversity. “We need to engage students in the classroom and with the content we are teaching. That’s when we see the best outcomes for our students.”

Johnson pushed the College of Science to create the Center for Advancing Undergraduate Science Education to develop a central place to improve science education through research and practice. With approximately 425 teaching faculty within the College of Science, the center will be a vital resource for faculty across all ranks and positions. Through an array of activities, including informational sessions, workshops, and speaker series, the center will foster a supportive community where educators can collaborate and exchange ideas.

In addition to Panneton and Adams, who were awarded a grant from the College of Science, three other grants were awarded:

• Jason LeGrow and Travis Morrison, mathematics, Automated Evaluation in Cryptography, to develop question banks for integration into the platform Canvas
  
• Rachel Arnold, Mathematics, developing a teaching handbook for implementing research-based instruction in introductory proof courses.
• Jill Sundie and Alec Smith, Academy of Integrated Science and economics, developing a set of new, high-impact instructional elements appropriate for both large and small class sizes

Panneton and Adams began with this question: “What’s a better way?”

Adams noticed that today’s students are comfortable in approaching material at their own paces with methods that take advantage of available technology.

“I feel like they are set up for it,” Adams said. “They’ve been in this environment for a while and it’s less intimidating and a little bit more approachable for them.”

The pair began making plans to break the material into 10-minute recorded segments, with a quiz at the end and a video from the instructor. They’re working to build in things such as a personal check-in from the faculty member, if the instructor notices students falling off pace. They’re still working on ways to ensure academic integrity.

Though they still have several issues to overcome, the end goal is to enable students to learn the material more deeply and enjoy the process along the way.

“If we teach more broadly and inclusively more students are going to do well,” Panneton said. “It isn’t grade inflation. They are literally doing better because we are taking the time and the effort to get the information out in different ways.”