Policymakers are calling for faculty development programs that specifically address STEM education priorities (National Research Council 2010, National Research Council (2012), Starke-Meyerring and Paré (2011)) including development of faculty across career stages and preparation of doctoral students and postdocs to be effective teachers. This needs to include how to teach science writing.
A major barrier to routine writing in STEM courses is instructor knowledge. Many instructors are unaware that evidence-based writing training models are available, so create their own materials from scratch. Similarly, many college STEM teachers have never been introduced to proven writing training strategies, nor have they been trained to give effective, growth-oriented feedback (Coil et al. 2010).
Knowing which instructional models are effective is not sufficient to ensure adoption. Faculty may have different priorities or hindering attitudes by the time they teach their first classes as assistant professors. These attitudes underlie comments like “I don’t have time for something new,” “I don’t have spare class time to spend teaching writing,” or “students should learn how to write elsewhere” (Coil et al. 2010, Clughen and Connell (2012), First-Year Survey of Student Engagement (2016)). These attitudes are very resistant to change. For example, despite a nationwide multi-year effort promoting interactive, inquiry- and skills-centric teaching, many faculty still believe their main goal should be content delivery, not development of students’ disciplinary thinking and process skills (D’Avanzo 2013, Freeman et al. (2014), Gottschalk (2003), National Research Council (2012), AAAS (2011), First-Year Survey of Student Engagement (2016)).
Even when faculty are motivated to innovate, how they learn about alternative strategies affects the odds of adoption. For example, faculty who attend formal professional development activities that promote evidence- based practices are less likely to adopt those practices than if they learn about them from trusted colleagues or respected opinion leaders (Andrews et al. 2016). In contrast, graduate students who participate in formal professional development about learner-centered instruction readily adopt learner-centered methods into their personal teaching practice (Ebert-May et al. 2015). A more effective strategy for changing faculty instructional practices may be to target and train future faculty who then act as change agents (Tanner and Allen 2006).
Work Cited
AAAS. 2011. “Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology: A Call to Action.” Report. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Andrews, T. C., E. P. Conaway, J. Zhao, and E. L. Dolan. 2016. “Colleagues as Change Agents: How Department Networks and Opinion Leaders Influence Teaching at a Single Research University.” Cell Biology Education 2 (15): 25–37.
Clughen, L., and M. Connell. 2012. “Writing and Resistance: Reflections on the Practice of Embedding Writing in the Curriculum.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 11 (4): 333–45.
Coil, D., Wenderoth M. P., Cunningham M., and C. Dirks. 2010. “Teaching the Process of Science: Faculty Perceptions and an Effective Methodology.” CBE-Life Sciences Education 9 (4): 524–35.
D’Avanzo, C. 2013. “Post-Vision and Change: Do We Know How to Change?” CBE-Life Sciences Education 12: 373–82.
Ebert-May, D., T. L. Derting, T. P. Henkel, J. Middlemis Maher, J. L. Momsen, B. Arnold, and H. A. Passmore. 2015. “Breaking the Cycle: Future Faculty Begin Teaching with Learner-Centered Strategies After Professional Development.” CBE Life Science Education 14 (2): ar22.
First-Year Survey of Student Engagement. 2016. “Aggregate Frequencies Distributions by Disciplinary Area: Faculty Who Teach Lower Division Courses.” Indiana University.
Freeman, S., S. L. Eddy, M. McDonough, M. K. Smith, N. Okoroafor, H. Jordt, and M. P. Wenderoth. 2014. “Active Learning Increases Student Performance in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (23): 8410–5.
Gottschalk, K.K. 2003. “The Ecology of Response to Student Essays.” ADE Bulletin 134-135: 49–56.
National Research Council. 2010. “Exploring the Intersection of Science Education and 21st Century Skills: A Workshop Summary.” Report. National Research Council. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12771.
———. 2012. “Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century.” Report. National Research Council. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13398.
Nilson, L.B. 2014. Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time. Stylus Press, Sterling VA.
Starke-Meyerring, D., and A. Paré. 2011. “The Roles of Writing in Knowledge Societies: Questions, Exigencies, and Implications for the Study and Teaching of Writing.” In Perspectives on Writing, edited by D. Starke-Meyerring, A. Paré, N. Artemeva, M. Horne, and L. Yousoubova, 3–28. WAC Clearinghouse/Parlor Press.
Tanner, K., and D. Allen. 2006. “Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning: On Integrating Pedagogical Training into the Graduate Experiences of Future Science Faculty.” Cell Biology Education 5 (1): 1–6.
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