The Trefny Center is proud to share the release of two new publications. Both result from course (re)design efforts at Mines spanning faculty reflections on the process (It’s been a while) to identifying factors for successful implementation of active learning redesign (Calculus II).
Calculus II Course Redesign: Supporting Faculty in Pedagogical Change appears in a special issue of PRIMUS examining how departmental change to infuse active learning in pre-calculus and calculus courses occurs. Debra Carney and Rebecca Swanson from the math department partnered with colleagues in the Trefny Center to conduct research examining how a partially flipped course design for Calculus II has been implemented by a varied instructional team at Mines. Three main factors were identified as contributing to successful implementation of the course design: 1) institutional support for teaching; 2) use of evidence-based practices, and 3) creation of faculty community. Both student and faculty success have been demonstrated as observed in student assessment data and faculty interviews. Success is defined in terms of student performance, the implementation rate of faculty, and the positive experience of the instructional team.
“It’s been a while”: Faculty reflect on their experiences implementing what they learned during an intensive summer program, is an ASEE 2020 research paper and conference presentation. This research paper describes the study of 32 faculty members who participated in a Summer Intensive Course Revision (SICR) program. The SICR is a month-long learning and working session hosted by the Trefny Center during the summers of 2016, 2017, and 2018. The purpose of the research is to explore the lasting impact of the SICR on faculty participants. Specifically the research focused on three research questions: 1) what elements from SICR do faculty describe as practice that they continue to use in the design and implementation of their course more than two years after participating?, 2) What do faculty describe as challenges in implementing their redesigned courses since participating in the SICR?, and 3) What do faculty describe as positive outcomes of participating in the SICR of implementing their redesigned course?
Congratulations to lead authors Dr. Carney, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and Dr. Vasquez, Trefny Center!