Attending to Departmental Change Readiness for Effective Pedagogical Reform

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: The Role of Departments and Governance in Teaching and Curriculum

Abstract

Traditional, lecture-style pedagogy can marginalize minority, low-income, and first generation students. Therefore, several institutions of higher education such as ours have begun to shift toward more active pedagogy. To better understand the variation in outcomes from our institutional transformation project, this study investigated the factors that may have influenced departmental change agents’ efforts in catalyzing teaching reform in their department. Using Spillane’s (1999) Zones of Enactment (ZOE) to analyze three different STEM departments, we found that the more influential the ZOE sectors within a department, the more likely it was that pedagogical reform could take hold. These findings demonstrate that in order to promote widespread pedagogical change, one must attend to group level change readiness.

Authors

• Julianne A. Wenner, Boise State University

• Brittnee Earl, Boise State University

• Karen Viskupic, Boise State University