Revolutionizing Teaching Practices in the Mezzanine: Instigating Change Through Faculty Risk-Taking and Additive Innovation

• In Event: Changing the Professional Formation of Engineers: Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments

Abstract

Purpose
The RED project at The Polytechnic School in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU) aims to initiate a culture change among the faculty through the development of risk-taking and collaborative mindsets and behaviors, and through the creation and sustainment of supportive norms, structures, and policies (McKenna et al., 2016). Entitled “Instigating a Revolution of Additive Innovation: An Educational Ecosystem of Making and Risk-Taking,” this project specifically focuses on expanding our project-based learning pedagogy throughout our mezzanine-level courses. This poster describes a faculty development program by which we are accomplishing these goals.

Theoretical Framework
Currently in its third year, the ASU RED project NEXUS initiative focuses on developing interventions that influence the mindsets and behaviors of faculty members related to their undergraduate teaching practices. A set of guiding principles grounded in organizational change, faculty motivation, and STEM teaching practice provides a means to consider faculty change through multiple lenses and to employ multiple intervention strategies. The framework emphasizes that successful faculty interventions enable deep and sustained engagement with a topic of shared interest (Borrego & Henderson, 2014), are adaptable and open to evaluation and feedback (Borrego & Henderson, 2014), are connected to known faculty motivators such as autonomy, community, recognition, and efficacy (Finelli et al., 2013; Furco & Moely, 2012; Matusovich et al., 2014; Wergin, 2001), and are high-impact but low-cost to implement (Neve & Eisenberger, 2014). We are using the guiding principles to evaluate potential faculty interventions and to increase the likelihood of success for those that are implemented.

Methods & Data Sources
Several methods have been developed to support and inform NEXUS activities, including narrative interviews with faculty to understand the current program culture (Kellam, Coley, & Boklage, 2017), artifact elicitation to study the characteristics of making-related activities in the classroom (Jordan et al., 2015), and creation of a new survey instrument to measure faculty pedagogical risk-taking. Together these methods are important to the scaling, sustainability, and propagation of our faculty interventions, which we believe will result in improved student outcomes. The results of our faculty interventions will also be disseminated, both locally and with the broader engineering education community, to advance a culture of additive innovation where curricular changes are shared and iterated upon (Jordan & Lande, 2016).

Results & Scholarly Significance
An early success of the project has been faculty-driven affinity groups that were designed and implemented using our guiding principles (Bekki et al., 2017). Groups are working together to revolutionize how we teach design project courses, math-intensive courses, and content-heavy courses. The groups meet regularly throughout the semester, with support provided by the RED team, to discuss and address their shared concerns. Our next steps include evaluating the efficacy of this approach and the utility of our guiding principles to foster the next cycle of affinity groups and NEXUS interventions. We also see the NEXUS itself as a model for using collective faculty action to drive continuous improvement.

Authors

• Samantha Ruth Brunhaver, Arizona State University Polytechnic

• Nadia Kellam, Arizona State University

• Micah Lande, Arizona State University

• Shawn S Jordan, Arizona State University Polytechnic

• Jennifer M. Bekki, Arizona State University

• Adam Robert Carberry, Arizona State University Polytechnic

• Jeremi London, Arizona State University

• Ann Frances McKenna, Arizona State University