An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching

About Course

This free online course is designed to provide future STEM faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with an introduction to effective teaching strategies and the research that supports them. The goal of the eight-week course is to equip the next generation of STEM faculty to be effective teachers, thus improving the learning experience for the thousands of students they will teach.

Please enjoy this introductory video featuring Dr. Trina McMahon from the University of Wisconsin Madison and Dr. Derek Bruff from Vanderbilt University. Here they introduce course concepts as well as what you can expect during the course.

Course Content

Please feel free to review the content below and implement it in any local workshops or local teaching seminars. This content is specifically designed to help graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty learn how to leverage evidence-based strategies in their instruction of undergraduates.

In this module, you’ll explore a few key principles of learning drawn from cognitive and psychological science research. You’ll hear from experienced STEM instructors about how these learning principles play out in their classrooms. Module developers Derek Bruff and Michele DiPietro will explain these principles and discuss teaching practices that tap into them. And we’ll ask you to reflect on your own experiences as learners to better understand these principles and set the stage for future weeks of the course.

In this module, you’ll explore a few key principles of learning drawn from cognitive and psychological science research. You’ll hear from experienced STEM instructors about how these learning principles play out in their classrooms. Module developers Derek Bruff and Michele DiPietro will explain these principles and discuss teaching practices that tap into them. And we’ll ask you to reflect on your own experiences as learners to better understand these principles and set the stage for future weeks of the course.

In this module, you’ll explore best practices for designing useful learning objectives. Module developer Stephanie Chasteen will make the case for learning objectives, then walk through the process of crafting learning objectives that can inform instruction. Along the way, you’ll hear faculty and student perspectives on learning objectives. Since learning objectives are highly content-specific, look for opportunities to explore the module’s ideas in discipline-specific ways.

In this module, you’ll learn about the various roles assessment plays in STEM learning. Module developer Angela Little provides a number of strategies for designing effective assessments of student learning. The module includes several writing activities intended to help you start to apply the principles and practices shared in the videos.

In this module, you’ll explore a variety of ways in which active learning can be incorporated into your classroom instruction. Module developers Kathryn Spilios and Bennett Goldberg will present the benefits of active learning as well as some creative strategies you might try in the classroom.

This module, designed by astronomy graduate student Claude (Trey) Mack, will discuss the importance of inclusive teaching and many of the issues instructors can face when teaching classes composed of students of varying ethnicities and genders. We provide you with examples of teaching practices and language that can isolate certain student populations along with strategies to avoid these practices.

For your final peer-graded assignment, we’re asking you to synthesize what you’ve learned in this course about STEM teaching by drafting a lesson plan for a topic you might teach to undergraduates one day. Where the first peer-graded assignment focused on content (learning objectives) and the second focused on process (learning activities), this one requires you to bring content and process together—along with assessment methods and strategies for inclusive teaching. Other peer graded assessment assignments are located on module pages 3 and 5.

Recommended Background

The course is intended for graduate students and post-docs in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) planning faculty careers who are interested in developing their teaching skills. We expect that current STEM faculty, particularly early-career faculty, will find the course useful, as well. Others interested in undergraduate STEM teaching are welcome to participate.

Course Format

The course will feature videos of various types, including explanatory videos on evidence-based learning principles and teaching practices, case studies featuring interviews with faculty and students and scenes from classrooms, and discussion videos with small groups of faculty and graduate students discussing their teaching. These videos are designed to introduce concepts and techniques from the literature on teaching and learning and to show how STEM faculty have applied these ideas in their own classrooms.

To help participants better understand these research-based teaching practices and start to apply them to their own teaching contexts, each week will also feature a number of questions for participants to consider and discuss in the course forums. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their personal experiences in the classroom (as learners or as teachers) and to explore how teaching and learning plays out differently across disciplines and across various higher education institutional contexts. The peer-to-peer interactions on the discussion forums are a critical piece of the learning experience in this course.

Weekly quizzes will give participants an opportunity to check their understanding of the teaching concepts and practices introduced each week. There will also be several peer-graded assignments during the course, including the final lesson planning assignment, providing participants with a deeper level of practice and feedback. The quizzes will provide a fairly comprehensive assessment of your understanding of course material, while the peer-graded assignments will focus more on your ability to apply key skills from the course. Your grade in the course will be the higher of your quiz average and your peer-graded assignment average. You’re welcome to do all the graded work–or focus on just one type, quizzes or peer-graded assignments.

Please note that, even though quizzes will be made available weekly, the deadline for quiz completion won’t be until the final day of the course, so you can complete these on your own pace. The peer-graded assignments, on the other hand, will require you to stay “on schedule” since these assignments require their own deadlines for assignment submission and peer feedback.

As noted above, learning communities are at the heart of CIRTL’s activities. We encourage course participants to find or create local learning communities, as well, meeting in person during the course to share and discuss what they are learning about STEM teaching. If you’re interested in hosting a group of students or colleagues on your campus to participate in this course together, we would love to hear from you! We will provide suggested discussion questions and activities for local learning communities to use during weekly meetings, and the communities in turn will be asked to share their ideas and perspectives with the global learning community created by the course. See our page on facilitating a MOOC-supported learning community for more information and to sign up as a host.