January 21, 2022
Why Scientific Teaching Practices Are Often Not Implemented in the University Classroom
I base this week’s tip on an article suggested by Benjamin Clegg, Psychology and published in the Chronicle of Higher Ed on January 3, 2022 by Beth McMurtrie. The article includes quotes from our own Anne Cleary and is a bit long for CHEd. Therefore, I will do my best to summarize and paraphrase. You can access the full article here. Email me if you would like a pdf.
Those reading this email tip (did not just delete it immediately) probably know that many if not most faculty do not follow the research on teaching and learning nor incorporate instructional best practices suggested in the literature. Those of us that do often find ourselves preaching to the choir (“TILT groupies”). McMurtrie’s article explores why. The bottom line is complicated.
There are few incentives for most tenure stream and research faculty. During my promotion to Full Profession process my then Acting Department Chair suggested I spend less time and effort on teaching. Contingent Instructors often receive no compensation for implementing alternative instructional modes. Certainly, the system rewards success in traditional research over success in teaching. Institutions emphasize research expenditures but rarely discuss the budget proportion dependent on tuition. Few departments include tenure-stream faculty conducting discipline-based educational research. Most of us never experienced anything other than traditional teaching as college students. We succeeded as students and scientists so why should we employ other teaching approaches?
Further, the primary literature on teaching and learning mostly seems unrelated to our specific courses. The science of teaching and the science of learning are separate fields with different experimental approaches. These fields reside in the behavioral sciences, which only recently have begun to merge with the so called “hard sciences” like physical or life science in neurobiology. New branches include analytics of student behavior and the role of emotion and environment (e.g. stereotype threat and growth mindset) on learning. Researchers struggle still with the definition of “learning” and how to measure it. Some education researchers subscribe to the “quantitative” camp while other prefer “qualitative” approaches. Most published studies focus on a single class requiring meta-analyses like Freeman et al. (PNAS 2014) to provide strong evidence for the positive impact of alternative approaches on learning outcomes. As a biochemist I needed to start over on background literature and experimental design.
Another major issue is the institutional tendency to latch onto one or a few approaches to solve success, retention and graduation issues. To our credit, CSU has taken the same approach as many universities by offering support through the various TILT initiatives including the MTI, the promotion of teaching learning communities and the restructured student teaching evaluation. We have worked to clearly connect inclusion and equity with employing evidence-based teaching practices. We also have a strong cohort of cognitive psychology researchers, the School of Education and even tenured educational researchers (Meena Balgapal, Biology). The science of teaching and learning will ultimately carry the day. We must have patience since change in academia generally occurs over decades not months or years.
Happy first Friday of the spring 2022 semester, Paul
Paul Laybourn (he/him/his)
Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Director, W2R S-STEM Program
Director, NoCo B2B Program
Director, REU Site in Molecular Biosciences
paul.laybourn@colostate.edu
970-491-5100
