Rewards & Challenges
of Faculty Collaboration
in Interdisciplinary PBL
Richard Donham
Steve Fifield
University of Delaware
Science
Semester
Course
Characteristics
Student
Perspective
Faculty
Reflections
Science for Preservice
Teachers (typical)
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Science is taught through a series of
temporally disconnected and conceptually
nonintegrated courses.
Science and science curriculum (methods)
courses also are disconnected, or at least not
jointly coordinated.
Focused on “Big Ideas”
Connected to Real World
Goals Of Undergraduate
Science Education
For Preservice Teachers
Develop Learning Skills
Multidisciplinary
Not four courses taught
sequentially
Science by Total Immersion
Earth, Life, Physical Science
The Science Semester
15 Credits
Science Curriculum Course
Real-World Problems
Instructional Team
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Taught by faculty from School of Education,
Biology, Geology and Physics and Astronomy
Faculty committed to collaboration, including
co-teaching each problem.
Programmatic evaluation
Instructional Strategies
Students Learn About Earth,
Life and Physical Science
Through PBL problems
Students Think About the
Issues And Challenges
of Teaching Science
Course Characteristics: PBL
Problems
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is Energy?
Kids, Chemicals & Cancer
How Do I Know if My Students Got It?
Limulus polyphemus! Science Semester
Investigates Delaware’s Marine Animal.
•Expectations on student responsibility for learning
increases through units.
•Although each problem has a disciplinary focus, each
instructor has responsibilities to each problem
Course Planning and Research
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Weekly planning meetings of instructors
Small groups of student volunteers were
interviewed (taped and transcribed) during
semester by non-instructional researcher
(Fifield)
End of year semistructured interviews (taped
and transcribed) of instructors as a group by
Fifield.
Class/Student Characteristics
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Sophomore elementary education majors
All student work was done in semi-permanent
groups, but there was both individual and
group assessment.
Successful students, but not science majors
90%+ women, about 60 students per class
Faculty Reflections on Student
Transitions during semester
Question: From a big picture perspective, how did the investigations work?
“....in the first investigation they’re looking
for …what do I need to do to get an
‘A’…slowly through “energy” they struggle
with that, then, during ‘Kids’ you can see
their science content begin to develop a bit…
at the end, my sense is that they understand
evidence and inference.”
“There wasn’t really
anything else in the
whole nature of
science area…the
most important piece
of nature of science
is evidence and
inference”
Instructors reflecting on student understanding of
conceptual strands that run through the problems
Faculty Reflections on Student
Transitions during semester
“I don’t have a good feeling for what
they know…in traditional earth
science, you know they have 50
minutes of clouds and 50 minute of
that…whereas with our approach we’ve
given them some skills…they still will
forget stuff…(but) they have the skills
to really think about these topics and
ways to look at them when they get to
their science teaching.”
Faculty Reflections
Education faculty thinking
about student understanding
of the problems of teaching
science
…I didn’t see that they missed
some of the big ideas of
anything…really the learning (of
teaching) actually starts in the
classroom, when they… figure
out how to define their
approaches, but the big idea of
the importance of student’s
ideas and planning and…. So, I
am happy with what they
learned.”
Faculty reflections
“they matured considerably…they are more
modest in their approach to learning and teaching,
not resentful, and that maturation is higher than I
would see in a regular methods course, where
they think they know how to teach already…”
Education faculty comparing SS students with her
other sections of methods course
Faculty reflections on
student’s thinking
“on their course evaluations, they rated
their science learning comfort higher than
their science teaching comfort. They all
pointed to their need to teach more, so, it
does not come from the lack of knowing
how to do things as much as a lack of
experience at having done them.”
Education faculty reflections-increased amount of
student microteaching of science in course
Faculty Reflections: Observing
another instructor
“the whole classroom changed
that day…it was beautiful to see
how much good will that simple
change bought from the
students…
the difference that made was the
good will it brought towards trying
to put them through more difficult
things.”
Instructor reflecting on student
attitudes
•Context: Providing detailed list
of expectations and dates of
deliverables
•Resulted in embedded policy of
being explicit about “deliverables”
well in advance of their due date.
Faculty Reflections About The
Course & Students
“it made a huge difference going
last because all the things we
introduced could be brought into
play…I just read the last two writing
assignments and its really improved
from what they did at the
beginning…”
Instructor reflecting on student
writing abilities
Resulted in increased
student writing, with
emphasis on preliminary
drafts and peer feedback.
Faculty Reflection on course
goals & content
“we could really… think about what
is the beginning level of skill in
writing or oral communication…
and is it a goal to improve that skill
in the course, and how do we do
that in a step wise way….
“The more we can have
them serve as editors….it
actually improved the way
they wrote….”
Student Attitudes
“they learn something in methods about inquiry
...they begin to see the value for children, but they
see no value for themselves…in course
evaluations, asked to evaluate our effectiveness,
they use traditional criteria…’how well did we
lecture’…’how well did we answer
questions’…some even said, ‘they shouldn’t just
teach by lectures, they should try other methods of
teaching.’”
Instructor reflecting on student interviews. Students are struggling
with what effective teaching looks like.
Student Attitudes
“they know what teachers are supposed
to do, and you’re not doing it, initially
that angers them…they figure ’ok, we
need to know about this, cause this is
what we’re going to do to children’, but
it’s still frustrating to them, sort of, ‘I
don’t need this!’ ”
Reflections on Student
Interviews by Fifield
Student Attitudes
“Student frustration can be a good
thing when connected to a learning
challenge, … spend your frustration
dollars wisely, frustration connected
with what they perceive as inadequate
planning , or not communicating with
the people you’re teaching with, that
drives them crazy.”
Reflections on Student Interviews
by Fifield
Faculty Reflections
“…there is a need, in life, to go into the
small little details of a particular content,
and I don’t want students to be afraid of
that. I want them to go….there’s nothing
wrong with chasing down a detail at
all…they take those details and make
sense out of them in this bigger
framework…”
Instructor reflecting on course content and expectations
Instructor’s retrospective view
of Science Semester
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Faculty are just OK with content, but want to
challenge students with expectations that are
higher on the Perry scale-drive them to do
more analysis, synthesis, evaluation.
Often students pass through doubt, anger,
frustration, as well as appreciation.
Students may say they accept the need for
science to be taught with inquiry, but think
that they are an exception
Instructor’s retrospective view
of Science Semester
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For faculty one of the main rewards has been
collaboration with each other.
Learning content in depth is a life skill that
goes toward building attitudes toward a
discipline.
Science Semester for faculty
Teaching as Learning
Teaching as Research
Opportunity
Teaching as Collaboration