CROSSING THEORETICAL BOUNDARIES:
FRAMEWORKS TO PROMOTE AND STUDY STEM
EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS AND IMPROVEMENT
14 November 2015
Crossing Boundaries: Transforming STEM Education, AAC&U
Ann Sitomer, Christina Smith,
Jana Bouwma-Gearhart, Kathy Quardokus Fisher,
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Change initiatives: Questions for discussion
Consider a change initiative on your campus.
 What are the goals of the change initiative?
 What strategies are being used to achieve these goals?
 What organizational factors impact these goals?
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Overview of the session
 Our project: ESTEME@OSU
 Our framework
What: Facets of the organization we are examining to
describe the potential for organizational change
How: Combining analytical theories to explain
organizational change
 Implications for guiding and studying change
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Enhancing STEM Education at Oregon State University
(ESTEME@OSU)
Focus : Large undergraduate STEM courses
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Enhancing STEM Education at Oregon State University
(ESTEME@OSU)
Theory of Action
We conjecture that widespread change to teaching practice will
be facilitated by participation in intra- and inter- disciplinary
learning communities.
As these changes occur, data are gathered on the impact of
activities and findings are shared with members of the
ESTEME@OSU community. These findings are then used to
initiate or catalyze further organizational change.
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Enhancing STEM Education at Oregon State University
(ESTEME@OSU)
Goals
 Increase in EBIPs
(quantity)
 Improvement of
practice (quality)
Organizational
Change
 Understand the current
environment
 Identify opportunities
for change
Influence
student
learning
Learning
Communities
(Intra- and Inter-)
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
An instructor employs
interactive engagement
in her calculus course by
asking students to
answer conceptual
questions, using a ThinkPair-Share strategy.
Micro - Individual
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
The calculus instructor
interprets student
learning as active
engagement with the
underlying concepts.
Meso - Department
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
A schema
provides a
cognitive
framework on
which a person
makes sense of
experience.
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
Several calculus
instructors interpret
student learning as
active engagement with
the underlying concepts,
rather than learning
demonstrated by
procedural fluency.
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
An undergraduate
curriculum committee
makes recommendations
about mathematics
curriculum that are voted
upon by the
department faculty.
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Organizational routines
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
A group of faculty share
ideas about ways to use
instructional technology in
their calculus lectures.
Meso - Department
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Organizational routines
Faculty social networks
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
A group of faculty read
research literature about
students’ understanding
of derivatives to design,
implement and revise
learning activities to
develop conceptual
understanding.
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Organizational routines
Learning communities
Faculty social networks
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
The mathematics
department has no
dedicated classrooms.
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Structures
Learning communities
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
The university opens a
classroom building with
circular lecture halls; no
student is more than eight
rows from the educator.
Macro - Institution
Structures
Meso - Department
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Learning communities
Structures
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Macro - Institution
Faculty social networks
Structures
Meso - Department
Faculty in several
departments talk to each
other about using
undergraduate learning
assistants to help
facilitate learning in
large lecture sections
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Learning communities
Structures
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change
Faculty senate makes
decisions about
promotion.
Macro - Institution
Faculty social networks
Structures
Organizational routines
Meso - Department
Shared schema about
teaching and learning
Learning communities
Structures
Micro - Individual
Schema about
teaching and learning
Teaching
practice
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Potential for change: Question for discussion
 Which facets of the organization are targeted by your
change initiative and what frameworks/theories are
being used to understand and document change?
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Identifying a model for organizational change research
 Grounded on the need to understand a system that
includes,
individuals (their schema and actions), and
the creation and movement of knowledge necessary for
change within
a cultural context, and attends to
aspects of the dynamic interaction of these features.
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Identifying a model for organizational change research
 Previous models have not robustly attended to
unique features of post-secondary institutions:
Inadequate attention to organizations as systems of
interrelated processes and structures/objects,
influenced by environment (Langley et al, 2013)
Focus predominantly on institutional or individual scale,
neglecting meso-level (Trowler et al., 2005)
Lack of documentation of change in real time
(Mohrman & Lawler, 2011)
Robust empirical investigation uncommon (Kuipers et
al., 2014)
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Theoretical frameworks
 Organizational learning
 Cultural models and affordance theory
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Organizational Learning (Argote & Miron-Spektor, 2011)
 An organization learns as its members undertake
tasks in which knowledge is created, transferred
retaining, or transferring knowledge.
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Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Institutions of higher education in the US
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
The culture (that is, distributed beliefs, norms and
practices) of teaching at a land grant institution with a
strong research mission; perceived psychological safety
(i.e. department climate), structures (i.e. technology,
spaces for teaching and learning, promotion).
Latent organizational context
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Active context
Members
Tools
Members: Educators (including graduate and
undergraduate teaching assistants) teaching large
enrollment introductory STEM courses
Tools: Clickers, document cameras, course management
systems, etc.
Latent organizational context
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Active context
Members
Tools
Task
performance
Experience
Tasks: Teaching, textbook
selection, decision making about
promotion, etc.
Latent organizational context
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Active context
Members
Tools
Learning begins with experience
Experiences: Participating in a
learning community, trying things
Experience
out in one’s classroom, engaging in
action research
Latent organizational context
Task
performance
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Active context
Knowledge retention
Members
Tools
Task
performance
Experience
Knowledge transfer
Knowledge creation
Knowledge
Created or
transferred
Latent organizational context
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Knowledge embedded in contexts
Knowledge application
Model for organizational learning
Environmental context
Knowledge application
Active context
Knowledge retention
Members
Tools
Task
performance
Experience
Knowledge transfer
Knowledge creation
Knowledge
Created or
transferred
Latent organizational context
Reproduced from Argote & Miron-Spektor (2011)
Knowledge embedded in contexts
The theory of cultural models
helps us understand how
context influences members’
knowledge and actions, and
the resulting experiences
Organizational learning
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
An educator’s schema
about teaching the
concept of
differentiation becomes
a shared schema within
the department through
the experience gained
through participation in
a disciplinary learning
community.
Micro - Individual
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Model for organizational learning
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
Micro - Individual
The impact of educators’
engagement with action
research supports the
development of an
Action Research Fellow
program at the
university.
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Cultural Models (Ferrare & Hora, 2014)
 Shared information about the culture is internalized
as individuals’ schema through socialization within
and between groups.
Latent and active contexts influence the tasks in which members
engage.
 Norms and practices are adopted, adapted and
enacted by individuals to function in a complex
environment, and can be observed.
A calculus instructor asks conceptual questions of students during
lecture. Her practices have evolved due to colleagues’ enthusiasm
about clickers technology, her chair’s support for including alternative
forms of student evaluations of teaching for professional reviews, and
department adoption of a text that provides questions requiring
student understanding and synthesis of concepts.
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Cultural models: Understanding the interplay
between the organization and the practitioner
Macro - Institution
Meso - Department
Micro - Individual
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Discussion and Questions
 What is our model over-privileging/under-privileging?
 What are some takeaways that can inform your plans
for catalyzing and study/document organizational
change?
 What in our model may be most applicable,
meaningful or replicable to your plans to catalyze or
study/document change?
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