Supporting Faculty to “Do the Flip!” Lessons Learned when Transitioning Faculty to Active Pedagogy in the Classroom

Abstract

Abstract San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, are developing supportive methods to transition STEM faculty from lecture-based instruction to instruction using active learning pedagogies. These efforts, sponsored by the Department of Education’s First in the World Grant Program, focus on providing faculty training through workshops conducted in the active learning model, resources to support their material development, and peer support through access to multi-disciplinary/multi-campus learning communities. Active learning pedagogies like the flipped classroom have been shown to be a high impact practice that increases URM student success and retention. The partner campuses, all part of the California State University System, are all designated Hispanic-Service Institutions and Minority-Serving Institutions. While their designations are similar, their demographics are not. Each campus has their own unique student and faculty makeup. These varied demographics provide a level of rigor to materials collaboratively developed and tested across the campuses. Activities and materials developed follow the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, which states that an educational experience is a blend of social presence (establishing strong relationships), cognitive presence (moving beyond understanding to exploration, integration, and application), and teaching presence (a combination of environment and directed facilitation components). Materials developed to train, support, and evaluate faculty will be presented, along with sharing lessons learned about support needed from all levels of administration to create a culture of change across STEM education. Lessons learned will include ways to avoid the “slump” often seen with student success as faculty implement new teaching and supporting peer evaluations for promotion when the evaluator is unfamiliar with active learning.