Kurland

Rethinking Teaching in STEM Education: The Role of Instructional Consulting and Digital Technologies

Shelley C. Kurland, County College of Morris, Randolf, NJ, USA.

Abstract:

Community college faculty members educate almost half of all U.S. undergraduates, who are often more diverse and more academically underprepared when compared to undergraduate students who attend four-year institutions In addition, faculty members in community colleges are facing increased accountability for meeting student learning outcomes, expectations to adjust their teaching practices to include active learning practices, and expectations to incorporate more technologies into the classroom. Faculty developers are one of the support structures that faculty members can look to in order to meet those challenges. A survey of literature in faculty development suggests that instructional consultation can play an important role in shaping and transforming teaching practices. Hence, this practitioner action research study examined my work using instructional consulting with four full-time STEM faculty colleagues to examine and shape their teaching practice with and without the use of digital technologies. The two foci of the research - examining shifts in faculty participants’ teaching practices and my instructional consulting practices - were informed by Thomas and Brown’s (2011) social view of learning and the concept teaching and learning in a “co-learning” environment. Three dominant themes emerged regarding the shift in faculty participants’ shift in teaching practice. These themes were: 1) influences of context on practice; 2) the capacity to be transformative; and 3) unpacking the journey towards understanding shifts in teaching practice.

Key words: instructional consultation, digital technologies, teaching practices, community college, practitioner action research.