This project is a collaboration between University of California-San Diego, Skidmore College, Stanford University, and Georgia Tech. The experienced PI team will develop a workshop for new computer science (CS) faculty, based on evidence-based instructional practices. Most other STEM disciplines have some form of teaching-specific workshop which addresses faculty teaching practices, informs new faculty about evidence-based instructional practices, and encourages educational research. This project will develop such a workshop model for computer science. In addition to developing the workshop itself and running it three times, the project team will form a Community of Practice among the workshop participants which will help them develop teaching competence, enhance their view of teaching as a scholarly activity, and encourage them to use evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices. The long term impact of this project can be substantial given the large number of students who will likely be taught over the teaching careers of the workshop participants. This project will be funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education through the IUSE program.
The workshop will itself be built around a number of teaching practices that have already been shown to be successful, thereby giving participants firsthand experience as "students" with practices they can later employ in their own classrooms. Workshop participants will work with underlying theory about ways that effective teaching can draw out student preconceptions, the importance to students of deep foundation knowledge and a conceptual framework, and the development of metacognitive abilities. The workshops will also draw on theory about growth and fixed mindsets and the development of expertise. The specific pedagogic practices utilized will be peer instruction and flipped classrooms, with additional use of live coding, pair programming, discussion of how best to use teaching assistants, and discussion of how technology can support learning. Online community support and the development by each participant of a teaching portfolio will help solidify use by participants of the practices they learn in the workshops. Project evaluation will be carried out by the Western Michigan University Center for Research on Instructional Change in Postsecondary Education. This will focus on the extent to which the project positively impacts the participants' teaching expertise, to what extent the in-person workshop and online community contribute to the development of a community of practice, and how participation helps moderate the barriers that often dissuade faculty from focusing on teaching.
