This project is diffusing proven effective teaching practices in economics to community college economics instructors. The goal is improved instruction for community college students, achieved through increased participation by community college instructors in two existing NSF programs for faculty development that have proven to be effective: Teaching and Learning Economics (DUE 0817382) and the Teaching Innovations Program (DUE 0338482). These programs are based on learning theory research and currently provide a total of 36 pedagogic modules, all of which use insights about the ways that students develop expert-like economics thinking.
In the first year, alternative choices for outreach and faculty development in the community college sector are being assessed, building on a survey that identifies relevant characteristics of community college economics instructors in four diverse community college environments. Using this knowledge, a planning workshop is planned to bring together economic educators in community colleges with experts from other STEM disciplines that have already developed programs for improved community college instruction.
In year two, the relative effectiveness of different workshop modalities is to be tested. These include: a traveling workshop, online workshops, and regional workshops. By design, the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) has agreed to sustain the resulting community of effective two-year college instructors in economics. A participant survey, conducted several months after the workshops, will assess the project's effectiveness. The project includes plans for ongoing formative assessment by an advisory board and summative assessment by an external evaluator.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Community college economics instructors are underrepresented in projects sponsored by professional associations and the National Science Foundation. As a result there are concerns about student learning of economics at community colleges. Is it based on the most currently accepted wisdom in economics? And, is it based on the most current research-based pedagogy? A 2012 conference brought together economic educators and representatives from eight other disciplines to share what has worked to increase community college faculty access to existing resources on teaching and learning. Based on this meeting, the project developed and assessed the effectiveness of new outreach efforts to support community college economics faculty. The strategies chosen for exploration were: webinars, regional conferences, meetings at national association conferences, and newsletters. These strategies were implemented during the project’s three years and then assessed by an external evaluator. All activities and assessments are posted at the project website, supported through 2016 by the Science Education Resource Center (see http://serc.carleton.edu/econ/2yc/index.html ) Although intended as a probe to determine successful outreach methods, the project itself had a significant impact on student learning. An estimated more than 300 faculty reported that they had changed their teaching as result of participation in the project, affecting more than 100,000 students. This outcome demonstrates the tremendous potential for improving teaching and learning at community colleges if outreach was extended to the several thousand community college economics instructors. In the project’s surveys, community college faculty identified "isolation" as the most important barrier to their adoption of new thinking in economics and economics instruction (a result confirmed in studies by other disciplines.) Teaching in small, often one-person departments with little funds to support conference attendance, community college faculty had few opportunities to learn in a collaborative manner or to discuss innovations with colleagues, both identified in the faculty development literature as key elements for improving teaching and learning. This project’s most successful strategy for overcoming such isolation was modelled on an approach developed by the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) initially for geoscience faculty. Faculty first met face-to-face in structured workshops at which they wrote drafts of teaching examples based on new, ‘cutting edge’ disciplinary content. After the workshop, these teaching examples were revised and shared online and, when complete, posted for public use on the project website. The combination of face-to-face meetings, followed by online interaction, culminating in a public presentation of new teaching strategies was demonstrably successful based on both the quality of the final products and participant reports in follow-on surveys. Eighty-nine percent of respondents indicated that they included new content as a result of the workshops and 76% incorporated new teaching strategies. However, such an approach, requiring travel and on-site meetings, is expensive and thus possible only with external assistance, in this project from the National Science Foundation and four banks in the US Federal Reserve system. The second successful approach was a webinar series featuring notable economists who conducted one hour sessions on current economic issues and how they can be presented in economics principles courses. The webinars were recorded and made available for later listening and review of supporting materials. The presenters did so without remuneration and the recording cost at SERC was low so that these webinars had the highest impact (148 faculty members) for dollars spent. However, the project was unable to achieve follow-on creation of new examples; webinar participants did not develop the trust and buy-in that occurred in the workshops described above. Seventy-four percent reported incorporating new content into their courses as result of the webinars; 44% had shared information with colleagues; and only 35% changed their teaching strategy. The project also supported regional conferences, meetings at national conferences and newsletters. Such efforts were not as successful in bringing about significant change in instruction as were the workshops with follow-on teaching examples or the well-attended webinars. Nonetheless, these more traditional activities were identified as necessary for community college economists to network with one another, recruit new leaders, and to build mailing lists that currently do not exist. Reducing isolation among faculty is a first step toward improving student learning of economics at community colleges. Subsequent efforts can build on the workshop models developed in this project.
