In their teaching practices, STEM faculty find it difficult to break out of the mode of straight lecture presentation, even though many of them are aware of modern research on teaching and learning. One reason is that they hardly ever visit each other's classrooms. They do not have good examples of how the classroom could look different, and they do not have opportunities to talk with other instructors about why they do what they do. Courses and workshops that train new faculty members also lack concrete models of actual classroom practice.
This project is creating a full, professionally produced video record of an existing course called "Fire and Ice," which is an example of inquiry-based instruction, in which students build their understanding of scientific concepts through group discussions and hands-on scientific explorations. The teaching approaches are derived from current research on human learning and motivation. The classroom here is not a scripted, perfect classroom; it is a real classroom, in which instructors and students face real learning challenges. The video is being tagged with video commentary from interviews with course participants, including the instructor (a chemistry professor), students (non-science majors), and several science Ph.D. students who are novice co-teachers for the course. The annotated video provides a science classroom with an open door. Instructors, both experienced and novice, explain their goals, decisions, and attitudes. The viewer therefore experiences a story line (the course as it happens) as well as a backstory (the motivations, attitudes, and responses of participants). Hence the word "windows" in the project title -- there are multiple views into this classroom. An individual user of the video can "visit" the course to see what is going on and can "talk" with the instructor about his thinking.
The video product is expected to be downloadable on the Web, for use by people who want to improve their teaching or explore inquiry-based approaches, and for use in classes and workshops for training teachers.
About the course: "Fire and Ice" is a course for non-science majors, focusing on the perception, movement, creation, understanding, and use of heat. It incorporates scientific principles from chemistry, physics, biology, physiology, and history of science. Topics include, for example, how the body senses heat and regulates temperature; how heat is used in cooking via baking, broiling, and microwaving; how heat moves through atomic/molecular motion; and how to make ice in warm climates. Historical literature from the 18th century is often used for readings. Each class session is structured on a learning cycle format, beginning with hands-on explorations, which move to abstract models and then to applications that have personal or societal relevance. Students work throughout the course in cooperative groups.
