Advancing and Sustaining Innovation in Science Teaching: Using a Collaborative Multidisciplinary Model to Transform Graduate Student Teaching

About This Grant

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing and implementing a model professional development (PD) initiative for natural science graduate students that emphasizes the alignment of skills related to excellence in undergraduate instruction and scientific research. Graduate students are important instructors of undergraduate science courses, especially classes critical to the success of first-year students. For this Level 1 IUSE Institutional and Community Transformation project, the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) and Teaching and Learning Innovation (TLI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) aim to create PD for first-year NSM graduate students focused on the synergy between teaching and research skills. This "holistic" PD will be based on UTK's institutional principles of excellence in teaching and will focus on skills that promote excellence in both research and teaching. Faculty and graduate students from each NSM department, along with the project PIs, will work as a collaborative multi-disciplinary team to create, implement, and assess the holistic PD. Assessment of the project will investigate the extent to which graduate students and undergraduate students are positively impacted, and the level of departmental support for the PD. The significance of this project is that it will advance national understanding of how to develop graduate student teaching and research skills in parallel, which could be a significant shift in PD approaches. Science graduate students who teach undergraduates need to develop excellence in both research and teaching. Although the skill sets for these tasks are often seen as different, this project plans to use the UTK's institutional principles of teaching excellence to highlight the synergy between teaching and research skills. The project goal is to create a sustained, departmentally supported 'holistic' professional development initiative for first-year NSM graduate student instructors. The project team includes the NSM Dean, the leader of UTK's TLI, and NSM faculty education researchers, who will guide a cross-departmental collaborative model across the seven NSM departments at UTK. This project will implement two strategies: 1. Create a cross-departmental change community (CCC) to design, revise, and advocate for holistic PD. In year 1 of the project, one faculty and one graduate student from each NSM department will design the year-long holistic PD for first-year NSM graduate students. Annual surveys will assess faculty and graduate student perceptions of and commitment to the PD. The CCC will use these results to engage departmental faculty in discussions about impacts and gain continued support for the PD. 2. Engage Graduate Student Instructors in holistic PD with NSM peers and departmental faculty. In years 2 and 3, first-year NSM graduate student instructors (GSIs) will participate in the year-long holistic PD. A January workshop will engage GSIs and departmental faculty in activities to reflect on the synergy between teaching and research skills. Annual pre- and post-survey data will assess GSI teaching and research identity and self-efficacy; undergraduate perceptions of their course learning experience will be compared between GSIs who received and did not receive the holistic PD. In terms of outcomes, this project will advance knowledge about how to design holistic PD for science GSIs and the potential to sustain departmental commitment for PD by emphasizing synergies between teaching and research. A strong advisory team and project evaluation will support the rigorous assessment plan to generate data useful to researchers and practitioners. The project team will work with the departments and the graduate school to sustain the PD efforts. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.