The document describes Vanderbilt University's Teaching-as-Research (TAR) Fellows program, which encourages graduate students to take a scientific approach to teaching. The program provides funding and mentorship for students to design teaching experiments. An example project tests whether hands-on analogies improve student understanding of radioactive decay concepts. Survey results found students could appropriately apply their new knowledge. The program has expanded learning and career opportunities for participants. It aims to make scientific teaching a widespread practice at research universities.

1. Teaching-as-Research Fellows: Encouraging Scientific Teaching Derek Bruff & Lily Claiborne Vanderbilt University

2. Agenda Introduction Lily’s Experience More on the Program Q&A Key Ingredients Wrap-Up

3. Introduction

4. Teaching-as-Research (TAR) “The deliberate, systematic, and reflective use of research methods by STEM instructors to develop and implement teaching practices that advance the learning experiences and outcomes of students” – CIRTL Network

5. Challenges What challenges do you see in moving teaching-as-research / scientific teaching from a promising to a pervasive practice? Especially at research universities?

6. The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning Howard University Michigan State University Texas A&M University University of Colorado-Boulder University of Wisconsin-Madison Vanderbilt University

7. TAR Fellows Program – The Basics 5-8 STEM grad students each year Faculty hosts / mentors $3000 “topping up” awards Orientation, working group One-credit-hour grad-level course Poster session http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/tar

8. Lily’s Experience

9. A TAR PROJECTMaking complex concepts accessible through hands-on analogs An example teaching Radioactive Decay & Dating

10. Earth & Environmental Sciences

11. Parent Isotope Decay Daughter Isotope

13. Introduce me to education literature & community$

14. Questions Can students learn complex, non-intuitive scientific concepts better when they can work hands-on with an analog experiment than through traditional lecture? Can they appropriately transfer the things they learn from the analog experiment to the original concept?

16. Tackle issues together

17. Access to variety of educational expertise & experiences

18. Made me accountable/deadlines

21. How do we use radioactive decay for dating?

22. Make Predictions about decay/dating

23. Understand (and use) the decay equationLearning Goals

24. Parent Isotope Decay Daughter Isotope

25. Results

26. Results

27. Results Student Comments & Questions “It slows down as it goes, so as there is less parent, there is less decay.” “The larger the decay constant or the more parent material, the faster it decays!” “If the decay constant depends on what the parent material is, does that mean different kinds of parent isotopes decay at different rates?” “So, if you started running out of parent material, would it decay sporadically, like the shampoo starts to slowly drip at the end?”

28. Conclusions Can they appropriately transfer the things they learn from the analog experiment to the original concept? YES – there was only one student who talked about shampoo instead of isotopes on the post test Second Semester

29. Conclusions Can students learn complex, non-intuitive scientific concepts better when they can work hands-on with an analog experiment than through traditional lecture? YES – improved understanding and confidence Second Semester

31. Resistance to think past the specific conditions covered in the activity

33. Revised questions for clarity

34. Had students explore variations on the basic system, then ask them to think of others on the post test

37. Why did TAR work for me?

38. More on the Program

39. Origins

40. Goals

41. Participants 2008 – 8 Fellows 2009 – 7 Fellows 2010 – 5 Fellows Male – 10 Female – 10 Presentations – 4 Publications – 2 Disciplines Biomedical Eng. (4) Mechanical Eng. (4) Earth & Env. Sciences (3) Astronomy (2) Mathematics (2) Computer Science (2) Biological Sciences (1) Electrical Engineering (1)

42. A Few Projects Getting a Feel for Dynamic Systems through Haptic Robots (Caleb Rucker & Jenna Toennies) Enhancing Astronomy Education through Cross-Age Student Tutoring (Erika Grundstrom) Implementing and Assessing a Challenge-Based Module for Spectroscopy in a Biomedical Optics Class (Elizabeth Vargis) Evaluating the Effectiveness of Clickers in a Biology Lab (Brian Robertson)

43. Assessment Lessons learned? There is a connection between research and teaching, and this means you can get data to prove effectiveness. Teaching can be planned, structured, researched, self-monitored, and improved. There are many different and effective ways to teach besides lecture.

47. Questions?

48. Key Ingredients

49. Questions Which of these ingredients would be most important on your campus? Why? Which of these ingredients could be accessed on your campus? For those ingredients not available on your campus, what other ingredients might you substitute?

50. Wrap-Up

51. CIRTL Network Expansion From 6 to 25 major research universities Letters of intent due:April 22nd Application deadline:May 27th More info: www.cirtl.net/expansion

53. “Darts,” BogdanSuditu

54. “Questions,” Oberazzi

55. “Ratatouille,” Ross Spoon