Faculty investigating active teaching and student learning in a new TIEE practitioner research project

Fifteen TIEE Practitioner Researchers investigated the effectiveness of student-active methods in their own classrooms, with the goal of improving their teaching practice in a manner that would be recognized as scholarly work. In a summer workshop in 2005, these faculty formed self-selected groups to address common questions about their ecology teaching.  For example, one team focused on students’ abilities to interpret and make graphs with ecological data, while another assessed whether their students’ attitudes about environmental issues changed over the semester.  During August 2005 to August 2006, the Practitioner Research teams worked collaboratively to design and conduct their research, including studies that addressed the value of specific TIEE learning activities. Twelve of the team members presented their final results in six research posters at the August 2006 Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting, and in 2007 they submitted papers for publication in TIEE Volume 5. Based on reviews of these posters and interviews with all team members, our evaluation indicates that this excellent progress is due in part to the teams’ mutual support, interactions during the school year, and the fact that teams developed their own questions and research approaches.  In interviews, faculty describe increased awareness in their thinking about what they want students to know/do and specific active teaching approaches they use.  Thus, the project was successful in enabling the TIEE Practitioner Researchers to expand their knowledge base about effective teaching, gain confidence in conducting their own investigations of student learning, and position them for further scholarly contributions to biology and ecology education.