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Show me the way: future faculty prefer directive feedback when trying active learning approaches
article abstract
AUTHOR ABSTRACT: Early training opportunities for future faculty, namely graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, can better prepare them to use active learning approaches. We know that instructional feedback supports the sustained change and motivates instructors to improve teaching practices. Here, we incorporate feedback as a key component of a pedagogical course for future faculty who had never taught or were currently novice teaching assistants. We studied (a) how future faculty’s teaching beliefs changed over the course of the semester, (b) whether feedback varied between future faculty (peers) and facilitators (faculty and upper-level graduate students), (c) future faculty’s feedback preferences (i.e., written vs. oral, peer vs. facilitator), and (d) how to use those preferences to tailor feedback that encourages future faculty at all levels to adopt more active learning approaches. We found that future faculty made greater shifts in their teaching beliefs than more experienced facilitators, responding more favorably to direct feedback that informed them how to improve rather than simple encouragement.
CITATION: Stephens, Jessica D. et al. “Show Me the Way: Future Faculty Prefer Directive Feedback When Trying Active Learning Approaches.” The journal of college science teaching 47 (2017): 57-65.