Are you connecting with your students in your STEM courses? Join a cross-institutional cohort of faculty from Sacramento City College and Sacramento State to enrich your courses, promote student engagement, and improve learning gains.
This professional learning is curriculum designed by faculty colleagues at UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Hall of Science. It has been implemented at many UC’s, CSU’s, and Community Colleges including: CSU Bakersfield, CSU Chico, CSU Northridge, San Jose State University, Sonoma State University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, and UCSD. All faculty teaching STEM courses in California Community Colleges and Sacramento State are eligible. Participants who complete the program are also awarded a $1500 stipend.
This is a blended professional learning program designed to improve STEM faculty’s instructional practice. The program nurtures an interdisciplinary learning community, provides continuous support, and is situated within faculty’s everyday work. As faculty redefine their role in undergraduate instruction, students’ learning gains and experiences in these courses will be affected positively.
This program will build faculty’s: understanding of how learning happens from learning sciences; knowledge of how students understand big ideas and cross-cutting concepts from disciplinary-based education research as well as improve student success; and instructional abilities to facilitate productive discourse to support learning in their classes.
This program is a 10-month long experience during the academic year. It commences with a two-day, in-person workshop August 20th and 21st. The workshop introduces faculty to one another, establishes the goals and structure of the program, and places faculty as learners experiencing the instructional practices they will develop in their own practice. Subsequent discussions and activities will take place online, synchronously and asynchronously. These include: importance of student discussions and explanations; developing expertise; assessment; motivational factors and mindset in learning; active learning strategies; and video discussions of classroom practice.