Award Abstract # 1626565
Departmental Action Teams: Sustaining Improvements in Undergraduate STEM Education Through Faculty Engagement

NSF Org: DUE
Division Of Undergraduate Education
Recipient: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
Initial Amendment Date: August 25, 2016
Latest Amendment Date: November 5, 2019
Award Number: 1626565
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Michelle Camacho - Walter
DUE
 Division Of Undergraduate Education
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: September 1, 2016
End Date: August 31, 2021 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $1,919,515.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $1,919,515.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2016 = $664,573.00
FY 2017 = $259,570.00

FY 2018 = $995,372.00
History of Investigator:
  • Joel Corbo (Principal Investigator)
    joel.corbo@colorado.edu
  • Noah Finkelstein (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Daniel Reinholz (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Colorado at Boulder
3100 MARINE ST
Boulder
CO  US  80309-0001
(303)492-6221
Sponsor Congressional District: 02
Primary Place of Performance: University of Colorado at Boulder
3100 Marine Street, 572 UCB
Boulder
CO  US  80309-0572
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
02
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): SPVKK1RC2MZ3
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): IUSE
Primary Program Source: 04001617DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001718DB NSF Education & Human Resource

04001819DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 8209, 9178
Program Element Code(s): 199800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

This project continues early work on a new model for institutional transformation through focusing on the need to shift departmental structures and culture to sustain improvements. The main institutional focus for this applied research project is the University of Colorado at Boulder where most of this work will take place. This University has a relatively long history of efforts to engage in STEM education reform. The work centers on a new type of working group, a "Departmental Action Team" (DAT). This team approach was developed by the STEM Institutional Transformation Action Research project, which grew out of the Science Education Initiative at this University that began nearly a decade ago. A DAT is a self-selected group comprised mostly of faculty (but including post docs and students) within a single academic department. DATs serve three main goals. One is to address an educational issue of interest to the department. A second and related goal is to sustain improvements made in solving (or improving) a departmental issue by creating lasting structural and cultural changes. The third goal is to provide a collaborative, community-building experience for DAT members. DATs are departmentally-focused, externally facilitated, faculty-driven, team-based, and focused on creating sustainable changes. Currently this University has six DATs. The focus of this project is to expand substantially the use of DATs to the point where departmentally-driven institutional transformation becomes the new norm.

The proposed work involves continuing to study and form DATs at the University of Colorado and expanding the model to Colorado State University (CSU) to see if a clean slate enactment can work. This project will develop: (1) a process for enculturating DAT facilitators and institutionalizing DATs in campus Teaching and Learning Centers (TLCs), (2) a theory of how DATs operate in different contexts, and (3) cultural and structural change metrics. Much research on change in university organizations identifies departmental culture as the lynchpin of change. This study will contribute substantially to understanding the prospects for adopting this model as an effective way to achieve institutional transformation.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 21)
C. Ngai, M. E. Pilgrim, D. L. Reinholz, J. C. Corbo, and G. M. Quan "Developing the DELTA: Capturing Cultural Changes in Undergraduate Departments" CBE: Life Sciences Education , v.19 , 2020 10.1187/cbe.19-09-0180
D. L. Reinholz, M. E. Pilgrim,J. C. Corbo, and N. Finkelstein "Transforming Undergraduate Education From the Middle Out With Departmental Action Teams" Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning , v.51 , 2019 10.1080/00091383.2019.1652078
G. M. Quan, J. C. Corbo, C. Ngai, D. Reinholz, and M. E. Pilgrim "Research on university faculty members reasoning about how departments change" Physics Education Research Conference 2018 , 2018 10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Quan
Reinholz, Daniel Lee and Pawlak, Alanna and Ngai, Courtney and Pilgrim, Mary "Departmental action teams: Empowering students as change agents in academic departments" International Journal for Students as Partners , v.4 , 2020 10.15173/ijsap.v4i1.3869 Citation Details
Reinholz, D. L. and Corbo, J. C. and Dancy, M. H. and Finkelstein, N. "Departmental Action Teams: Supporting faculty learning through departmental change" Learning communities journal , v.9 , 2017 Citation Details
Reinholz, Daniel L. and Ngai, Courtney and Quan, Gina and Pilgrim, Mary E. and Corbo, Joel C. and Finkelstein, Noah "Fostering sustainable improvements in science education: An analysis through four frames" Science Education , v.103 , 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21526 Citation Details
Quan, Gina M. and Corbo, Joel C. and Ngai, Courtney and Reinholz, Daniel L. and Pilgrim, Mary E. "Research on university faculty members reasoning about how departments change" Physics Education Research Conference 2018 , 2019 10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Quan Citation Details
Quan, Gina M. and Corbo, Joel C. and Finkelstein, Noah D. and Pawlak, Alanna and Falkenberg, Karen and Geanious, Christopher and Ngai, Courtney and Smith, Clara and Wise, Sarah and Pilgrim, Mary E. and Reinholz, Daniel L. "Designing for institutional transformation: Six principles for department-level interventions" Physical Review Physics Education Research , v.15 , 2019 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.15.010141 Citation Details
Ngai, Courtney and Pilgrim, Mary E. and Reinholz, Daniel L. and Corbo, Joel C. and Quan, Gina M. and Offerdahl, Erika "Developing the DELTA: Capturing Cultural Changes in Undergraduate Departments" CBELife Sciences Education , v.19 , 2020 10.1187/cbe.19-09-0180 Citation Details
Joel C. Corbo, Gina M. Quan, Karen Falkenberg, Chris Geanious, Courtney Ngai, Mary E. Pilgrim, Daniel L. Reinholz, and Sarah Wise "Externalizing the Core Principles of the Departmental Action Team (DAT) model" Physics Education Research Conference 2018 , 2018 10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Corbo2018
J. C. Corbo, G. M. Quan, K. Falkenberg, C. Geanious, C. Ngai, M. E. Pilgrim, D. L. Reinholz, and S. Wise "Externalizing the core principles of the Departmental Action Team (DAT) model" Physics Education Research Conference 2018 , 2018 10.1119/perc.2018.pr.Corbo
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 21)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The Departmental Action Teams (DAT) Project has developed a model for catalyzing departmental change in undergraduate education through the consensus-based work of facilitated groups of faculty members, staff members, and students. A total of seventeen DATs from fifteen STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), social sciences, and humanities departments at two universities have been formed across the entire life of the project, which began in 2014. Since 2016, the current NSF award and supplemental funding from each university for non-STEM DATs has supported the formation of twelve of those DATs.

Each DAT that was supported by this award created structural change in areas such as curriculum, teaching practices and assessment, cultural norms, departmental organizations and events, and policy (Table 1). Eight of the departments that hosted these DATs now have independent groups or individuals that continue to catalyze related change initiatives. DATs were supported in achieving these impacts by external DAT facilitators. Facilitators supported DATs in using consensus-based decision-making to envision, prioritize, and implement their change initiatives, and guided DATs in equitable patterns of participation to ensure all voices and ideas were heard.

This project had significant practitioner and research outcomes. For practitioners, the project produced a guidebook, Facilitating Change in Higher Education: The Departmental Action Team Model. The book details how facilitators can support departmental teams, including using the project?s digital toolkit of free resources, available at https://www.dat-project.org/resources/digital-toolkit/. The resources include slides and handouts used in coaching DATs to become effective working groups, as well as how-to guides used to support facilitators. They also include a set of Innovation Configuration Maps, which outline the ideal and allowable characteristics of DATs in action, and can be used by facilitators to both track the development of DATs and to ensure they are implementing the DAT Model with fidelity. 

The DAT Project is guided by a set of six project principles drawn from the literatures of organizational change and education research (https://dat-project.org/about-dats/core-principles/). The project team developed structures to ensure facilitators drew attention to the project principles as DATs engaged in their work. Researchers investigated how attention to the principles influenced the work of facilitators and DAT members, and how different DATs embodied those principles in their efforts to create change. DAT members reflecting on the project principles consistently attested to their value in drawing attention to effective methods of collaborating around change.

Researchers also developed and validated a Theory of Change for the DAT project, which describes the steps required for a facilitated departmental change initiative to form and be successfully implemented (http://openbooks.library.umass.edu/ascnti2020/chapter/ngai-etal/). The DAT Theory of Change provides insights into the roles different stakeholders must play to support successful departmental change, and the kinds of considerations change-making groups must take into account when developing and implementing their initiatives. This is a particularly complex Theory of Change, and developing it expanded the methodology behind Theory of Change construction. 

The research team has published new knowledge in a book and a book chapter, six peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings (with several more under review), and seven other lay articles and white papers. The team has also offered 15+ conference presentations, posters and workshops, at both STEM education conferences (e.g., the Physics Education Research Conference) and organizational development and change conferences (e.g., the Reinvention Collaborative). In addition, the team has been invited to give 13+ presentations by university faculty and staff members, conferences organizers, and professional societies. 

In summary, the Departmental Action Team Project has developed a well-grounded and articulated model for facilitated departmental change. We plan to continue to extend the model to effectively support change initiatives in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion and to apply the model within different kinds of colleges and universities. We hope to have the opportunity to meet growing interest in training facilitators to support DATs and to eventually create a self-supporting community of facilitators. We expect that the DAT model will change in some ways as it is adapted to new contexts and researching this process will deepen our understanding of departmental change in higher education. 


Last Modified: 05/04/2021
Modified by: Joel C Corbo

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