Professional Development Program on Active Learning for Engineering Faculty in Chile: First Stage

There is a widespread need of improvement in undergraduate science and engineering education and accordingly for effective professional development for teachers of engineering in Latin America. The need for a change from a teacher-centered to a student-centered education is becoming an urgent shift. In particular, Chile is investing in funded projects to improve the preparation of future engineers in the country. This work presents preliminary results of an ongoing program of teacher preparation of engineering faculty in a large private university in Chile. The first stage of the project uses Walter and Kautz (2015) framework to prepare a semester-long program that consists of five workshops (48 hours long) for 20 faculty members. Using a conceptual change approach, the focus of each workshop is the following. 1) Sensitizing faculty of the need of active learning to attend the new generations of students. During these two-day long workshop participants reflected about their own teaching and how they learn. 2) Introduction to collaborative and active learning strategies. A four-hour workshop in which the main ideas of collaborative learning were introduced and some active learning dynamics were presented. 3) Inquiry-based education. In this four-hour workshop the technique of using questions was presented, from an effective use of questions to the whole class to the use of inquiry-based strategies such as Peer Instruction. 4) Aligning teaching and assessment. In this four-hour workshop different types of assessment were introduced, from formative assessment to conceptual and evidence-based assessment. 5) Difficulties on implementing active learning. This six-hour workshop focused on the need to be aware and prepared for the difficulties that teachers face when introducing a change in their teaching strategy. There was a long discussion and reflection of how to address those difficulties. The format of each session was designed to emulate the active learning dynamics. After each workshop, participants designed and documented the implementation of activities and read some articles related to the workshop topics. The data collected consists of self-reflections, surveys, interviews, and documented implementations for each of the 20 faculty members. Some of the faculty members had previous experience in teacher preparation programs that addressed general education strategies. Some other had no experience at all on these strategies. Participants responded the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (Trigwell, Prosser and Ginns, 2005) at the beginning and at the end of the workshop sequence. This paper analyzes in what ways teachers changed their perspective regarding teaching engineering and their prior teacher preparation. The results showed that for the majority of the faculty members in the program, some who had previous experience and those who did not have experience, the implementing of active learning and collaborative learning was different from what they previously thought it was. Their perspective of the teaching practice changed not only by the activities they had in the workshops, but also, the activities they designed and implemented in their own classroom. References: Walter, C.M. & Kautz, C. H. (2015) “Conceptual change” as a guiding principle for the professional development of teaching staff. 122nd ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. Educational Research & Methods Division. Seattle, WA. Trigwell, K., Prosser, M., & Ginns, P. (2005). Phenomenographic pedagogy and a revised Approaches to teaching inventory. Higher Education Research & Development, 24(4) 349-360.