Abstract
Despite positive evidence for active learning (AL), lecturing dominates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) higher education. Though instructors acknowledge AL to be valuable, many resist implementing AL techniques, citing an array of barriers including a perceived lack of student buy-in. However, few studies have explored student perceptions of specific AL teaching practices, particularly the perceptions of graduate students. We explored student-reported instructional strategies and student perceptions of and preferences for a variety of teaching practices in graduate and undergraduate classrooms across three STEM colleges at a large, public, research university. We found that both graduate and undergraduate students desired more time for AL and wanted less lecturing than they were currently experiencing. However, there was no single universally desired or undesired teaching practice, suggesting that a variety of AL teaching practices should be employed in both graduate and undergraduate courses.
Document Type
Article
Source Publication
Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research
Version
Published Version
Publication Date
7-23-2021
Volume
3
Issue
1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
© The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Recommended Citation
Gonsar, N., Patrick, L., & Cotner, S. (2021). Graduate- and undergraduate-student perceptions of and preferences for teaching practices in STEM classrooms. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-021-00035-w
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