The workshop, which took place Sept. 14-19, were led by Deb Pires, assistant chair of the Department of Life Sciences at UCLA, Nicola Barber, an associate teaching professor of biology at the UO, Karli Farrimond, executive support coordinator, and Elly Vandegrift, director of the UO’s Global Studies Institute, and aided by 8 additional facilitators who had participated in previous institutes.
“This is a premier professional development training program for science faculty,” said Vandegrift, regional leader of the institute.
The institute, part of the National Institute on Scientific Teaching, addresses challenges in STEM education reform unique to higher education. National leaders in education reform travel to universities to train a critical mass of educators within whole departments to create inclusive, student-centered classrooms that engage students to learn – as scientists do – through active problem solving and discussion.
The UO has hosted institutes on science teaching since 2015, and 153 UO faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and librarians have been named Scientific Teaching Fellows for their engagement in the week-long workshops. An additional 362 faculty have participated in an institute that the UO has helped support, lead, or host.
Funding for the workshop came from a Tykeson Teaching Excellence Award.
