ERIC Number: EJ1369646
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Aug
Pages: 7
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0002-7685
EISSN: EISSN-1938-4211
Available Date: N/A
The First Line of Contact: How Course Syllabi Can Be Used to Gauge & Reform Learner-Centeredness in a College Classroom
Heim, Ashley B.; Aldor, Emily R.; Holt, Emily A.
American Biology Teacher, v81 n6 p403-409 Aug 2019
While learner-centeredness is important to quantify, education researchers disagree on how best to measure it. The overall aim of this research was to measure the learner-centeredness of introductory biology classrooms with a valid and reliable instrument that offers a different perspective than self-reported faculty surveys or expert observation protocols -- Palmer et al.'s (2014) syllabus scoring rubric. We investigated whether syllabus rubric scores aligned with both faculty self-reports and expert observations of learner-centeredness from the same classrooms, and whether these other metrics predict an instructor's total syllabus score better than instructor gender or years of teaching experience. Course syllabi from eight instructors who taught the same nonmajors biology course were scored independently using this syllabus scoring rubric. Our results suggest that syllabus learning objectives link to learner-centeredness and, interestingly, that other external metrics of learner-centeredness may predict syllabus rubric scores derived from Palmer et al.'s instrument.
Descriptors: Student Centered Learning, Teaching Methods, Educational Change, Introductory Courses, Biology, Science Instruction, Course Descriptions, Scores, Prediction, Gender Differences, Nonmajors, Teaching Experience, College Faculty, Science Teachers, Measures (Individuals), Classroom Observation Techniques, Correlation, Comparative Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A