Author(s):
The Faculty Teaching Institute (FTI) takes a whole faculty member approach to improving the nation’s physics and astronomy education culture. The multi-day workshops at the center of the FTI provide a reflective practice model to empower faculty members to create learning environments that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and excellence. Faculty members learn how to integrate principles of teaching and learning with research-proven instructional strategies and structures that best respond to the unique demands of their departments and classrooms. The professional development experiences afford faculty the opportunity to consider their frames of identity and reflect on how this sense of self influences values and thoughts about teaching, the structure of courses, and the nature of the environment that classrooms present to learners. The workshop goes beyond presentations about principles and instructional techniques and actively engages faculty members as they work through a series of mock-classroom exercises that feature an array of different instructional strategies and case studies. Working with their peers and the presenter team, faculty members have opportunities to reflect on how different ideas presented in the workshop might play out in their local context. We encourage faculty members to carry the reflective model with them by taking time to reflect on their actual classroom interactions and how they can be improved. Faculty members report that participating in the FTI workshop provides powerful experiences that positively contribute to their early career paths.
Coauthors
Tom Rice, tom.rice@aas.org
