title: Breaking the cycle: future faculty begin teaching with learner-centered strategies after professional development.
abstract: The availability of reliable evidence for teaching practices after professional development is limited across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, making the identification of professional development "best practices" and effective models for change difficult. We aimed to determine the extent to which postdoctoral fellows (i.e., future biology faculty) believed in and implemented evidence-based pedagogies after completion of a 2-yr professional development program, Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching (FIRST IV). Postdocs (PDs) attended a 2-yr training program during which they completed self-report assessments of their beliefs about teaching and gains in pedagogical knowledge and experience, and they provided copies of class assessments and video recordings of their teaching. The PDs reported greater use of learner-centered compared with teacher-centered strategies. These data were consistent with the results of expert reviews of teaching videos. The majority of PDs (86%) received video ratings that documented active engagement of students and implementation of learner-centered classrooms. Despite practice of higher-level cognition in class sessions, the items used by the PDs on their assessments of learning focused on lower-level cognitive skills. We attributed the high success of the FIRST IV program to our focus on inexperienced teachers, an iterative process of teaching practice and reflection, and development of and teaching a full course.
authors.affiliation: *Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 ebertmay@msu.edu.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ebert-May
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071.
authors.forename: Terry L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Derting
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA 31698.
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Henkel
authors.affiliation: Delta Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Middlemis Maher
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108.
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Momsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL 62650.
authors.forename: Bryan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071.
authors.forename: Heather A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Passmore
mesh_terms: D002321:Career Choice; D003469:Culture; D003710:Demography; D005178:Faculty; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D013663:Teaching