Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 287 de 957
Future Research
Figure 2: Comparison of faculty self-ratings and consultant ratings
This project is part of a larger effort which will result in an improved learning
environment for all engineering students at U-M and better support for a diverse student
body. Besides the work presented here, our efforts include:
• synthesizing existing literature about faculty teaching practices that support a
diverse student body and situating that literature in the U-M context using data
from multiple sources (student demographic and academic data from the registrar
and interviews with academic advisors);
• administering a student survey and conducting focus groups with students at all
levels of academic achievement to identify teaching practices perceived by
students to support and to hinder their success in engineering;
• surveying all engineering faculty at U-M and conducting one-on-one interviews
with some to ascertain faculty beliefs about their own teaching practices and about
how their practices affect student learning and to identify factors that influence
faculty motivation to change their teaching practices; and
• developing an evidence-based institutional plan for motivating change in faculty
teaching practices.
Although our work is local in context, the evidence-based approach to enabling
institutional change will serve as a model for others and will contribute to the larger body
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011