Reaching Students: What Research Says about Effective Instruction in Undergraduate Science and Engineering.

Abstract

This book is based on the 2012 National Research Council (NRC) Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering report on discipline-based education research (DBER), as well as on interviews with expert practitioners who have successfully applied findings from DBER and related research in their classrooms, departments, or institutions. The goal is to summarize the most salient findings of the NRC committee and the experience of expert practitioners about how students learn undergraduate science and engineering and what this means for instruction. This book presents new ways of thinking about what to teach, how to teach it, and how to assess what students are learning. To encourage instructors and others to apply this information in their institutions, it also includes short examples and longer case studies of experienced practitioners who are implementing research-based strategies in undergraduate science and engineering courses or across departments or institutions. Although these findings could apply to a variety of disciplines, this book focuses on the disciplines addressed in the NRC study—physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geosciences, and engineering. This book is intended for anyone who teaches or plans to teach undergraduate courses in science and engineering at any type of higher education institution or who is in a position to influence instruction at this level.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2015 · DOI ↗