Despite the upsurge in interest in e-learning (or online learning) in Chinese higher education, little is known about the ways in which lecturers design and run their online courses, or about how they perceive e-learning. This paper reports the results of interviews with higher education teachers in China working in conventional, campus-based…

A future instructor's teaching beliefs contribute to whether they will use research-validated teaching strategies. We surveyed and interviewed potential future geoscience faculty as represented by graduate students and post-doctoral scholars to characterize their teaching beliefs, evaluate changes in those beliefs over time, and identify…

Efforts to promote the use of student-centered learning environments in STEM education have been tempered by a lack of professional development strategies that help faculty overcome common barriers to reform. This study investigated the impact that adopting a suite of student-centered teaching materials had on the teaching practices and beliefs of…

The next generation of professors will come from today's graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, but we do not know much about their preparation to use research-validated teaching practices. This study characterizes the teaching beliefs of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who represent future geoscience instructors though we…

Background: Barriers to reforming traditional lecture-based undergraduate STEM classes are numerous and include time constraints, lack of training, and instructor's beliefs about teaching and learning. This case study documents the use of a situated instructional coaching process as a method of faculty professional development. In this model, a…

Background: STEM educational reform encourages a transition from instructor-centered passive learning environments to student-centered, active learning environments. Instructors adopting these changes incorporate research-validated teaching practices that improve student learning. Professional development that trains faculty to implement…

The introductory physical geology laboratory courses taught at North Carolina State University aims to promote scientific thinking and learning through the use of scientific inquiry-based activities. A rubric describing five possible levels of inquiry was applied to characterize the laboratory activities in the course. Two rock and mineral…