Undergraduate program revision efforts are multi-year processes that require patience, persistence, and leadership to maintain engagement and sustain momentum.

Implementing Change

The experience of institutions that have already carried out changes, coupled with the considerable body of literature available to help businesses implement change, should prove useful to departments and programs that are to initiating curricular and pedagogical reform. Ninety-one institutions, including two-year colleges, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate-granting institutions, submitted action plans for their individual departments as part of this study; 56 of these institutions submitted progress reports on their efforts to initiate and implement change after 16 months to three years; twelve submitted a second report approximately two years after the first one. These reports provide examples of successful strategies implemented by department heads/chairs, while also describing barriers to change encountered and approaches used to overcome these challenges. They are presented and analyzed in detail in Appendix C and are described below in the context of broader strategies for successful change management.

Courtesy of the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

Heads/Chairs' Experiences with Engaging Faculty in Curricular and Pedagogy Changes

Discussions at Summit events and the experiences of participating heads/chairs (as discussed in progress reports on their action plans; Appendix C) brought to light successful strategies and a range of barriers, problems, and challenges to implementing changes in undergraduate geoscience programs. A common theme among participating heads/chairs in their post-Summit progress reports was the need for patience in starting and maintaining curricular change efforts. Building bottom-up buy-in for making change and identifying several go-to faculty to drive review and revision efforts were seen as essential, as was maintaining full transparency and gaining the assent, if not the active engagement of all faculty, as they moved forward. The chair’s role in the progress of reform is largely facilitation through supporting faculty who expend time on these efforts through changes in assignment (i.e., modifying teaching loads), the allotment of course TA’s, and, if appropriate, direct financial support. Heads/chairs are also positioned to align departmental curricular efforts with institution-level priorities for teaching, learning, and student success.

Successful Strategies

Many strategies were used successfully across the range of institutions. The most successful practices for evaluating and redesigning curriculums were the use of backwards design or a matrix mapping approach and faculty retreats focused on the curriculum. Heads/chairs that encouraged, supported, and incentivized professional development for faculty, including attending workshops (e.g., SAGE 2YC, Earth Educators Rendezvous) saw the greatest increase in active and experiential learning. Peer mentoring, sharing of ideas among faculty, and introduction of new ideas at retreats also helped. From the progress reports, it is clear it takes at least three years for significant changes to be made to undergraduate programs, and even then, they may still not be embedded in the departmental culture.

Other best practices developed by departments include:

• Student involvement: Showed students how courses connect, developed a curriculum roadmap that outlined expected skills and student learning outcomes, and/or developed e-portfolio programs for student assessment. Increased mentoring of diverse students and implemented training for graduate students to improve TA support of new active learning courses.

• Flipped classrooms: One department used peer mentoring by having faculty experienced in active-learning strategies co-teach with other faculty for “flipped” classes, with the other faculty taking over after one to two semesters. They started with introductory courses and ended up “flipping” three courses for majors.

• Employer involvement: Eight departments were successful in increasing internships by interacting with employers and/or brought employers in to discuss careers with students.

Departments also reported successful strategies for recruitment and retention of diverse students, easing 2YC to 4YC transfers, and program assessment. To recruit more students, some departments instituted new courses or changed introductory classes to active learning, revised marketing materials, advertised their programs, combined efforts with other STEM departments, and worked with college admissions offices on recruitment. For two- to four-year college transitions, departments eased the transfer process by increasing interactions between students and faculty at local community colleges and at four-year colleges/universities, including joint fieldtrips, student panels and social events, and development of clear transfer pathways.

Courtesy of the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

Perhaps the most difficult endeavor was assessment: most departments found quantitative assessment of their changes difficult. Departments tried having faculty assess WOVN (Writing, Oral, Verbal, Numerical) in every course, exit interviews for graduates, and use of e-portfolios for gauging student achievement. One department used an alternative assessment, pre- and post-tests in all courses, bridging the previous and next course in the sequence. In general, departments tied their assessment of curricular changes to required annual program reviews or institutional assessments. Accreditor-motivated institutional efforts at educational assessment are both a driver and an obstacle to change, especially when these efforts are managed in a directed, top-down way. Several heads/chairs pointed out the department’s advantage to using these.

Upon analysis (taking into consideration the specificity of Action Plans), having fewer geoscience faculty in a department meant more progression toward implementing their plan (See graph in Appendix C). Although faculty sizes between 5 and 10 appear to be most successful, too few faculty was a challenge as they were spread too thin to pursue a deep dive into curriculum redesign and engage in new teaching methods. With large faculty sizes (>20), it was more successful having a few faculty members take the lead with a bottom-up approach or involving early-career faculty while receiving feedback from all faculty members. For all sizes, having a faculty champion, and the support of the head/chair, was critical.

When ‘Carnegie classification’ is considered, 2YC, bachelor’s, and master’s institutions made more progress than R1 and R2 doctoral research institutions, even when R1s and R2s had equivalently small faculty sizes. Four R1s at public universities with more than 20 faculty were highly successful (see Box 12.1). All four redesigned their curriculum using a matrix approach and mapping knowledge, skills, and learning objectives across courses. Only one of the four substantially addressed pedagogy. Two provided dedicated time for a faculty member to work on program changes. All of them agreed that these changes required time and patience.

Roadblocks and Solutions

Many challenges were similar across all types of institutions. Regardless of faculty size, many departments contended with faculty who were unwilling to change traditional curriculum or adopt new pedagogy, but with persistence many succeeded. Resistant faculty, personality issues, and intradepartmental politics interfered with attempts to make changes to undergraduate programs in about 17% of the reporting departments. In all but a few cases, these issues were resolved over time. Another 10% had to work at getting faculty buy-in and generally overcame this by either having the faculty complete the concepts and skills matrix exercise, holding faculty retreats focused on curri​culum, or as a result of support and buy-in from junior or new faculty. A number of participating heads/chairs noted that an initial sense of faculty buy-in to the need to pursue curricular change and enthusiasm for major curricular reform was often followed by a loss of interest in the process when tasks such as reviewing the existing program and/or making changes to courses arose.

The 2014–2015 survey results revealed an overall interest in making undergraduate curricular changes focusing on competencies, skills, and understanding of concepts, with 75% of the respondents indicating that their department was interested, but with only 59% indicating it was likely to happen, already in progress, or done. The 2014–2015 survey specifically asked about obstacles and barriers to implementing research-validated pedagogies and uses of technology, and the data was analyzed by faculty and/or an administrator position (Appendix A). The 2014–2015 survey results show that, regardless of rank or position, lack of time and/or support for developing and piloting new instructional approaches was the most important barrier to pedagogical reforms, with financial resources, instructional space design, and teaching infrastructure as additional challenges. Faculty without the rank of full professor were also concerned about the potential implications for annual performance reviews and tenure and promotion evaluations, ranging from 65% to 52% (decreasing with increased rank), indicating this was important to very important. Only assistant professors (45%) expressed concerns about student evaluations.

Another common problem was that many faculty focused only on their own courses and not the overall curriculum. It is necessary to show how intertwined courses in the curriculum are and why it is important to consider the larger picture. Even for those faculty that were receptive to programmatic changes, actualizing change was much more difficult.

Common roadblocks identified by Summit participants to getting buy-in from faculty for curricular or pedagogical changes and expressed in the comments in the 2014–2015 survey and the departmental heads/chairs action plan progress reports, include:

• Resistance to inclusion of new content areas and/or the de-emphasis of other content areas affecting the faculty member’s own course or the overall curriculum

• Resistance on the part of some faculty to the principles of active-learning pedagogies

• Convincing certain faculty they might need to change their courses to include important competencies/skills

• Concerns about their loss of control over course instruction and content, how and what they teach

• Concerns about increases in workload, the time and effort needed to deliver the revised program.

Many heads and chairs have advice on how they overcame these issues (see Box 12.3; Appendix C). “Patience, patience, patience”, taking time, and going slow, are the most common pieces of advice. “Be persistent, encouraging, and don’t expect things to change overnight.” “Making slow and steady changes incrementally was received best by most faculty.” “Have a vision and share that regularly with the faculty, but don’t expect miracles.” Showing faculty the results of the Summits helped spur action because it provided an externally vetted set of criteria for an undergraduate program.

Getting faculty to use a matrix to analyze the concepts and skills in their undergraduate program makes them realize their students are not learning what they think they are. The next harder step is for them to change what they are doing, collectively and individually. Advice includes: leverage institutional processes; add teaching — ​the use of active learning or reforming course content — ​as part of their annual performance review; and bring in external facilitators such as the NAGT Traveling Workshop ‘Building Strong Geoscience Departments program’. Collegiality, support of leadership, departmental retreats, and the use of SERC-endorsed resources contributed to successes.

External pressures create challenges and barriers to departments making real change and include limited campus budgets, budget cuts, hiring freezes, and low or declining enrollments. Some heads/chairs used declining enrollments to revamp introductory classes, and/or the entire curriculum, to increase class enrollments and majors. In some departments, the slow rate of progress was attributed to bureaucracy, such as the need for higher-level curriculum approval, inadequate resources and instructional space design, teaching infrastructure, and funding for new faculty, lab space, and equipment, etc. Losing one or more faculty members with no ability to replace them, and having to fill the curricular gaps left behind, exacerbated some cases.

The 2014–2015 survey data showed fewer concerns about constraints from non-departmental sources, though 35% indicated such constraints existed in their institution.

Other external pressures causing challenges and barriers to change include:

• Upper administration imposing its own requirements and demands on departments that are at odds with their undergraduate degree program needs

• Changes in administrators, leading to a lack of clarity on institutional priorities, can slow or stop change efforts

• Inability to get buy-in from other departments on changes to cognate courses, or to offer geoscience-specific courses in cognate areas (such as geo-computation or geo-communication)

• Upper administration and university curriculum committees not understanding the need for rigorous requirements

Interestingly, while participating heads/chairs detailed their progress with faculty, only a few informed deans and other higher-level administrators about progress in curricular revision activities, or even their necessity. The few exceptions that did found it very valuable.

Some heads/chairs also talked about the importance of becoming involved in the college or university administration: “Collaborate and be involved positively with your college.” “A good relationship with the administration is useful: be positive and serve on committees.” A couple others solved their upper administration problems by becoming administrators.

As heads/chairs are the department’s primary liaison to their university’s higher administration, it is equally important for them to communicate upward about curricular review and revision efforts and the nationwide geoscience community effort to implement a consensus vision for undergraduate geoscience education. They need to show the alignment of these efforts with university-level, student learning outcomes or institutional assessment program objectives, as well as the national effort to gain approval.

Overcoming Barriers to Instructional Reforms

Although use of research-validated teaching methods is becoming more prevalent in college geoscience courses, and instructors are placing greater emphasis on the development of key skills and competencies (Egger et al., 2019), there are nonetheless significant barriers to widespread instructional reform. University faculty members across STEM disciplines report that limited training and lack of instructional and peer support hinder their efforts to reform their courses (Dancy & Henderson, 2010). Time is usually the most significant barrier: more than two-thirds of the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey respondents cited time constraints as the most common reason for not introducing course changes (Egger et al., 2019). The results of the Summit efforts support this finding. Additionally, the literature documenting the successful implementation of active strategies is unfamiliar to many geoscience instructors, and at times this literature is written in ways that are alien to those who teach geoscience courses.

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No relationship apparently exists between the use of active learning strategies in geoscience courses and any institutional or demographic characteristics among geoscience programs. A national program of classroom observations documented no measurable differences in the use of active learning strategies and the type of institution (research/doctoral, master’s, baccalaureate, associate), the academic level of the course (introductory vs. majors), the size of the class, or the gender of the instructor (Teasdale et al., 2017).

A significant difference was evident in the extent of active learning practices used by instructors and their cumulative professional development experiences. Instructors who participated in multiday, professional development workshops were more likely to teach using research-vetted instructional strategies than those who had not participated in such programs, or who only used related online resources, but had not attended the workshop (Teasdale et al., 2017). Those instructors who completed more than 24 hours of combined professional development programs, or who participated in programs that focused on materials topically aligned with their course content showed greater degrees of instructional reform (Viskupic et al, 2019). Nearly three-quarters (72%) of geoscience instructors interviewed noted they had changed their teaching practices as a result of their workshop participation, and were using related online resources (Manduca et al., 2017). Consequently, for interested faculty or departments, the available disciplinary professional development programs offered a means to chart an effective path to instructional reform. Heads/chairs (as reported in action plan progress reports) that encouraged and/or supported faculty attending professional development workshops saw the most successful adoption of these pedagogical reforms.

Relationship to Successful Change Management Strategies

Although the ability to change is a foundation of robust organizations, sometimes strong motivation is required to overcome institutional resistance or inertia. While this document provides guidance for vision and change in geoscience education, the geosciences community has access to the considerable literature available on implementing change in institutional settings. After studying the efforts of multiple companies to remake themselves, Kotter (2012) concludes that the most general lessons learned from successful organizational change are that the process occurs through a series of phases and generally requires a considerable amount of time. Furthermore, leaving out any of those phases frequently leads to failure in the process. Here, we relate the change framework of Kotter (2012) to the experiences reported by geoscience departments and make recommendations on how to cement that change.

Kotter’s framework consists of 8 sequential steps. They are:

1. Establish a sense of urgency

2. Create the guiding coalition

3. Develop a vision and strategy

4. Communicate the change vision

5. Empower employees for broad-based action

6. Generate short term wins

7. Consolidate gains and produce more change

8. Anchor new approaches in the culture

In establishing this framework, Kotter points out that successful implementation depends on the realization that change is a multi-step process and that a strong, persevering leader is needed to steer the organization through these steps. In geoscience departments, it is the departmental head/chair who must lead the faculty through these steps from beginning to end.

Results from the Summit and associated workshops show that department heads/chairs have already had considerable success establishing a level of urgency around implementing curricular and pedagogical reform. Leaders need to work hard at eliminating complacency among faculty and other stakeholders.

Summit participants also reported that having a group of faculty members who strongly advocate for the change, i.e., a guiding coalition, has been key to advancing change. Per Kotter (2012), make sure the coalition is sufficiently powerful and respected so skeptics cannot derail progress. Though engaging the skeptics is important so they feel their voices are heard.

This document presents a community vision and strategies for implementing change. Individual organizations will need to refine that vision and develop their own strategies for achieving success within their own institutional framework. Leaders using this document must help their staff fully understand the direction of change and motivate them to act, even if it is not in their short-term interest. A powerful vision is a powerful motivator.

Communicating the vision successfully comes from keeping it simple and using analogy or metaphor, repetition in multiple forums, and lots of give and take among stakeholders. This is consistent with department heads/chairs admonitions “to be patient”. If the vision is under-communicated, then it will not take. It has been observed that leaders, in organizations with solid communication, are not afraid to discuss how actions and behaviors can help achieve the vision or undermine it.

The admonition to “empower employees” is about preventing perceived barriers from stopping change and is central to how department heads/chairs can remove barriers. For example, with respect to the “not enough time” complaint — ​how can department heads create time?

Showing faculty that change is possible via short-term wins, such as modifying a few courses or implementing some pedagogical changes and celebrating them, makes a difference. This approach makes the bigger objectives seem surmountable. Once a few short-term wins are in place, it becomes easier to consolidate and grow the process, though participants cannot be allowed to think that short-term wins represent complete victory.

A good illustration of a short-term win not being enough is provided in Box 12.1 (example #4). A department developed a revised curricular plan in 2015 that faculty approved in 2016 (short-term win). After implementation was derailed for unforeseen issues (a loss), it was restarted in 2017, and was sent to the university for approval by 2019 (a second short-term win). Only when it is approved and becomes anchored in the culture will it be fully implemented.

Anchoring the changes into culture is a huge challenge and may take many years. Kotter and others list many examples of organizations that successfully completed all the steps up until this last one, and failed. Even with near-term successes, institutional success cannot be taken for granted. Resistance will hide in many corners, and change will depend on people getting into alignment. One of the most important lessons learned is to ensure that when leaders change, the successors will continue to exemplify the new approach. The progress reports in this study showed that in cases where one department chair completed a preliminary progress report describing curricular change efforts, and was replaced by a department chair with little knowledge or interest of those efforts, much of the initial work was lost. The good news is that when the torch was passed appropriately among both leadership and staff, changes became institutionalized.

Recommendations:

• Heads/Chairs need to encourage, facilitate, and support faculty working on changes to undergraduate programs, allocate needed resources, align curricular efforts with institution-level priorities for teaching, and keep the upper administration informed of these activities and the national effort that necessitates these changes

• Review, revision, and changes to undergraduate programs and teaching are best accomplished through bottom up efforts and identifying, depending on size, one-to-a-small group of faculty to drive the effort while maintaining full transparency with the rest of the department

• Recognize that, using Kotter’s change framework, it takes time and patience to implement change in undergraduate programs.