As evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) have gained more and more momentum, the interest in assessing the effect of their implementation has grown. To best assess this, we need a national baseline that characterizes how instructors <i>currently</i> teach their courses so in the future we are able to assess the <i>changes</i> in teaching as EBIPs continue to be disseminated, encouraged, and ultimately implemented in undergraduate science courses. In an unprecedented step toward this goal, we characterized a snapshot of this national picture by observing 2,028 classes taught by 545 STEM faculty from over 25 institutions. Each class was codified using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate Science (COPUS) that measures 13 student and 12 instructor behaviors every two minutes of each class. A total of seven instructional profiles, which are groups of student and instructor behaviors, were determined using mixture model clustering. The most prominent behaviors were lecturing for instructors and listening for students, resembling a traditional didactic instructional style (~55%). Another ~25% of instructors were classified into interactive lecture categories while the remaining 20% demonstrated predominately student-centered strategies. Additionally, we discovered that an instructor’s practices can vary significantly within a course, indicating that multiple observations are required to gain a complete picture of that faculty’s instruction.

The instructional profiles of undergraduate science classes: Characterizing teacher and student behaviors in over 2,000 classes

255th National Meeting (2018)

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