Creating a Supportive Space for Teaching-Focused Faculty to Write About their Teaching
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In Fall 2020, a large university has started several initiatives within its newly created engineering education faculty group to support APT and PoP faculty in writing and publishing about their teaching. This initiative includes a significant number of faculty teaching in our first-year engineering program. The initiatives include 1) a weekly research fellows group of 9, primarily APT faculty, 2) a teaching fellows group that looks at designing and implementing innovative activities in their classroom, 3) a weekly meeting with the engineering education faculty as a whole where faculty share what has been successful, 4) distinguished seminar series by national engineering education leaders who spend time mentoring the faculty in writing and discussing the future of engineering education, and 5) a morning writing group where faculty discuss about what they are writing and dedicate time for writing by themselves or write as a group. Since these initiatives have been started, our APT and first-year faculty have submitted and published significantly more than they did in the years previously. This paper will present the techniques used to support and encourage publication in the field of engineering education, including collaborative paper writing, as well as the qualitative and quantitative results from the participants in these initiatives. Qualitative data includes interviews from the faculty about their writing practices and the benefits they have gained from being part of the new supportive community. Quantitative data includes the increase in submitted paper counts and research initiatives in the classroom. We will also detail our future initiatives to support these faculty.
