2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introducing The Focus & Action of Students & Teachers Observation Protocol (FASTOP)

Presented at Instrument Design and Development

This methods paper describes the development, use, and initial findings for the Focus & Actions of Students & Teachers Observation Protocol (FASTOP). The ICAP model describes the benefits of interactive (I), constructive (C), and active (A) learning over passive (P) learning. However, instructors who seek to adopt more effective pedagogies often overestimate their use of such practices and/or omit key elements. Thus, our research seeks to enhance understanding of classroom practice by combining data from student surveys, instructor surveys, and classroom observations (both live and video recorded). This paper describes a new classroom observation protocol intended to monitor the focus (e.g., solo, pair, team, or whole class) and action (e.g., discuss, speak/present, watch/listen, or distracted) of both students and teachers (instructors). The paper summarizes relevant background on evidence-based learning, student engagement, and classroom observation protocols, describes the development and structure of FASTOP, presents results from different pedagogies (e.g., lecture, laboratory, POGIL), and describes lessons learned and future directions. Results show distinctive patterns of student and teacher behaviors for different pedagogies.

Authors

Dr. Clifton L. Kussmaul http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1660-7117 Green Mango Associates, LLC [biography]

Clif Kussmaul is Principal Consultant at Green Mango Associates, LLC. Formerly he was Associate Professor of Computer Science at Muhlenberg College. Visiting Fulbright-Nehru Scholar at the University of Kerala, and Chief Technology Officer for Elegance Technologies, Inc.
Dr. Patricia B. Campbell Campbell-Kibler Associates
Ms. Maria Torres-Demas Westminster College of Salt Lake City
Dr. Chris Mayfield James Madison University [biography]

Chris Mayfield, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at James Madison University. His research focuses on CS education and professional development, including for K-12 schools. Over the past five years, he has taught introductory CS courses using POGIL and the flipped classroom. He is coauthor of the textbook Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist and the designer of JMU's CS 101 course.
Dr. Helen Hu Westminster College of Salt Lake City [biography]

Helen H. Hu received her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah. She is a Professor of Computer Science at Westminster College and a member of the ACM. Her research interests include active learning pedagogies and broadening participation i

Download paper (756 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session