A Validated Novel Tool for Capturing Faculty-Student Joint Behaviors with the COPUS Instrument†

Abstract

The Classroom Observation Protocol Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) tool was developed to quantify the time instructors and students engage in various activities within STEM courses. We offer a matrix of joint instructor-student behaviors rather than a pie chart of individual behaviors as an alternative perspective on the presentation of the results from the COPUS instrument. We suggest that the presentation of the results using this matrix tool allows for finer-scale insights into the learning environment in a classroom. Using this matrix tool, we identified four profiles of instructor-student behavior in undergraduate STEM classes at our regional comprehensive Master’s institution: lecture, lecture plus (lecture with students posing questions to the instructor), standing clickers/IF-ATs (immediate feedback assessment technique—instructor poses questions using some form of immediate response method but does not move around groups), and roving groups (requiring instructor to move between groups). Prior to using the COPUS instrument we placed each of the observed faculty along the active learning spectrum. Our matrix tool was validated by alignment of the matrix tool profiles with these a priori designations. We offer suggestions regarding how this matrix tool can be best used to inform faculty professional development to move instructors along the active learning spectrum.