TRIAD members Mary Emenike, Chaz Ruggieri, and Marc Muñiz facilitated a workshop on their semester support group for peer observations using the COPUS protocol to 24 participants (faculty, staff, graduate student) at Rutgers’ Active Learning Symposium (RALS), May 22, 2025.
Reliably Documenting Student Engagement and Instructor Activities in Undergraduate Learning Environments Using an Established Observation Protocols
Workshop Description: The term “Active Learning” is broad and encompasses a range of approaches to teaching and learning. The general nature of the term can make it challenging to describe the pedagogy implemented in learning environments. Therefore, it is useful to have a means of communicating the details of the techniques used in the classroom to others in a way that accurately describes what students and instructor(s) are doing. The Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS; Smith et al, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.13-08-0154) is designed to document what the instructor is doing and what the students are doing during class. The protocol includes 10-12 activities that the instructor could be doing and 10-12 parallel activities that the students could be doing. The observer records all the student and instructor activities that occur within two-minute increments throughout the class period. A pre-formatted Excel workbook compiles the data from the entry worksheet into summarized charts that illustrate the percentage of time that – the students spent receiving information, talking to the class, working independently or together, or doing other things – the instructor spent presenting information, guiding students, doing administrative tasks, or doing other things. Because the COPUS enables the documentation of both student and instructor activities during class, its output can be useful for instructors to adjust their pedagogical approaches to increase student engagement and can also be valuable for teaching portfolios. This is especially true when multiple observations with the protocol are made over time to track changes in the learning environment that resulted from modifications to instruction informed by COPUS data. This workshop included:
- An overview of COPUS as one example of a valid and reliable observation protocol.
- Time for participants to practice observing short video episodes using COPUS.
- Discussions of the affordances and limitations of the COPUS.
- Ways participants can request a COPUS observation of their course and/or participate in reciprocal peer observations using the COPUS.