Transforming Education, Stimulating Teaching and Learning Excellence (TRESTLE)
Lead Campus
Kansas University
Partners
University of British Columbia
Queen’s University
Indiana University Bloomington
University of California Davis
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Texas at San Antonio
Description
Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, this project implements and evaluates a model to promote improved STEM education at seven research universities. It builds on the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at UBC and CU in which STEM Education experts (postdoctoral scholars) are embedded in departments to collaborate with faculty on course transformation to enhance student learning. TRESTLE is testing whether we can propagate change through a smaller infusion of resources and expertise (fewer experts in a given department) by building communities of scholars around course transformation to amplify the effects of the embedded experts. Each institution is testing a model with three core components, with local adaptations:
- Embed experts in departments to catalyze and support course transformation
- Build intellectual communities around course transformation, within and across departments, and across universities (the TRESTLE network)
- Generate evidence of impact and make it visible within the communities
The network has come together three times, in January 2016 for the TRESTLE launch meeting and course transformation institute, and in October 2016 for the annual TRESTLE network meeting. They also met in September 2017 at Indiana University Bloomington for the Year 2 TRESTLE annual network meeting. There will be one additional network meetings at the end of year 3 (2019). These meetings bring together embedded experts, faculty, and project leaders to foster exchange of strategies and results, social connections, and opportunities for collaboration with peers outside one’s own institution, ideally generating the critical mass of educational experts needed to support the work. To this end, we are also organizing virtual network meetings around topics or questions of shared interest. We are tracking the impact of the initiative through multiple measures including a faculty survey of teaching practices, attitudes, and climate, classroom observation with the COPUS, tracking of student successful course completion, and case studies of four selected departments before, during, and after the conclusion of the intervention. Baseline measures were collected during or before year one of the project.
Contact
Andrea Follmer Greenhoot
agreenhoot@ku.edu
Collaborative Humanities Redesign Program*
Lead Campus
Kansas University
Partners/Affiliates
Elon University
Park University
Rockhurst University
Description
Supported by a grant from the Teagle Foundation, KU partnered with three liberal arts institutions to promote and evaluate active and engaged learning in humanities courses. The leadership team created a network of 24 faculty participants across the four campuses. The group convened for all-project meetings at the beginning of each project year. The teams on each campus met 2-3 times each semester, identifying challenges and innovations to address those learning challenges. Participants also engaged across campuses through online meetings organized around shared interests, and through course portfolio review. Each participant drafted a benchmark record of a target course, applied innovations and evaluated the impact on student learning, and captured that work in a course portfolio. In the final year they worked on implementing, evaluating, and documenting a second wave of innovations. The BVA survey of teaching practices and attitudes, along with analysis of the course portfolios, are being used to track the effects of this initiative.
Work from the CHRP community was featured in a capstone conference, open to participants from any institution, June 8-10, 2017 in Kansas City: (Re)Imagining Humanities Teaching: Innovations in Course Design. Plenary speakers included BVA senior scholar, Pat Hutchings. See the CHRP website for more information and to access faculty portfolios.
Contact
Andrea Follmer Greenhoot
agreenhoot@ku.edu
*completed project