Assessments

In 2014, the University of Michigan launched an NSF-funded program to reinvent introductory teaching and learning in the core STEM disciplines.  REBUILD (Researching Evidence-Based Undergraduate Instructional and Learning Developments) aimed to promote recruitment, retention, and academic excellence in STEM disciplines by catalyzing the use of evidence-based teaching methods and learning analytics.  Toward this end, REBUILD faculty and postdocs led reform efforts in traditionally lecture-based, high-enrollment courses and labs in Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Physics.

The CU-SEI program has had a broad array of impacts. Across the program as a whole, over 100 faculty have been impacted by the SEI, with over 90 having modified their instruction based on the SEI efforts. 

The Colorado Learning Assistant (LA) Model: Launched at CU Boulder in 2003, its purpose is to increase STEM research faculty members’ awareness and involvement in evidence-based reforms and to support STEM teacher recruitment and preparation.

In early 2016, the REBUILD committee harnessed the momentum provided by REBUILD to launch a university-wide Foundational Course Initiative. In partnership with Michigan’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning, we talked to hundreds of administrators, faculty, staff, and students representing numerous schools and colleges, departments, student support programs, residential learning communities, and other units at Michigan.

As a direct result of the AAU STEM Initiative, we have implemented numerous professional development activities for our faculty. Professional development is being implemented in a multi-pronged fashion, and includes observation and feedback for faculty, and multiple professional development activities including multi-day summer institutes, a mentoring program, a community of practice, and a speaker series.

The primary focus is to implement and evaluate our multiple-strategy approach for incorporating active learning into lower-level STEM courses. The multiple-strategies approach allows instructors flexibility in integrating active learning into a framework that meshes with their approach to teaching and with the demands of their discipline and the academic department with which the instructor is affiliated.

UVA's upper level Biochemistry Laboratory course has been designed to ensure that all students graduating from the Chemistry department with a Biochemistry specialization have had research experience.

Our project aims to increase undergraduate persistence in the sciences through introductory laboratory courses in which students perform real research experiments and analyze and report their results. They will take part in scientific process and join our department's scientific community early on in their biology careers at the University of Pittsburgh.

The University of Pittsburgh's SEA-PHAGES program is a national, two-semester, discovery-based undergraduate research course that aims to increase undergraduate interest and retention in the biological sciences through immediate (freshman-year) immersion in authentic, valuable, yet accessible research.

To improve learning, the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh is introducing a flipped, or inverted, classroom model in which direct learning (lecture) takes place outside of class, while class time is used for active learning.