Pedagogy

TRESTLE is a 7-institution NSF-funded project to support improvements in undergraduate STEM education through (1) supporting course design projects, (2) enhancing educational expertise in departments, and (3) building communities within and across campuses to enhance the impact of local experts.

The STEM Institutional Transformation Action Research (SITAR) Project, housed in the Center for STEM Learning, aims to improve undergraduate STEM education by professionalizing educational practice through measurement, assessment, and cultural change.

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.

Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership: Actively Learning Mathematics Research Action Cluster: A nationwide network of 38 teams — spanning 30 states, 69 universities, 87 school systems, 9 community colleges, and a variety of other interested institutions — working collaboratively to reform secondary mathematics teacher preparation at the college and university level.

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  Integrated Teaching and Learning Program (ITL) is nationally recognized as an award-winning engineering education leader, this program supports hands-on engineering learning through an innovative environment where students integrate engineering theory with practice and learn through doing.

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.

The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) is headquartered at CU Boulder, and a non-profit organization chartered in 2004 by the National Science Foundation to increase the participation of girls and women in computing. Before NCWIT was formed, programs focusing on women and computing (K-12, post secondary, or corporate) existed mostly in isolation, without the benefit of shared best practices, effective resources, communication with others, or national reach.

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.