Active Learning Course Innovations

Active learning can take a variety of forms including both students working in groups and individually, and in large lectures and small enrollment courses.  At the heart of active learning is that students are actively engaging in processing and synthesizing information.  Evidence shows that students in active learning classrooms have better outcomes in terms of course grades than those in more passive classrooms. 

In order to incorporate active learning strategies in your classroom based on classroom evidence, support is available for faculty stipends to evaluate existing classroom methods, plan for implementation and assessment of active learning strategies, and implement and assess those strategies.  These funds are also intended to document existing faculty engagement with active learning strategies and identify individuals who may have expertise to share in this area of STEM education.

Looking for ideas of active learning strategies?  The University of Minnesota Center for Educational Innovation (CEI) and Iowa State University Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching both have great resources for active learning innovations.

To receive funding, faculty must complete the following:

1. Complete a Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) before (or at the beginning) and at the end of the course transformation. COPUS results will be provided to the instructor and stored in de-identified form by the SAIL program director.

2. Complete a Student Feedback Facilitation (SFF) via CEI of your initial course.  SFF results will be provided to the instructor and stored in de-identified form by the SAIL program director.

3. Based on the initial COPUS results, the Student Feedback Facilitation, and instructor experience, create a plan to incorporate three or more active learning strategies in your course.

4. Develop an assessment plan for measuring the effectiveness of your strategies and incorporating the new COPUS evaluation.

5. Summarize assessment results and submit to departmental assessment committee (if applicable) and the SAIL program director.

COPUS and SFF will be coordinated by Anne Kruchten in consulation with the instructor's schedule.  

Stipends

$2000 for completion of steps 1-5

$1000 for teaching the course again within the two academic years and summarizing assessment results again.

Deadline:

These stipends will be awarded competitively with an application deadline for each semester of AY 2024-25.  Observations should occur at the beginning (or before, if possible) and end of the semester.

• Application deadline for Fall 2024 courses:  May 13th, 2024

• Application deadline for Spring 2025 courses: October 28th, 2024

The number of awards is dependent upon the availability of SCSE funds.

Application:

Provide a description of your project that includes:

• Your overall project goals, including how you think trying innovative approaches in your course will support student and faculty success

• The student learning outcomes of your current course

• Classroom methods you currently use to support your student learning outcomes

• Evidence that these methods either are or are not effective in supporting the student learning outcomes.  This evidence could many different things, including test scores, projects, anecdotal or quantitative evidence of student retention of the material, faculty fatigue from excessive grading, and more.

• Three or more active learning strategies you would like to try in your classroom that align with your student learning outcomes, with brief evidence from the literature that they could help you to achieve your course goals.

• A timeline and approach for implementation of these strategies in your course, such as how often you plan to implement the strategies, student work you will collect, approach in and/or out of the classroom, etc.

You will also be asked to select a term for implementation (Fall 2024 or Spring 2025) and approximate dates that you would like to schedule the COPUS and SFF observations.