WIDER: EAGER - Catalyzing Wide Scale Innovation: Creating the Conditions for Viral Transformation

California Polytechnic State University Foundation, San Luis Obispo CA

Investigators

Abstract

The project has the potential to reveal an alternative model for achieving systemic change in teaching and learning practices in STEM higher education. It draws upon systems theory and organizational behavior research to identify high-leverage catalytic interventions that are designed to cooperatively, compassionately, and responsibly disrupt the systemic structure and habits of thought that have left the teaching practices of many instructors mired in tradition. Despite evidence that suggests greater effectiveness of alternatives, such as evidence-based teaching practices, many STEM instructors persist in applying traditional ways of teaching and learning such as lectures. This project is complementing the traditional approach to STEM instructional change, which focuses on developing and disseminating new materials or methods that are expected to create systemic change through diffusion and adoption. As an alternative to this approach, this project is seeking to prove that institutions of higher education can intentionally undergo a benevolent, spontaneous, epidemic change toward cultures of transformational teaching and learning innovation. Evidence of reaching the postulated institutional 'tipping point' is expected to be early signs of wide-spread transformative teaching and learning, which is being collected, analyzed, and published for public access on YouTube.