Consortium for the Transformation of Undergraduate STEM Education at the University of Washington

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The project will develop an internal Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate STEM Education (CAUSE) to measure changes in faculty practice, culture, and student learning at the University of Washington. It involves a detailed plan to implement a theory-based approach to transform the culture of undergraduate teaching. The goal is to achieve a critical mass of faculty (25-50%) across seven departments that have the largest undergraduate enrollments. Six of these departments are within STEM. The project is being conducted in a university environment that is increasingly conducive to the mission of this project. There are four elements in place that are critical or valuable for transforming the culture of undergraduate teaching: 1) committed senior leadership, 2) major investments in new active-learning classroom spaces, 3) active discipline-based education research groups (four) along with an interdisciplinary consortium active in education research, and 4) a pilot faculty development network that has already engaged 36 faculty representing 20 different units. This project will focus on expanding the faculty development network with extensive training activities and create change groups in each of the seven core departments that are designed to grow each year. These departments are: Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Psychology, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Public Health. The merit of this project lies in several areas. First, it adds another institution to the small but growing set of others supported by NSF in the last two years that are focused on creating institutional transformation through departmental change groups supported by education experts. Second, the basic project goal is straightforward, namely, adding three new faculty to the core reform group in each department during each year of this 3-year project. Third, the core group and the departmental leaders have the faculty status of "Lecturer" because these faculty are where the teaching expertise for introductory courses is centered. However, during the expansion period of this project, faculty of other types will be recruited and added to the core departmental groups. This project is an applied research project to investigate whether the theory of change underlying this transformation effort works as expected.