Online Tool Offers a New Angle on Student Evaluations

Bob Mathieu, CIRTL's Principal Investigator, presented a research-based viewpoint on the relevance of student evaluations on the evening of Sept. 17 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Delta Program’s Roundtable.

Mathieu worked together with educational researcher Elaine Seymour and others to develop an online tool called the Student Assessment of Learning Gains, or SALG. The SALG was designed to encourage universities to assess how effectively their students learned rather than assessing how their faculty performed in class.

"How well the professor did is quite irrelevant," Mathieu said. He said Seymour observed that typical student evaluation questions (i.e., "Did you like this course?") don't indicate whether students are learning – or what teaching methods are most effective. "Most of the questions are about the professor. Read more...

STEM Education Scholars Program Motivates New Faculty to Restructure Courses

Future faculty and new faculty reshaped their teaching goals at the STEM Education Scholars Program on June 2-4 at Vanderbilt University. The facilitators modeled effective methods of course design, evaluation and assessment. The group also discussed how to use technology to streamline teaching activities. Read more...

Upcoming CIRTL Course Raises Unusual Questions about Science Education

Common lecturing practices can lead to misunderstandings that undermine universities' goal of promoting science literacy. In Fall 2008, the CIRTL Network will offer an interdisciplinary online course, "Teaching and Learning Science: Changing Student Misconceptions," that will train graduate students to detect what undergraduates are really learning - and where their conceptual errors lie. Read more...

Introducing the CIRTL Guidebook Collection:
Offering Faculty the Tools to put the CIRTL Pillars into Practice
Creating A Collaborative Learning Environment guidebook

The CIRTL Guidebook Collection is now available online, and features eight versatile course guidebooks: Expeditions in Learning guidebook, Instructional Materials Development Course guidebook, The College Classroom Course guidebook, Informal Science Education for Scientists: A Practicum guidebook, Effective Teaching with Technology guidebook, Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment guidebook, the Internship Program guidebook, and the Diversity in the College Classroom guidebook. These eight guidebooks stem from the work of a community of research-active faculty, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and academic staff in the STEM disciplines. Guidebook users benefit from the CIRTL research, implementation, and evaluation of the various courses used to develop the guidebooks. The guidebooks are designed to introduce faculty members to the Delta courses and programs and provide a time-saving way for them to offer similar courses in their departments or at their universities. Read more...

Visit the Guidebooks page to download the guidebooks.

CIRTL Diversity Resources Now Available

The CIRTL Diversity Institute brought together a critical mass of scholars (“CIRTL Scholars”) to produce materials and resources that will reform STEM higher education based on the idea that STEM students' learning is enhanced when classes, laboratories, and discussion sections foster engagement of all students irrespective of race, gender, or socioeconomic background. The objective of the Diversity Institute was to create and disseminate a resource base that will enable faculty and future faculty to enhance diversity in STEM fields by creating inclusive classrooms. These resources are now available on the Diversity Resources web site.

Visit the Diversity Resources website for more information.

Resources: