New CIRTL Center to Better Prepare Future Faculty

WCER and the UW-Madison will become a working laboratory for helping graduate students and faculty develop teaching skills that are a match for their skills in the lab, with the help of a five-year $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The mission of the new Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) is to develop "a national science, engineering and mathematics faculty with teaching skills that will enable all college students to be scientifically literate, and which will promote a public better prepared to live in a high-tech world," says Robert Mathieu, a professor of astronomy and the principal investigator of the new initiative.

A key goal of CIRTL is to help ensure that math and science are taught well not only to the select few undergraduates who go on to advanced degrees and careers in the sciences, but also to those students who will encounter only a minimum of science and math coursework.

WCER Director Andrew Porter says, "We want all students to profit from improved instruction in undergraduate math and science, not just those pursuing a major. We know that students of color and women, for example, are less likely to take math and science courses as undergraduates. Even when they do, they are less likely to pursue further study in those disciplines. CIRTL will research and implement ways to modify teaching approaches to serve a variety of learning styles, and thereby enhance success in science courses for diverse audiences."

CIRTL is a partnership of UW-Madison with Michigan State and Penn State universities.