The the Center for Learning Analytics and Student Success (CLASS), in conjunction with the Bay View Alliance (BVA), hosted more than 30 individuals from 12 institutions over three days to share research and discuss teaching and learning in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines in higher education.
The BVA steering committee met with the goal of improving ties among member institutions and to determine better strategies to help colleges and universities adopt evidence-based teaching practices. Research shows students who participate in active learning classrooms see greater success in their college courses. The broader goal of the BVA is to change the culture on college campuses to one that supports instructional practices that align best with how students learn.
“Indiana University has been a crucial partner in the Bay View Alliance,” said Lorne Whitehead, program director of the BVA. “It has been an innovator in undergraduate education and has provided intellectual leadership as we have sought new ways to improve teaching and learning.”
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Dennis Groth, along with George Rehrey of CLASS and Linda Shepard of Bloomington Assessment and Research (BAR) helped organize the meeting and represented IU on the steering committee. Groth led a session on the challenges institutions will face over the next decade as the number of high school graduates declines. Rehrey and Shepard provided updates on learning analytics projects for BVA members. Jennifer Meta Robinson (Anthropology), a Student Learning Analytics Fellow in CLASS, shared insights on the phenomenon she calls “grade surprise,” the disconnect between grades students receive, their expectations for that assignment, and how they cope with those differences.
Over the last few years, the BVA has taken up a variety of initiatives and projects in an effort to reshape and improve undergraduate education. IU Bloomington has assisted in this effort by helping faculty members on campus use university data to learn about student learning and teaching practices.
The National Science Foundation has funded two related initiatives also supported by the BVA. Transforming Higher Education – Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching (TEval) seeks to transform teaching evaluations at universities. Transforming Education, Stimulating Teaching and Learning Excellence (TRESTLE) studies models for improving STEM education at public research universities. Twelve faculty members from IU Bloomington’s Computer Science Program have been involved in the TRESTLE project to date.
For more information, please contact George Rehrey at grehrey@indiana.edu.
About Bay View Alliance:
The Bay View Alliance (BVA) is an international network of research that aims to identify and evaluate leadership strategies for cultural change to support and sustain the widespread adoption of instructional methods leading to better student learning.
For more information on TRESTLE, visit: https://trestlenetwork.ku.edu/
For more information on TEval, visit: https://teval.net/