In 2005, the Science Education Initiative (SEI) at the University of Colorado was launched as a 5 million-dollar, university-funded project to support departments in improving science education (http://www.colorado.edu/sei). The SEI has funded work across 7 STEM departments and dozens of courses to institute a scientific approach to educational reform driven by three questions: What should students learn? What are students learning? Which instructional approaches improve student learning? The SEI is structured with a small team of central staff, and a cohort of Science Teaching Fellows – postdocs, hired into individual departments, who partner with faculty to identify learning goals, develop instructional materials, and research student learning. Key elements of the program are its departmental focus and bottom-up structure. As the SEI draws to a close, we have an opportunity to reflect upon the impacts of the program. This talk will highlight the outcomes of the SEI model, including both affordances, and lessons learned.

1. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
Eight Years of
Change:
Outcomes from the
Science Education
Initiative
Stephanie V. Chasteen1
Associate Director of the SEI,
Katherine Perkins1,
Danny Caballero2,
Carl Wieman3
1University of Colorado,
2Michigan State University,
3Stanford University

2. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
An experiment in change
$5M university-funded program
across 7 STEM departments;
sister program at U. British
Columbia
Focus on department as unit of
change
Competitive grant program
Funding used to hire postdoctoral
Science Teaching Fellows
(STFs)
PhD in discipline
Role as researcher, coach, and
Is it possible to scale up the use of research-based
techniques so they become the norm?

3. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
Course development model
Post-docs and Faculty
Begin with
learning goals
Efficiency
model;
typically
impact large
intro courses
first

4. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
Broad impact… faculty, courses,
students
135 faculty have modified their teaching (~50% )
93 adding clickers, 93 other forms of interactive engagement
Average of 62% of teaching faculty use STF as a resource in a
dept.
92 courses impacted, ~$145K per course
Most commonly used*: Clickers, HW, tutorials, learning goals
In physics: Only one core majors’ course untouched
~ 20,000 students/year in impacted courses
In physics; 92% of majors service load affected
Demonstrated learning gains
* In physics Preliminary results; more detail in coming months

5. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
Success, with caveats
Degree and type of success
depends on:
Selection of appropriate STF
Departmental leadership and culture of
teaching
Selection of teaching faculty
Degree of faculty rotation among
courses
Institutional commitment
Departmental focus plus STF support leads to
substantial and long-lasting change

6. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
Lessons learned
Lack of institutional incentives for teaching is a barrier
to faculty engagement
Lack of departmental ownership and accountability
is problematic; “We can’t tell our faculty how to teach.”
Money helps! Allows for faculty incentives as well as
STF time-on-task.
Where to start? It may be ill-advised to start with
development of learning goals, and introductory courses
Faculty may be more motivated by early, small,
impactful interventions creating noticeable student
engagement

7. Chasteen - Science Education Initiative at CU (http://colorado.edu/sei)
SEI Administrative oversight
is important
Clear expectations of STFs: Who do they work for,
and what are their responsibilities?
Quality training of STFs, and community building
Clear expectations of departments
Required deliverables and commitments in proposal process
Tangible, “painful” consequences: What will happen if you
don’t follow through?
Thank you!
Stephanie.Chasteen@Colorado.Edu
http://colorado.edu/seiStay tuned for upcoming
papers on these results