Investigators: Joel C. Corbo, Noah Finkelstein, Mark Gammon, Gina Quan, Sarah Wise; Collaborators: Karen Falkenberg, Courtney Ngai, Mary Pilgrim (Colorado State University); Daniel Reinholz (SDSU); Andrea Beach and Jaclyn Rivard (Western Michigan University)
A DAT is a departmentally-based working group of about 4 to 8 faculty, staff, and/or students that work on a cross-cutting educational issue over one or two years, with the support of outside facilitators and the sanction of the department chair. DAT participants choose their focus by developing a vision for undergraduate education in their department; example foci include curricular/instructional revision and alignment, improving equity and diversity, and enhancing community among faculty, students, and staff. DATs both implement change and focus on creating lasting structures (e.g., committees, positions, policies) that can continue their work over time (rather than viewing change as a one-time 鈥渇ix鈥�). DATs maintain transparency by sharing information with and making recommendations for change to the chair, appropriate departmental committees, and the department as a whole. Pilot DATs at 澳门开奖结果2023开奖记录 initiated a variety of structural changes within their departments, including the allocation of several instructor course equivalents to serve as curriculum coordinators; the formation of a standing committee focused on student diversity, retention, and recruitment; and the restructuring of a course sequence to better support majors transitioning to upper division.
The current DAT project focuses on facilitating and studying new DATs at CU and at CSU to to develop: (1) a process for enculturating DAT facilitators and institutionalizing DATs in campus Teaching and Learning Centers (TLCs), (2) theory of how DATs operate in different contexts, and (3) cultural and structural change metrics.
Concept questions (based on Peer Instruction at Harvard) are being used in many introductory lectures, often with the "hyperactive interaction" student response system (infrared clickers). We have if you're interested in trying it out. We have also started to compile some of concept tests for the benefit of instructors who want to begin doing this themselves.
We have a Help Room staffed 9-5 every weekday, where TA's and professors听in the introductory courses hold their office hours. It has been extraordinarily popular, we sometimes struggle with staffing especially on the busy days when homeworks are due.