Modernized teaching methods result in more highly engaged students who earn higher end-of-course final grades. But faculty need time and departmental support to sustain the transformation of courses they teach, according to active learning advocates including Gary Bertoline, dean of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute.
Providing stipends to faculty to sign up for Purdue University’s IMPACT training is one way to generate and maintain interest. “It’s unreasonable to expect faculty to do significant changes in their classroom if you as a university or a department or a college are not willing to invest in them,” said Bertoline.
IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue’s Academic Course Transformation), a training program offered by the Center for Instructional Excellence, Teaching and Learning Technologies, and Purdue Libraries, provides faculty with tools and techniques to build more-active and engaged classrooms.
The training helped many Polytechnic faculty as the college focused on adding more active learning, interdisciplinary coursework, innovation and critical thinking to its curricula during its years-long, ongoing transformation, Bertoline said.
Read the full article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Additional information:
How Purdue professors are building more active and engaged classrooms (The Chronicle of Higher Education)