Facilitating Improvement in Undergraduate STEM Instruction: Providing A Research-Based Foundation for the Emerging Class of Change Initiatives Involving Teams

We are conducting a national study of team-based approaches to instructional change in postsecondary STEM education. Our goals are to understand the prevalence and diversity of these team-based change efforts, and to identify characteristics that may contribute to their successes and limitations. This information can help to inform the design of future, team-based instructional change efforts and provide insights that can strengthen exisiting efforts.

We are asking for help from the community in identifying projects that are of interest for our work. These projects would (1) be focused on improving undergraduate STEM instruction at a U.S. institution and (2) use an approach that centrally involves one or more teams (beyond the project leadership team). We consider a team to be a group of people who are working to create a shared outcome, i.e., an outcome that results from the joint contributions of team members, such as a model for a course or program, a policy recommendation, or a strategic plan.

If you know of any relevant projects or are involved in one yourself, please add the information that you know about to this spreadsheet. If you are uncertain about whether a particular project fits these criteria, we encourage you to add it to our list at this point. 

Please feel free to email Alice Olmstead (alice.olmstead@wmich.edu) if you have any questions or suggestions.

This project is funded by NSF No. 152539 as "Facilitating Improvement in Undergraduate STEM Instruction: Providing A Research-Based Foundation for the Emerging Class of Change Initiatives Involving Teams.” A $467,684 award was received for the period Jan. 1, 2016, to June 30, 2018.

Team members

  • Andrea Beach, Western Michigan University
  • Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University
  • Alice Olmstead, Western Michigan University