From Grassroots to
Institutionalization: RIT’s CASTLE
Themes in CASTLE development
• Organic/emergent
• Partnership between administration and faculty
• Broad: spans departments, disciplines, activity types
• Focused: strategic growth
Institutional Context
• RIT: comprehensive institution, strong emphasis on
undergraduate education
• College of Science: 170+ faculty in departments of
chemistry, biology, physics and math
• Institute transitioning from teaching only to requiring
prominence in scholarship for tenure & promotion
Meet Dina Newman, 2010
• Hired as research scientist, now tenuretrack in Biology (Human Genetics)
• Strong interest in teaching &
undergraduate education
• New Institute T&P policies emphasized
scholarship, colleagues at UR & NTID
abruptly left
• Very competitive research area + lack of institutional
resources + de-emphasis of teaching
Faculty + Administration = ?
• Faculty: unhappy with current situation, motivated
to change
• Administration: saw change — education research
— as aligning w/Institute policy
Dean encouraged Dina to contact physics
education research faculty about changing
scholarship focus.
Outside-in Change
Reinholz et al., Towards a Model of Systemic Change in University
STEM Education. (2014)
Timeline
April 2010
Dean meets
w/Bio faculty,
suggests DBER
focus
2010
June 2011
Faculty win NSF
Noyce award to
fund LA program
2011
2012
June 2010
Sep 2011
5 Faculty
First SMERC BER
propose, Dean paper published
funds, SMERC,
Apr 2013
VPR advances
$100K to CASTLE
2013
Oct 2012
Dean suggests
STEM Educ.
Center
Apr 2014
Faculty win two NSF
IUSE, one ECR and a
DBER REU award
($1.3M total)
2014
Sep 2013
Faculty win NSF
STEP grant
($900K).
Physics dept. hires
PER faculty.
SMERC Proposal
Science & Math Education
Research Collaborative (SMERC)
Faculty Actions
1. Created journal club
2. Initiated DBER research
projects
3. Traveled to DBER
conferences
Administrative actions
1. Endorsed DBER for
tenure and promotion
2. Financial resources for
travel, external seminar
speaker & equipment
3. Space (lab, meetings,…)
Framing
• Concerted effort to establish appropriate language to
describe group activities: discipline-based education
research as Scholarship of Discovery (not pedagogy)
• Rigor: Internal study ranked peer-reviewed journals in
DBER by impact factor
• External speakers meet w/Dean, School Heads, Provost
to discuss DBER national trend, alignment w/SMERC
A new type of Champion
Middle-out
• champion implements and advocates for change
• convinces departmental peers
• established mechanisms for communication &
decision-making (faculty meetings, committees)
Outside-in
• champion responsible for maintaining regular
communication between faculty & administration
• no established mechanisms
COS strategic plan: SMERC
an “Emerging Area”
STEM Education Center: SMERC will evolve into an
Institute-wide center, promoting innovation in STEM
education through discipline-based education research,
student-centered curricular reform, rigorous assessment,
and focused professional development. SMERC will
facilitate change in STEM education by:
• Conducting rigorous discipline-based education
research, involving undergraduate and graduate
students, to study issues involving postsecondary
student performance within a scientific discipline.
Timeline
April 2010
June 2011
Dean meets w/Bio Faculty win NSF
faculty, suggests Noyce award to
DBER focus
fund LA program
2010
2011
2012
Sep 2011
June 2010
Faculty propose, First SMERC BER
Dean funds, SMERC paper published
Apr 2014
Faculty win two NSF
Apr 2013
VPR advances IUSE, one ECR and a
$100K to CASTLE DBER REU award
($1.3M total)
2013
2014
Sep 2013
Oct 2012
Faculty win NSF STEP
Dean suggests
grant ($900K).
STEM Educ. Center
Physics dept. hires
PER faculty.
College Education Initiatives
• SMERC
• Women in Science Summer Math “SMASH” Experience
for 8th grade girls
• Learning Assistant program to recruit secondary
education teachers, drive course transformation
• Faculty-led curriculum development projects
• IMPRESS: improve retention of deaf/hard-of-hearing &
1st-gen STEM majors
Center for Advancing Science/Math
Teaching, Learning & Evaluation (CASTLE)
Faculty Actions
1. reached out to
colleagues, identified
potential collaborations
2. Created bylaws, defined
mission, broad vision:
“dedicated to rigorous
scholarship in STEM
Teaching, Learning &
Evaluation”
Administrative actions
1. Encouraged (pushed?)
faculty to create Center
2. Vice-President of
Research advanced
$100K on expected F&A
(later forgiven)
Interface of Institutional Priorities
• Strategic priorities: student success, innovation,
diversity and faculty scholarship
• CASTLE emphasizes synergy between these priorities
• LAs help faculty transform classes, improve retention,
lead to new scholarship
• IMPRESS improves retention, spawns new research in
student metacognition
Sustainability & Synergies
Sustainability & Synergies
studentcentered
classes
Course
Transform
Learning Assistants (LAs)
LAs mediate student discourse to
facilitate learning in as small groups
LAs at RIT
• 2012: NSF Noyce Capacity Building grant
• 2012-2013: weekly faculty meetings to brainstorm
about LA usage
• 2013-2014
• Fall: 15 LAs, 8 faculty mentors
• Spring: 32 LAs, 15 faculty mentors
• 2014-2015: Institute funding for 51 LAs, targeting
high DWF-rate courses
Key LA experiences
Practice: LAs lead weekly learning
sessions of 6 to 20 students;
promote argumentation, discourse
Content: Weekly
planning sessions with
faculty member who is
teaching the course (2 to
10 LAs per faculty
member)
Pedagogy: LAs take a
weekly course in
science education
theory and practice
LA usage: Physics
Facilitate student discourse in
Workshop-style intro classes
LA usage: Math
Facilitate student discourse in small
groups in Flipped Classroom
LA usage: Chemistry
Process Oriented Guided Inquiry
Learning (POGIL) Exercises
LA usage: Genetics
C.R.E.A.T.E.
Fraction of Classes
Preliminary Results
25%
Traditional
20%
LA-supported
15%
10%
5%
0%
5%
15%
25%
35%
45%
Course DWF rate
• Eliminated “super-high” failure-rates
55%
65%
Individual Successes
50%
Course Avg.
Faculty + LA
DWF Rate
40%
Faculty Alone
30%
20%
10%
0%
Math 111
Math 211
Math 161
Biol 101
Integrating Metacognitive Practices &
Research to Ensure Student Success
STEM Talent Expansion Program
Metacognition: awareness of
one’s own knowledge
• How one learns
• Identity, culture, affect
• Self-assessment: how well one has learned
• Coherence of what is learned (from 1 domain to
another, e.g. math/physics to engineering)
• Lateral (concurrent)
• Longitudinal (past to present to future)
Overview
• Improve retention Deaf/HoH & 1st Gen STEM
majors through explicit metacognitive activities
• 2 week summer experience
• 1st year courses
• 2nd year Learning Assistant program
• Colleges of Science, Engineering, Computer
Science and Applied Science & Technology
• 105 applicants for summer experience (20
accepted), Fall courses
IMPRESS Activities
Morning: Investigating climate change
Afternoon: Reflection, journaling, metacognitive activities
Innovations/Emphases
• The Science of Climate Change
• Journal writing
• Quiet reflection
• New group metacognition activities
- Create a sign for metacognition
- Stereotypes
- What makes an expert?
- Mindset
- Self-assessment, unskilled/unaware
- Personal struggles (turning point in community)
Community
Student Feedback
• “Students LOVE IMPRESS. The extent to which they felt
they benefited from their participation was striking. ”
• “Striking was the mention of developing empathy and
understanding for others, listening skills and overcoming
discomfort interacting with students who are different.”
• “Hearing students were very excited by the presence of
deaf students and saw their inclusion as a strength.”
• “Deaf students appreciated the mix and did not want a
program where they were separate.”
Scholarship
• 3 publications in preparation w/collaborators from
Kansas State and DePaul universities
• Development of RIT’s IMPRESS
• Negotiation between DHH and hearing students in a
communal learning environment
• Expert-to-novice transition in metacognitive-rich
classrooms
• ACCESS Network: RIT, Berkeley, Colorado, Maryland,
Arizona State, Chicago State (Franklin & Ptak, NSF $356K)
Fall Metacognition Course
• STEM advisors placed targeted students (48)
• Tue/Thurs, 75 minutes, co-taught with Elizabeth Hane
(biology faculty)
• “Ethical perspectives” foundational course, satisfies
Institute general education requirement
• Designed to guide students to think metacognitively
about concurrent (introductory) STEM courses
Metacognitive Topics
• Mindset
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Self-assessment
• How People Learn: Experts and Novices
• How People Learn: Transfer
• Stereotype Threat
• Student-centered learning
• Diversity and Inclusivity in STEM
Course Readings
Class Topic
Readings
2
Mindset
Mindset (Dweck) Ch 1, 2
3
Bloom’s Taxonomy
4
Unskilled and Unaware
Biology in Bloom (Crowe, 08), Questions about
Questions (Allen 02)
Unskilled & Unaware (Kruger & Dunning, 99)
5
10
Self-efficacy & Concept
maps
Mindset
How Chronic Self-Views Influence (and Mislead) SelfAssessments (Critcher & Dunning, 2009)
Mindset (Dweck) Ch 3, 8
11
How People Learn - Intro
Learning: From Speculation to Science. HPL, Ch. 1
12
HPL: Experts vs. Novices
How Experts Differ from Novices. HPL, Ch. 2
13
HPL: Transfer
Learning and Transfer. HPL, Ch. 3 (Bransford, 2002)
14
Stereotype Threat
22
Learning Style
Preferences
Stereotype and Gender
Thin Ice: Stereotype Threat and Black College Students
(Steele, 1999), Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap
in College Science: Values Affirmation (Miyake, 2012)
Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style may not
help Students (Glenn 2009)
Of Geeks and Girls, Grossman 2009
23
Class environment
• Discussion-based
• Small-groups w/worksheets
• Class-wide, guided by faculty
• Free-ranging, very loosely guided by syllabus
Lateral Transfer Map
Qualitative Evaluation
Broad faculty participation
• LA program driving faculty affiliation
• Faculty network interested in student-centered pedagogies
• attracts “traditional” STEM faculty, raises Center profile
Federal Funding
• AY 2014: $2.4M in NSF Awards
$1.5M
$1.25M
$1M
$750K
$500K
$250K
$0K
2011
SMERC
created
2012
2013
2014
CASTLE
CASTLE
proposed
created
2015+
CASTLE org chart
Lessons learned
• Alignment of Institute & faculty goals enabled
collaboration outside the department
• Faculty passion combined with timely administrative
support — policy, financial & space — led to CASTLE
• Establishing bi-directional communication allowed
common language to develop, new role for Champion
• multi-disciplinary approach led to broad faculty network
http://www.rit.edu/cos/castle
http://www.rit.edu/cos/smerc
SMERC 2015
• Collaborative network
across Institute
• Strong tenure case
• HAPPY!