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Supporting Students > Learning Communities

2023 Transforming Institutions Conference Takeaways


Posted: Aug 15 2023 by

Casey Wright
Western Michigan University
Casey Wright, Western Michigan University

Change Topics (Working Groups): Communication, Assessment, Change Leaders, Guiding Theories, Policy, Costs and Benefits, Faculty Evaluation, Equity and Inclusion
Target Audience: Graduate Students, Post-doctoral Fellows, College/University Staff, Teaching/Learning Assistants, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Institution Administration
Program Components: Professional Development:Diversity/Inclusion, Institutional Systems:Incentive/Reward Systems, Supporting Students:Learning Communities, Professional Development:Accessibility, Supporting Students:Student Engagement, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching

The 2023 Transforming Institutions Conference was held June 12-13, 2023, in Minneapolis, MN. With this most recent convening, we are proud to have brought together change researchers and change agents for 12 years. The meeting was made possible by the efforts of a conference planning committee consisting of 10 change agents convened by NSEC (Network of STEM Education Centers) and ASCN (Accelerating Systemic Change Network), supported by 40 reviewers from the systemic change community. Now that the dust has settled, we would like to share some key takeaways, attendee feedback, and future conference plans to continue to build momentum for our community to thrive with change. More

What is systemic change?


Posted: Mar 9 2017 by
Charles Henderson
Western Michigan University
Charles Henderson
Change Topics (Working Groups): Guiding Theories
Target Audience: Institution Administration, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty
Program Components: Supporting Students:Learning Communities

"Systems are perfectly designed to achieve the results that they are achieving right now."1 Higher education organizations are complex systems with many interacting subsystems. In order to create sustainable change, it is necessary to understand and align these subsystems. Subsystems include the faculty reward system, the higher education funding system that is based on student enrollment, the organization of universities into academic departments, the tradition of faculty autonomy over instruction, the metrics used to judge student performance (grades vs. learning), etc. Many change initiatives fail because they focus on only one subsystem without considering how this subsystem interacts with other subsystems. For example, in STEM it is common for education reformers to work to convince individual instructors about the benefits of active learning (that is, to change the instructor-student-instructional method subsystem). Research suggests that many instructors are receptive to this message and are interested in using more active learning strategies. More

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