Implementing Integrated Comprehensive Student Programs in STEM: Challenges and Facilitators from the CSU STEM Collaboratives
Elizabeth Holcombe, Indiana University-Bloomington
In my last post, I described the benefits of integrated support programs for underrepresented students in STEM. These integrated programs bridge organizational silos and build a unified community of support, in which faculty and staff work together to break down barriers to student success. The campuses that participated in the CSU STEM Collaboratives project saw increased student success and other organizational benefits as a result of creating integrated programs. While integration across functional areas represents a promising strategy for supporting student success, it represents a new way of working in higher education. Implementing integrated programs presents some unique challenges that may not be evident when implementing other types of interventions. In this post, I will briefly discuss a few of these challenges, as well as some strategies that STEM Collaboratives campuses used to overcome them.

Turning on the Thrive Channel to Accelerate Change in Higher Education
Susan Elrod, Indiana University-South Bend; Lorne Whitehead, University of British Columbia
Conversations about "institutional change" in higher education have become pervasive. This is probably because colleges and universities are under tremendous pressure - to graduate more students, to improve success of underrepresented minority students, to reduce costs, and to expand the benefits they provide to our society. Many state systems are engaged in developing performance-based funding metrics that are intended to promote achievement of specified goals. Others are engaged in major reorganizations that are merging or possibly eliminating campuses in service of larger goals that are important to the state, such as enhanced transfer, graduation or fiscal efficiency. This seems scary, but at the heart of all of this is a sound idea - since our society has a long history of improvement and undoubtedly there are still more improvements to make. And to do that, organizations must be adaptable; they must make changes for the better. Why then, is this so concerning for so many? A key challenge is that achieving change in any organization is hard. It is complicated. It involves many levels of the organization. It is motivated by a variety of purposes. It is challenged by competing agendas. It is frequently stalled by a variety of obstacles. Further, positive change requires a vision, strategy, and tactics. But most importantly, it requires effective change leadership. What does that actually entail?

Promoting Evidence-based Change in Undergraduate Science Education
Promoting Evidence-based Change in Undergraduate Science Education Drawing on the literature on organizational change, the paper uses a systems approach to identify and understand barriers to change in STEM ...

TIDES Program at University of Texas
× TIDES Program at University of Texas The Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science (TIDES) in the College of Natural Sciences aims to catalyze, support, and showcase innovative, evidence-based ...

Discipline-Based Education Research
This summarizes foundational knowledge in Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) for improving student learning outcomes.

Do We Have the Courage for Systemic Change?
Jeanne Century University of Chicago Jeanne Century
In 1994, I was a graduate student. It was the onset of the "systemic change" era. Funders, professional organizations and education leaders alike were painting a picture of a new "paradigm"; a shift away from what was framed as a traditional conception of reform — individual programmatic efforts— to a more comprehensive, integrated, "systemic" approach (Fuhrman & Massell, 1992; St. John, 1993). As I wrote then, "this new language of reform is exciting; conjuring up images of a revolution in education that may finally have the strength to cure the ills of the weakened competitive spirit and "mediocrity," of our "nation at risk" of the last decade..." Twenty-three years later, as a member of Working Group One, I was asked to respond to the following prompt: What does systemic change mean to you? As I mulled this over, I reflected on all of the literature I had reviewed

Change theory and theory of change: what's the difference anyway?
Daniel L. Reinholz; and Tessa C. Andrews
This essay describes the connections between a theory of change and change theory and provides examples of how change theory can inform a project's theory of change.

Funding Educational Change Projects: A Panel Discussion at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference
Kate White, Temple University
The panel on funding at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference featured two representatives from funding agencies: David Asai (Senior Director for Science Education, HHMI) and Andrea Nixon (Program Director, Division of Undergraduate Education and Co-Lead, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program, NSF). Gita Bangera (Bellevue College, moderator) introduced our panelists, who started by discussing current initiatives at HHMI and NSF. David Asai presented HHMI's new competition in the Inclusive excellence initiative; Andrea Nixon discussed NSF's programs in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR Core Research and Building Capacity in STEM Educational Research/BCSER) and their new solicitation for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grants in the Institutional and Community Transformation Track. Our panelists answered audience questions and we share some of their responses below.

Work organization and ergonomics
Work organization and ergonomics Carayon & Smith. Paper from field of systems engineering and ergonomics that describes theory of Work Systems and applied methods for understanding socio-technical aspects of ...

Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics
Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics Web portal for economists that provides access to a variety of evidence-based teaching practices. Suggested Citation Science Education Resource Center. (2016, ...