The Bridging to STEM Excellence Consortium Program

The "Bridging to STEM Excellence" project (BTSE) aims to accelerate changes in teaching through formation of a consortium of national professional development organizations. The BTSE consortium organizations are filling a needed gap by integrating their respective strategies that support faculty members and encourage broader use of evidence-based practices by institutions, departments, and programs. Our goal is to accelerate STEM education improvement in higher education and to understand how integrating disciplinary and institutional approaches can provide holistic support for faculty as scientists and educators. By coordinating a group of professional development organizations (BioQuest at QUBES, Traveling workshop from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the POGIL project, the SENCER program and the National Institute on Scientific Teaching) to work together as consultants across all programs, we increase the breadth of knowledge of each consortium member. This allows for consultations that can plan and design a bespoke professional development plan that is hand-picked for an institution's unique circumstances. This approach best serves institutions that have an idea of the issues at hand but do not have a directed course of action toward addressing those issues. Building on the success of this initial effort, the long-term vision for BTSE is to effect positive change through outcomes at three levels: Faculty outcomes in increased adoption of evidence based teaching practices, Institutional outcomes in policy adoption that incentivizes and rewards impactful practices in STEM courses and Student outcomes in increased student retention and success in STEM. Examples from five pilot consultancies (Bakersfield College, CSU-Chico, Georgia State University, Ohio State University and University of Richmond) led to the development and testing of a consultancy playbook and successful practices for institutional visits. More information is available on the project website https://serc.carleton.edu/215750.