Director’s Report Read the full annual report 2017-2018
2017-2018 Reflections, Highlights, and Directions
My second year of supporting and directing the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching has been notable for the new partnerships and collaborations that have led to new achievements and innovations with impacts at Northwestern, across the nation, and internationally. We have expanded our core resources with a new Assistant Director for Diversity and Inclusion, who is supporting existing and launching new diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and a new Assistant Director for the Center for the Integration of Research, Learning and Teaching (CIRTL) at Northwestern, who is growing professional development for STEM PhD students and postdocs, preparing them to be future faculty as well as succeed in non-academic career pathways. We have provided important support to successful interdisciplinary center grants, training programs, educational research projects, and graduate diversity fellowships. And we have led three newly awarded, multi-institutional NSF-funded projects, one large NIH project, and numerous smaller awards.
The Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching is a research–practice partnership. We ground all our work in research, design and build projects from a foundation of evidence, and infuse research, assessment and evaluation in every program in order to learn, improve, and maximize the impact of our work. This research-practice partnership has become more fully developed over the past few years with the ten-fold expansion of grant-funded scholarly work and its integration into the central mission and vision of the Searle Center. We are now in a position to, for example, test large-scale models across nine universities to improve the inclusivity of research environments in STEM disciplines. This research informs our work with departments, The Graduate School, and other units at Northwestern.
Our leadership in a new, national effort to develop inclusive teaching pedagogical preparation for current and future faculty aligns with our work in Searle’s Faculty Initiatives, in our diversity, equity and inclusion work, and in academic support of all Northwestern students.
Founded in 1992, Searle is one of the oldest centers of learning and teaching in the US and considered in the top few in terms of research-based practice and knowledge-generating scholarship. We create new knowledge in our fields, partner with experts, and explore new ideas and approaches. This scholarship and innovation requires funding, and the Searle Center has been very active and successful over the past two years. This year, we worked on 49 proposals, worth more than $100m, with more than 100 collaborators all across Northwestern, the United States, and abroad. About 50% were funded, for ~$40m, with a number still pending. Searle led and won four major awards and is partnering in several others for a total of $3.4m in new funding. Our major projects expand work in inclusive teaching pedagogy, access to and success in higher education for traditional underrepresented groups, supporting interdisciplinarity and collaboration at the nexus of math and biology, and a new national effort to support postdoctoral fellows with a comprehensive digital professional development program, called the Postdoc Academy.
This year has also been notable in advancing the success of all Northwestern students and faculty. We launched the new Academic Success and Learning Advancement (ASLA) unit, relocating the unit to the 2-North wing of the University Library. ASLA is the cornerstone of the new Academic Resource Center, which will partner across the University to consolidate a central resource around academic learning and success. ASLA supported more than 2000 Northwestern undergraduates this year in peer-guided study groups, academic mentoring and coaching, and drop-in tutoring. Our research demonstrates that students in peer-guided study groups do significantly better than a matched cohort, especially students who are less prepared, underrepresented and/or from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, reflecting Searle’s research-practice partnership model, we competed for and were awarded an NSF grant to host a conference at Northwestern bringing together researchers and practitioners to develop a national research agenda for student academic support, helping to provide an evidence-base for how all universities support student success.
This year, more than 500 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows engaged in programs that include a yearlong, peer-led Teaching Certificate Program, Graduate Teaching Fellows with projects in their departments, Mentored Discussions of Teaching, a Teaching-as-Research seminar, a STEM teaching MOOC with in-person learning communities, and numerous workshops. Our research on the higher engagement programs shows gains in cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. We presented our work with on Generating Reflective Teaching Statements Through Generative Knowledge Interviews at a national conference.
The Searle Fellows program, the center’s flagship faculty development program, this year reached 268 tenure line and clinical faculty alumni, and is the most studied in the nation, yielding more than ten scholarly publications in its history. We are studying the widely acclaimed McCormick and University Teaching awards that have been bestowed on more than 100 Northwestern faculty over the past 25 years, asking about the impact of recognition on their teaching practice, philosophy and advocacy. We presented our work on Asking Questions About Learning: Taking a Scholarly Approach to Teaching at a national conference.
We are fulfilling our mission to advance learning in higher education. We partner across Northwestern and the broader academic community to catalyze and sustain change that supports learning at all levels, for all learners. We collaborate with everyone in this enterprise: faculty, postdocs, graduate students and teaching assistants, undergraduates and undergraduate peer mentors, and administrators. The Center plays a leading role in national and international scholarship, as well as engaging in conversations and collaborations with those who study and promote learning in higher education.
Internationally, our work has been recognized for the impact we have had in advancing learning and teaching in Palestine, developing and implementing models of faculty and student development in evidence-based learning and teaching at universities in Nablus, Hebron, and Tulkarm. We are partnering with the Segal Design Institute to implement information technology and engineering project-based learning at An-Najah University (ANU) in Palestine, and we hosted six exceptional ANU students involved in this work. Our work in promoting and assessing critical thinking in many environments, including with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, was rewarded with a plenary lecture at an international conference on non-formal education at the American University of Beirut.Sharing has occurred across a broad set of university-wide initiatives and programs in learning and teaching. The Searle Center led the Assessment and Accreditation Council this year, formally taking over from the Provost’s Office. We expanded membership to all schools, developed a new set of tasks focusing on advancing the culture and practice of assessment as well as building institutional infrastructure to capture the great work being done by faculty and departments. We held the 5th Learning and Teaching Assessment Forum, keynoted by Provost Jonathan Holloway, and featuring workshops, learning, and advancing steps to practice.
Conversations in the space of digital learning and learning with technology have become regular, richer, and more directed between Searle, NUIT, and the Provost’s Office. This has led to the reinvention and reformation of leadership, synthesis and advice to the University. In the coming year, a new committee will be formed, the Learning and Technology Ecosystem Advisory Council which will bring together expertise, feedback, and voices from across the institution around learning and technology. This new structure will impact learning spaces, learning and technology in-person and online, and support innovation and capacity building in many units.
Partnering with the Registrar, the Searle Center co-developed a process for re-imagining student evaluation of instruction – CTECs – at Northwestern. This is a major undertaking with the power to transform how students observe and respond to faculty instructional practice, how administrators use student evaluation in merit, tenure and promotions, and how students speak to each other about the value of learning. This also has the power to encourage teaching innovation, expand the ways faculty are valued for their work, and advance the culture of learner-centered teaching at Northwestern.
As part of this effort, the Searle Center will also lead a campus-wide discussion to help delineate the characteristics of excellent teaching so as to lay a foundation for its evaluation.
Our central mission to advance learning and teaching will be best achieved through three avenues: Direct engagements with faculty, graduate students, postdocs and undergraduates; infusing research- based practice across the fabric of the university in a large array of partnerships; and advancing scholarship and innovation in collaboration with partners nationally and internationally. As the needs and demands of our students and other stakeholders change, we will reach and serve a wider range of participants with new programs. Similarly, our partnerships and collaborations support the deepening thoughtfulness and practices around learning and teaching, assessment and evaluation, and knowledge and scholarship in support of learning.
One particular area of growth this past year deserves special mention: Searle’s work to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. While always a central principle and practice through all our work at Searle, we have significantly expanded this important work. The arrival of Omari Keeles, the new Assistant Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Searle expands our expertise and resources to work with faculty across many areas. We highlighted inclusive teaching practice at Northwestern to more than 100 faculty and staff at the second annual Inclusive Teaching Forum, keynoted by Frank Tuitt, Professor of Education and Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost on Inclusive Excellence. We spearheaded more than half a dozen proposals around inclusion in higher education, and were successful on a broad scale: We lead a new NSF program on developing and delivering across the country pedagogical preparation for current and future faculty in inclusive teaching; we are partners in a new national program, ASPIRE, to advance access to and success in higher education of traditional underrepresented groups; we are continuing and expanding our work with SIREN, Supporting Inclusive Research Environments at Northwestern, and many more.
The Searle Center is well positioned to achieve expansion of both direct programs and building capacity through partnerships. In particular, the Directors Nancy Ruggeri in Graduate and Postdoctoral Learning, Marina Micari in Academic Support & Learning Advancement, Susanna Calkins in Faculty Initiatives and Denise Drane in Research and Evaluation are nationally recognized experts from whom I learn every day. They lead in directing programming at Northwestern and lead in national and international projects and programs, and together we create and co-lead in broader initiatives across the university and beyond.
Finally, Northwestern is a remarkable place for learning and teaching. Faculty and students, administration and staff— all share a vision for the success of every student. We are all dedicated to this vision, and I am proud to lead the Searle Center that sits at the heart of working to achieve it.
Bennett Goldberg, Ph.D.
Director, Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching
Assistant Provost for Learning and Teaching
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Northwestern University
