Director’s Report Read the full annual report 2016-2017
2016-2017 Reflections, Highlights, and Directions
My first year was spent exploring Northwestern, asking and learning about our students and faculty, how they learned and taught, experiencing the wonderful activities and programs, learning about the challenges as well as the amazing opportunities for advancing learning and teaching across the institution. On reflection at the end of my first year, four themes emerge: Searle’s mission and success in leading learning and teaching at Northwestern from a research-based perspective; Searle’s activities in convening and sharing; partnerships and collaborations; and innovation and opportunities.
The Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching is a Research–Practice Partnership. All of our programs across the wide range of faculty, postdoc, graduate student, and undergraduate student stakeholders are research-based and structured with assessment from the start, using data to improve every cycle. 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. More than 1900 Northwestern undergraduates participated this year in peer-guided study groups, academic mentoring and coaching, and drop-in tutoring. Our research demonstrates that students in these programs do significantly better than a matched cohort, especially students who are less prepared, underrepresented and/or from low socioeconomic backgrounds. 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. The Searle Fellows program, the center’s flagship faculty development program, this year reached 275 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 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.
Convening and sharing has occurred across a broad set of university-wide initiatives and programs in learning and teaching. New folks have come together in the space of assessment: The Searle Center’s bi-monthly Research and Evaluation Learning Community includes participants from Student Affairs, Provost Office, Office of Institutional Research, The Libraries, The Graduate School, Weinberg and Searle. Assessment discussions have occurred with Feinberg’s NU-ERA, connecting assessment across campuses; trainings have occurred with the Program in Public Health; and the Assessment and Accreditation Council now includes all schools who are exploring a new set of tasks to advance the culture and practice of assessment. Convening and 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. Conversations on large-scale data studies of student pathways, indicators of success, and learning analytics include the Searle Center, Transitions group, IT, Provost’s Office, OIR, schools and Student Affairs. Searle Faculty Initiatives created the Faculty Open Classroom Initiative with 225 faculty visits, sharing their experiences, practices, and thoughts about learning and teaching. The power of these conversations among stakeholders and others is that we are developing a common set of goals, outcomes, activities, and measures. In 2017–2018 these discussions will lead to specific collective tasks, initial actions, and longer-term strategies in assessment, learning and academic innovation, data-driven student outcomes, and more.
Partnerships and collaborations have led to significant success: Through our partnership with Weinberg College, we will launch the new Academic Support & Learning Advancement unit in January. This unit will be a cornerstone of the planned Academic Resource Center (ARC), a successful and growing collaboration among the Searle Center’s Academic Support and Learning Advancement unit, The Libraries, Weinberg College, and the Provost’s Office. The partnership is synergistic: the ARC will simplify students’ access to services supporting their learning, harnessing active and collaborative learning spaces in the Library, and supporting enhancements to a range of programs and services. Looking forward, the collaboration will grow, adding partners and opening new opportunities to support student success. Partnerships have also been critical to the expansion of efforts in faculty professional development and graduate student and postdoc development in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Searle partnered with Weinberg and Social Justice Education in Student Affairs to run workshops on identity, power and positionality, and inclusive teaching strategies for more than 100 faculty – new Weinberg faculty, Hewlett Fellows, First Year Seminar Faculty, Weinberg advisors. We partnered to deliver workshops in a number of graduate student groups, and in two Weinberg departments. Searle partnered to create the first annual Inclusive Teaching Forum. Searle’s partnership with faculty and schools continues with the Searle Fellows program, now with more than 275 tenure line and clinical Northwestern faculty alumni, and with the Provost Office around faculty development and the McCormick and Alumni awards. In research, Searle has partnered across the university with dozens of faculty and programs on proposals supporting graduate, post-doctoral and undergraduate student learning, innovation in training, and scholarship around collaboration, teamwork and networks.
Innovation and opportunities have rapidly expanded in so many exciting directions this past year, with the promise of moving into the spaces of discussions, partnerships and collaborations in 2017–2018 and beyond. The Searle Center is working with the Registrar and IT to help envision a technology-driven backbone of student learning objectives and their assessment. Searle is collaborating with A&RT, the Registrar, and FM to explore the design, professional development of faculty for, and the measurement of student learning in active and collaborative learning spaces. Searle is in discussions with the Registrar, Provost’s Office, Faculty Senate, and others around how student CTECs should evolve. Searle is developing common ground with The Graduate School around supporting graduate student and postdoc learning. Searle is leading discussions with partners around inclusive learning and teaching, in the classroom, in more informal learning environments like research labs and studios, and internationally.
Our central mission to advance learning and teaching will be best achieved through both direct engagements with faculty, graduate students, post-docs and undergraduates and by infusing research-based practice across the fabric of the university in a large array of partnerships. 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 throughout the university. 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 Programs, 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 have learned a great deal. They lead in direct programming, and together we co-create and co-lead in broader initiatives across the university. This coming year, our team will welcome a new Assistant Director for Diversity and Inclusion and a new Assistant Director for the Center for the Integration of Research Learning and Teaching at Northwestern, each supporting significant new opportunities in diversity, equity, and inclusion and in the advancement of future faculty.
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
