Department Programs

CTE’s Ideas-to-Action program helps academic units develop actionable plans for curricular improvements that promote equitable student growth, discovery, and success. Department teams will use novel sources of data – such as student success and learning analytic data drawn from institutional sources and student narratives drawn from focus groups – to explore questions, challenges, and opportunities in their programs and develop a vision for course and curricular innovations. Our goal is to empower faculty teams to ask and address questions about their students’ experiences to guide improvements in student learning and student success.

2023-2024 Program Summary

Ideas to Action is a team endeavor. Departments will identify a team of faculty to develop questions about their curriculum or their students, explore evidence and opportunities related to their questions, and develop plans based on the results.  We are particularly interested in helping teams explore how they can take steps to be “student ready,” that is, cognizant of and responsive to the diverse range of backgrounds, expectations, and skills that students bring into the contemporary university so that all students can be successful in attaining their educational goals. The program will support exploration, ideation, and planning around this theme by providing access to data, tools, guidance, funding, and community. Department teams will have opportunities to explore questions with existing available evidence (e.g., patterns of student retention and progression, data on where in the curriculum students are getting stalled or leaving the program, student responses on the National Survey of Student Engagement/NSSE). We will also be keen to help teams gather additional evidence and information to support further inquiry and problem-solving, especially student-reported data (e.g., student focus groups, surveys, or exit interviews).  

What Will You Do in Ideas-to-Action? 

Department teams will:

1. Have two or more team members participate in three program meetings, scheduled for   Friday, October 13; Friday, February 2; and Friday, March 22 all from 10:00 AM until 12:00 PM at CTE in 135 Budig Hall (we’ll provide refreshments).
2. Meet on their own in between program meetings, to develop questions, discuss results, and envision next steps.
3. Share their completed work with their department and the broader KU community.

What Will Ideas-to-Action Do for You? 

To support your work, CTE will provide:

1. Consultation, guidance, and support in defining high-impact inquiries; gathering and interpreting evidence (e.g., learning within courses, student learning analytics, evidence from the teaching and learning literature); and developing a vision for next steps. 
2. Access to tools, dashboards and reports, and collaboration with data analysts in CTE and AIRE, that enable use of student learning analytics (e.g., patterns of student flow through the curriculum, grade distributions or retention data disaggregated for student subgroups), as well as surveys or focus groups with students to address inquiries.
3. Opportunities to connect with an intellectual community of colleagues from other departments who are working toward similar goals and solving similar problems.
4. A fund of $1500for the team (available funds may be higher depending on the number of applicants). The fund can be used for professional expenses/small stipends for team leaders and team members, to support student assistance on the project, or for food or supplies for department meetings/retreats).

Eligibility and Expectations

Any KU-Lawrence or Edwards academic department is eligible to apply. Department teams should be composed of at least three faculty members who will play an active role in the activities, with demonstrated support of the department chair. “Faculty” include multi-term lecturers, teaching specialists, and professors of teaching who have an ongoing role in their departments.

Department teams are expected to have at least two people attend program meetings (Friday, October 13; Friday, February 2; and Friday, March 22 all from 10:00 AM until 12:00), and share their work (questions, results, and proposed next steps) in at least one department meeting and in a poster at CTE’s annual Celebration of Teaching held the afternoon of May 3, 2024.

Application

Interested departments should submit a brief application (1-2 pages) by 5 p.m. Friday, September 8 at the following link: Form Submission

Applications should address the following:

1. Faculty team and leader. Who will lead the team, and what other faculty members will participate? Why is this the right team for this work? How will you go about sharing your work with other department colleagues?
2. Goals. What are your goals for participating? What sorts of questions are you interested in exploring and why? What types of actions might your team/department consider taking in response to the evidence you explore during Ideas-to-Action?
3. Other Efforts. How would the project connect with prior or current department efforts to support effective teaching and learning?
4. Availability. Will at least two team members be able to attend the three working group meetings? Note that all members are welcome to attend.
5. Only if your dept has previously participated in I2A. What action steps did your department take in response to your results from the last iteration of Ideas to Action? How might participating a second time build upon those earlier efforts?

Selection

Ideas-to-Action projects should promote cooperative, integrated participation among faculty members. Preference will be given to departments that will have broad engagement by faculty and seek to explore questions with meaningful implications for the teaching and learning culture in the unit. We will notify departments of decisions by 9/22/23.  Funds will be available in early November.  

Questions? Contact Andrea Follmer (Greenhoot) (dea@ku.edu) or Judy Eddy (jeddy@ku.edu).

In order to better represent their teaching and assess student learning, multiple departments at KU have initiated a process known as “curriculum mapping.” This process aims to “identify and address academic gaps, redundancies, and misalignments for purposes of improving the overall coherence of a course of study and, by extension, its effectiveness” (Glossary of Education Reform).

Equipped with funding they received from the CTE Department Teaching Grant, the KU Department of Geology and the Music Therapy Program are utilizing curriculum mapping to assess the goals and design not only of individual courses, but also of the degree program and course of study curriculum as a whole. Curriculum mapping is an effective and intensive means of departmental self-assessment, and it allows for greater transparency regarding course alignment and student progress.

Examples and results will be posted here as additional departments undertake and complete their curriculum redesign. CTE is proud to present these results to the intellectual community of teachers at the University of Kansas.

For support with curriculum mapping you can arrange a meeting or workshop with a member of CTE's Assessment team. Contact the team lead, Joshua Potter, CTE's Associate Director for Student Learning and Analytics, by email at: joshuadpotter@ku.edu or by phone: 785-864-4112.

The Mapping and Assessment Planning (MAP) Program is designed to help undergraduate or graduate academic programs build curriculum maps that meet/exceed degree-level assessment requirements. Programs identify a faculty team to lead the work for their unit. Led by Josh Potter and Drew Vartia.

In 2022-2023 MAP worked with 14 Undergraduate Programs to develop curriculum maps for the Feb 2023 unit-level assessment requirements.

In 2023-2024, MAP is working with 14 Graduate Programs to develop curriculum maps for the Feb 2024 unit-level assessment requirements. Applications for MAP are now closed. 

Workshops or consultations on degree-level assessment are aligned with department needs and can be arranged with a member of CTE's Assessment team. Contact the team lead, Joshua Potter, CTE's Associate Director for Student Learning and Analytics. 

For more information, please contact Josh by email at: joshuadpotter@ku.edu or by phone: 785-864-4112

1. The Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness Framework, to support the representation, review and evaluation of teaching through a multi-dimensional rubric, is designed to capture teaching in its totality and draw on multiple sources of evidence. The framework was highlighted in a recent AAU report (pdf) and is being adapted at institutions across the US.

2. The TEval project, funded by a grant from NSF ($614,237 to KU, $3 million total), is working to improve systems for evaluating teaching, organized around the Benchmarks Framework. The Teval project also includes the U of Massachusetts Amherst, the U of Colorado Boulder, and Michigan State. Project leaders work with departments to adapt the rubric, decide on appropriate evidence, and apply it to faculty teaching. Departments are supported by $5000 mini-grants. 

Continue to Benchmarks page for more information.