Ideas to Action

I2A Program Overview

Since its inception in 2017, KU’s Ideas-to-Action (I2A) program has helped academic departments turn curiosity into strategy and data into transformation. Led by the Center for Teaching Excellence, I2A supports faculty teams in asking meaningful questions about student learning, analyzing institutional and student-generated data, and implementing evidence-informed changes to curriculum and advising.

To participate in Ideas-to-Action, departments form a team of at least three faculty members, supported by their chair, to lead a year-long inquiry into student learning and success. Each team receives up to $2,500 in flexible funding, access to institutional data through KU’s Analytics, Institutional Research, and Effectiveness (AIRE), and consultation from the Center for Teaching Excellence. 

Teams attend three structured meetings annually and work independently to refine their questions, analyze evidence, and implement changes. The program is especially beneficial for units preparing for degree-level assessment, addressing high DFW rates, or exploring alumni outcomes. Beyond funding and data access, I2A connects participants to a campus-wide community of educators engaged in similar challenges—fostering collaboration, shared responsibility, and sustainable change.

The School of Engineering was grappling with a persistent concern that students’ math preparation was declining. Through faculty surveys and a deep dive into grade data, the I2A team discovered the challenge wasn’t necessarily what students had learned, but their ability to retain and apply math concepts long after taking the prerequisite courses.

Additional Inquiry 

• Upon seeing the data, Mechanical Engineering faculty identified a new inquiry: Are students struggling with the math per se, or with applying the math they know to their new engineering work?
• The Student Engineering Council, which works to facilitate communication between students and faculty, has agreed to help disseminate a student survey (next phase of inquiry) to find out whether/how students perceive a preparation gap

This insight led to practical solutions, including embedding "math refresher" modules into engineering courses and opening new lines of collaboration with the Math department to better support students. The process also dispelled counterproductive myths, showing that math courses were not, in fact, "too easy" and that grade outcomes were consistent with other first- and second-year courses.

Cross-Department Collaboration

• This work has brought together faculty from within and between engineering departments to make changes to support students and their learning.
• The School of Engineering hopes to share these data with the Math Department to coordinate on topics that are of particular value for downstream Engineering courses

The Geography department at the University of Kansas was at a crossroads. Faced with declining enrollments and recent faculty departures, the team knew they needed to act. They had pressing questions: How could they improve the relevance of their curriculum? Who was taking their courses and why? And how could they better communicate the value of a geography degree to students, parents, and employers?

Diving into institutional analytics, the Geography I2A team made a key discovery, introductory courses were disproportionately filled with Business majors, revealing a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration. Next, inspired by a previous I2A project in the History department, they surveyed their alumni. They asked what skills mattered most in their careers and how well their KU degree had prepared them.

Armed with these insights, the department launched a series of strategic actions. They developed new student recruitment materials, collaborated with advisors to raise awareness, and initiated a department-wide curriculum overhaul to align their courses with highly valued workforce skills. The impact was swift and remarkable, in just one year, they doubled the number of majors in their program.

The Applied English Center (AEC), which provides comprehensive language support for English Language Learners, took part in the I2A process to answer the question: How can we best prepare our students for success at KU?. The AEC team embarked on an evidence-based journey to discover and align their curriculum with the real-world academic and social needs of their students.

The team's inquiry began by mapping out where their students go after completing the AEC program. Institutional data revealed that AEC students pursue a wide array of academic tracks, with the largest groups heading into Business, Engineering, and Medicine/Healthcare.

Through a series of student focus groups, the team uncovered distinct needs between their undergraduate and graduate populations.

• Undergraduate students expressed a desire for more instruction on practical, everyday social language and cultural norms.
• Graduate students, on the other hand, felt they needed more support with high-level academic and technical writing.

Armed with this clear, evidence-based understanding, the AEC team implemented a series of targeted changes to better support their students.

• Curricular Refinements: They redesigned assignments to better scaffold learning and created separate "split sections" of upper-level courses to address the unique needs of undergraduate and graduate students.
• Cross-Campus Collaboration: The team began working directly with faculty in "destination departments" to improve alignment and explore peer mentoring programs.
• An Innovative New Course: In a direct response to student feedback, a team member designed a new First-Year Seminar that enrolls both AEC and domestic students. This course aims to give AEC students direct experience with U.S. cultural norms while enhancing domestic students' understanding of their international peers

Through the I2A , the Applied English Center successfully translated student and institutional data into meaningful action, building new bridges to help their students thrive both inside and outside the classroom.