This intensive, 5-week online course aims to strengthen undergraduate STEM education by preparing graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and early career-faculty to be change agents in their roles in higher education. Through participation in this course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to inspire and influence others, analyze their institution’s structure and become agents of change. By the end of this course, participants will:

• Develop a professional identity as a Change Agent
• Examine higher education institutions as complex organizations, as well as analyzing leadership approaches and change theories
• Develop strategies, skills, and abilities appropriate for serving as a Change Agent while holding a position as an early-career faculty member

Instructors

Kelly Clark, Johns Hopkins University
Rachel Kennison, University of California, Los Angeles
L.J. McElravy, University of Nebraska – Lincoln

Course Schedule

This 10-session, 5-week course meets online on Tuesdays and Thursdays from June 11 through July 18 at 3-4:30pm Atlantic / 2-3:30pm Eastern / 1-2:30pm Central / 12-1:30pm Mountain / 11am-12:30pm Pacific. There is no class the week of July 1.

Workload

Students should plan to spend several hours working through asynchronous materials outside of sessions each week.

Registration & Enrollment

This course has a cap of 40 students.

Registration is opens on Monday, April 22, and closes Monday, May 20. This course builds on a foundational understanding of evidence based teaching, and interested participants will need to share their teaching and/or teaching development experience in a brief course application. Instructors will review applications on a first-come, first-served basis and registrants from CIRTL member institutions or alumni of CIRTL member institutions will receive priority. Once registration closes, all registrants will be notified of their enrollment status.

Accessibility

If you have access needs, please let us know what they are. Contact Kate Diamond (kdiamond3@wisc.edu), who is supporting this course, to let us know how we can help you have a successful experience. In addition to meeting individualized needs, we will also take measures throughout the course to support accessibility for all our students:

• Sending weekly reminders with upcoming assignments to all students
• Sending reminders with missing assignments to students who have late work
• Sharing materials for synchronous sessions with students via Canvas (slides, breakout group activity instructions, etc.)
• Enabling live captioning in synchronous sessions
• Incorporating multiple modes of interaction into synchronous sessions
• Sharing recordings from synchronous sessions

Learning Outcomes

All CIRTL Network programming is designed to help participants achieve familiarity with our Core Ideas. This workshop is designed around the following learning outcomes.

Professional Development

• This course will form the initial engagement pathway for participants to achieve the foundational learning outcomes of the CIRTL Change Leadership Development Program. This course requires participants to have achieved at least the CIRTL Associate level. In terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy the course is analogous to a CIRTL Associate level of learning. Participants who complete this course will be able to describe evidence-based leadership practices
• Those who complete this course will be able to describe evidence-based leadership practices for change. This course supports developing a leadership identity, examining organizational features that are characteristic of higher education institutions, and exploring theories of change and leadership that will support participants’ ability to engage in systemic change focused on inclusive teaching and learning. These aims are based on conversations with the CIRTL  network over the past several years.