Redesigning Science Courses to Enhance Student Engagement and Performance

Following the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) approach, the University at Buffalo Excellence in Course Instruction Through Enquiry (UB EXCITE) is a partnership between the Center for Educational Innovation (CEI) and faculty in the redesign of their courses to transform undergraduate teaching by incorporating active learning theories and best practices. Faculty members first apply for funding to redesign their courses and the support needed to teach them. Selected faculty form a professional learning community to collaboratively redesign their courses; the faculty also teach the redesigned courses and collect data to evaluate the courses’ effectiveness. The collected data are used to guide further refinement of the redesigned courses; thus course redesign, implementation, and revision form iterative cycles. Results from sample redesigned courses show that course redesign significantly increases student active learning activities and can result in student learning gains while keeping the instructional cost more or less unchanged.