In the 2020 spring semester, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, Carnegie Mellon University faculty moved more than 4,900 course-sections to remote instruction in a matter of weeks. Faculty rushed to make sure course materials were available to their students and lesson plans could be adapted for remote learning. Students, scattered across time zones, turned in assignments, connected with group members and kept learning. Everyone pulled together, and in May, CMU conferred more than 5,400 bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees to the class of 2020.
The coronavirus crisis hasn't subsided, and this fall will bring changes to the CMU learning environment.
CMU worked over the summer to adapt classrooms and courses for the hybrid model of teaching and learning. The Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation, CMU's research-based teaching resource center, helped faculty and administrators plan for the best possible experience for returning students, whether they are on campus or remote. To do that, Marsha Lovett — director of the Eberly Center, associate vice provost for Teaching Innovation and Learning Analytics and a teaching professor in the Department of Psychology — enacted a three-pronged plan.
First, Lovett and her team at the Eberly Center provided tools and resources for every CMU faculty member to use to design high-quality hybrid courses, whether they worked one on one with the Eberly Center or not. Second, they offered a variety of interactive sessions to disseminate and discuss evidence-based strategies to address key aspects of remote and hybrid instruction. Finally, Lovett's team launched the Signature Course Initiative, a targeted set of CMU courses that will serve as a model for the fall and an investment in the future.
The CMU Way
Each signature course has two goals: make enhancements to the overall course for fall, and incorporate a technology-enhanced learning component that will be used in fall and iteratively improved in future semesters.
The 15 courses chosen for the initiative range from large general education classes taken by students from every college at CMU to small, highly specialized master’s program classes. They all have one thing in common — they each represent a signature strength at CMU, with potential to shape the university's future.
"We are taking this opportunity to move the needle on the number of faculty who are using CMU's learning engineering approach and adopting our learning science research," Lovett said. "We have put in a lot of work to make sure all of our fall classes are fantastic. With the signature courses, we're making sure that work, and the learning science research we have been doing for years, is set to improve the university in the long-term, a model for the way forward at CMU."
Lovett collaborated with CMU's deans to identify courses from a pool of applicants. Among the criteria, they looked for courses with subject matter that represents a strength at the university and had at least one faculty member who was willing to dedicate significant time over the summer to develop the course.
Richard Scheines, dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and leader of the Simon Initiative, worked closely with Lovett.
"At some point in April we all realized that we were not going back to normal in the fall," Scheines said. "After a few deep sighs, we picked our heads up and wondered what sort of opportunity this presented. We quickly realized that we have the resources at CMU, e.g., the expertise in Eberly, the tools in Simon, and an outstanding faculty, to make some excellent lemonade out of a large basket of COVID lemons. The signature courses are a great example of that spirit."
Signature course faculty received support from the Eberly Center as they worked to meet those goals. Kicking off with a set of initiative-wide and project-specific sessions in June, teams met throughout the summer to discuss evidence-based strategies, get training on tools and technology, and learn from each other.
"In the spring semester, we found it really helpful to be able to learn from one another across disciplines," Lovett said. "I have been excited to see faculty in the signature courses listen for ideas from each other, adopt, and adapt. The hope is that these ideas will extend beyond the signature courses at CMU."
Making Learning Engineering Central
CMU's learning engineering approach to education will be central to the signature course initiative.
"Learning engineering means making learning something you can observe," said Norman Bier, executive director of CMU's Simon Initiative. "We build models for how we think people learn, put those models into practice, collect data and iteratively improve. The classes in the Signature Course Initiative are perfect candidates for this model."