Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Professor of Physics and Director of the Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching, in conjunction with colleagues in academic technology and counterparts at Williams College and Davidson College, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in support of a project titled “Online Modules for Quantitative Skill Building: exploring adaptation and adoption across a consortium” (#1829135).
Building on previous NSF projects, this three-year, $290,940 project will support the development of online tools to teach quantitative skills at the ten colleges of the Liberal Arts Consortium for Digital Innovation (LACOL). Prof. Eblen-Zayas will work closely with Jonathan Leamon, Director of Instructional Technology at Williams College; Laura J Muller, Ph.D., Director of Quantitative Skills Programs and Peer Support at Williams; and Sundi Richard, Lead Instructional Designer at Davidson on the project. They will guide an effort to develop as many as eight online modules to teach key quantitative skills of wide value across the sciences and social sciences, to test and refine those modules at LACOL institutions, and to disseminate the modules widely within and possibly beyond LACOL. A team of researchers at Carleton’s Science Education Resource Center (SERC), led by Ellen Iverson, will study faculty adaptation and adoption of these online modules across the consortium.
This NSF award is the first grant to LACOL, founded in 2014 as a partnership of leading liberal arts institutions interested in exploring online pedagogies and supporting effective teaching and learning in residential settings.