Empirical Educator Project

 

About | Academic Participants | Sponsor Participants | Contact

 

About

The Empirical Educator Project (EEP) is an effort to promote broader adoption of evidence-based teaching practices and foster a culture of empirical education across higher education. We do this by highlighting successful projects already underway that can be adopted, adapted, and tested by others. In particular, we promote cross-fertilization and collaborative projects between groups and networks that don’t often work well together, such as between researchers and practitioners, universities and vendors, and peer networks such as R1s and community colleges.

EEP is currently in a one-year pilot to test our theory of change, sponsored by companies that are interested in promoting empirical education and that could provide stakeholders we personally trust to bring the appropriate spirit of participation to the project.

We gathered about 50 people from various colleges, universities, and sponsors for a two-day summit at Stanford. The group provided us with peer review of our concepts and test whether we could foster collaboration between groups that don’t typically work together on projects that promote empirical education. Here is some of the thinking that emerged from that summit, in the participants’ own words:

 

The meeting generated quite a few potential projects. We are in the process of working with the participants to help as many of those projects gain traction. At the end of the year, we will assess the impact of this collaborative work and decide how to proceed with EEP. We are also in the process of evaluating how we can increase access to the work and participation of more universities and sponsors. We will publish updates as the program develops.

In the meantime, you can read our announcement blog post for more details on the thinking behind the project.

Participants

We are humbled by the thoughtful and enthusiastic participation of our summit attendees. Those participants who have given us permission to share their names are listed below by institution:

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS

Institution	Representatives
Arizona State University	Rene F. Kizilcec, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor, School of Engineering, Arizona State University, Director of Digital Learning Research, School of Education, Stanford University
California Community College System	Jory Hadsell, Executive Director, Online Education Initiative Michelle Pancansky Brock, Faculty Mentor, Digital Innovation, Online Education Initiative
Carnegie Mellon University	Norm Bier, Executive Director, Simon Initiative Marsha Lovett, Director, Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence Lauren Herckis, Simon Initiative Research Faculty
Colorado Community Colleges	Tina Parscal, Executive Director, CCCOnline
Coppin State University	Leontye Lewis, Interim Provost & VP, Academic Affairs
Duke University	Matthew Rascoff, Associate Vice Provost for Digital Education and Innovation Bridgett Martin Hard, Principal Investigator, BRITElab (Behavioral Research for Informing Teaching Excellence)
James Madison University	Keston Fulcher, Executive Director, Center for Assessment and Research Sara Finney, Senior Assessment Specialist, Center for Assessment and Research
Kaplan/Purdue	Matthew Braslow, Director of Research and Assessment Dave Palmer, Executive Director, Research and Analysis
Ole Miss	Patricia O’Sullivan, Manager, Personalized Learning and Adaptive Teaching Opportunities Program Robert Cummings, Chair, Department of Writing and Rhetoric
Stanford University	Mitchell Stevens, Director, Center for Advanced Research through Online Learning (CAROL) John Mitchell, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Mary and Gordon Crary Family Professor in the School of Engineering, Professor of Computer Science and (by courtesy) Electrical Engineering
University of California Davis	Marco Molinaro, Associative Vice Provost for Educational Effectiveness
University of Central Florida	Chuck Dziuban, Director of Research for Teaching Effectiveness Patsy Moskal, Associate Director, Research Initative for Teaching Effectiveness
University of Texas, Austin	Phil Long, Chief Innovation Officer

Contact

We have received a lot of interest in this project. While we will be proceeding at a deliberate pace in order to preserve and strengthen the network that we are building with our first cohort of participants, we are committed to making EEP work and participation as accessible as we can and as quickly as possible.

To express interest in participating as an academic or sponsor, or for media inquiries, please contact Jeanette Wiseman.