CIRTL Network Institutions

• Howard University

• Michigan State University 

• Texas A&M University 

• University of Colorado at Boulder

• University of Wisconsin-Madison 

• Vanderbilt University

A research university can and will prepare STEM graduate students to be both forefront researchers and excellent teachers. Using the Delta Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a lab, CIRTL has developed, implemented, evaluated, and institutionalized an interdisciplinary learning community to prepare STEM future faculty in teaching and learning. In 3 years, more than 1,000 graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty across all STEM fields engaged in the learning community to improve their teaching abilities. These outcomes arise from three core ideas: (a) integrate improving teaching and learning within a STEM research model (teaching-as-research); (b) embed professional development within a learning community of and for STEM future and current faculty; and (c) enhance the learning of all through the diversity of students (learning-through-diversity).

Intellectual merit. CIRTL seeks to take the successful outcomes of the prototype CIRTL learning community to a national scale. Building on the same powerful ideas, the CIRTL strategy is a learning community of diverse research universities mutually engaged in teaching-as-research activities to prepare future faculty in teaching and learning for all students. To prototype this strategy, CIRTL has formed the CIRTL Network of six diverse research universities: Howard University, Michigan State University, Texas A&M University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Vanderbilt University.

1. Each university will establish learning communities to prepare STEM future faculty, with each building on the successes of the others. Collectively, the seven diverse universities will: enhance learning in STEM disciplines; improve teaching in service courses; develop a framework for professional development; establish an institute to integrate research, teaching, and learning; integrate the learning sciences; foster skills in inquiry-based learning; and train effective research mentors.


2. Future faculty will better prepare for teaching all students when they interact meaningfully with the diversity of undergraduates, graduates, and institutions of the CIRTL Network. A cross-network learning community will foster such experiences through an online community center, distance courses, an exchange program, summer immersion programs, a seed grant program, a learning-through-diversity center, and a joint initiative to prepare faculty to teach preservice K–12 teachers.


3. Future faculty will transition more smoothly from the CIRTL Network learning community into their new faculty positions through linking the CIRTL Network with Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), a national STEM faculty development initiative. CIRTL and PKAL will adapt PKAL Leadership Institutes to prepare future faculty to succeed in and influence the higher education environment in which they land. CIRTL and PKAL also will pair future and new faculty from the CIRTL Network with PKAL Faculty for the 21st Century mentors in colleges and universities across the country.