| Abstract | The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one home to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL; www.cirtl.net). The mission of CIRTL is to develop a national faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) with the knowledge and experience to forge successful professional careers that include implementing and advancing effective teaching and learning practices. The Delta Program in Research, Teaching, and Learning at UW-Madison (Delta; www.delta.wisc.edu) is the prototype program of CIRTL. The core of the Delta Program is a curriculum of graduate courses, intergenerational small-group programs, and internships embedded within an interdisciplinary learning community. Delta also offers a small number of targeted workshops and hosts monthly Roundtable Dinners. A certificate recognizes participant accomplishments within the Delta Program. Every facet of Delta is designed around a research model familiar to STEM researchers. For example, Delta courses are project-based, and require students to define a learning problem, understand their student audience, explore the literature for prior knowledge, hypothesize, design, and implement a solution, acquire and analyze data to measure learning outcomes, and revise their materials and approach based on their findings. Delta internships are “research assistantships” in teaching, in which a graduate student or post-doc partners with a faculty or academic staff member to address a learning problem. From September 2003 through April 2008 over 1,500 STEM participants engaged to varying degrees in the Delta Program. We will present a description of the Delta Program, its core tenets as well as evaluation data that have been collected across the program about participation, satisfaction, learning, application and impact. These data provide clear evidence of the success of Delta’s approach for future faculty professional development in teaching and learning. |
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