UW-Madison alumni Ricky and Mara Sandler donated $1.5 million to the university’s Educational Innovation Initiative’s REACH project, according to a university news release.
The REACH project works to make innovations in the undergraduate educational experience through “student-centered learning practices,” according to the release. REACH representatives said the group plans to allocate the money toward programs that aim to increase student engagement in large, introductory lectures on campus.
REACH intends to increase this engagement through a redesign of select courses in chemistry, mathematics and physics. This process began in fall 2015 and is still in its early stages.
“Over the last 20 years, many instructors have experimented with student-focused, active learning strategies,” chemistry professor Clark Landis, a REACH faculty project co-lead, said in the release. “Our course redesigns transform these efforts from idiosyncratic experiments to a standard way of thinking about our courses and teaching them—centered on the student experience and promoting active student participation in the creation of knowledge.”
Redesign practices include increased student-instructor interactions, preclass assignments, team projects and technology-enhanced activities.
Restructuring introductory classes, however, is expensive. REACH provides financial support to departments so that faculty have time to assist with the course redesigns, and with more funding aims to expand the project to more departments, according to the release.
