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Text taken from the 1999 Hesburgh Award program brochure:
Theodore M. Hesburgh Award
For Faculty Development to Enhance Undergraduate Teaching and Learning
TIAA-CREF created the Hesburgh Award to acknowledge and reward successful, innovative faculty development programs that enhance undergraduate teaching, and to help inspire the growth of such initiatives at America's colleges and universities. It is named in honor of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, nationally renowned educator and world humanitarian.
President of Notre Dame for thirty-five years, Father Hesburgh has been a preeminent leader on major policy commissions and study groups shaping American education. A distinguished figure in public service, he has received numerous awards, including the presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Father Hesburgh also served on the TIAA and CREF Boards of Overseers for twenty-eight years.
University of Delaware
In 1993, a handful of science faculty at the University of Delaware (UD), concerned about how well their students were learning, began to use problem-based learning (PBL) in their courses. PBL uses complex problems rooted in real-world situations to motivate students to discover important concepts for themselves. Students work in groups to solve problems and the instructor acts as a guide and facilitator throughout the process.
PBL benefits students in a variety of ways: It helps them develop critical thinking skills, enhances their retention, provides a model for lifelong learning, and demonstrates the power of working cooperatively. The inquiry-driven nature of PBL makes it ideally suited for a research university environment. The initial grassroots faculty effort to share with colleagues the renewed excitement they found in teaching using PBL has cascaded into a thriving faculty-driven reform of the undergraduate experience at the University of Delaware.
At the center of this change in campus culture, the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE) trains and encourages other faculty to implement active and problem-based learning in their courses. Fellows of the Institute receive hands-on experience in employing these strategies, as well as individual mentoring from faculty experienced with these techniques. To date, over 25 percent of the faculty have participated either in this Institute or in workshops on problem-based learning. More than 150 courses have been or are targeted for transformation.
Additional developments include the incorporation of problem-based learning into large general education courses, a thorough reform of courses in the College of Business and Economics, and restructuring student recruiting programs to become "Delaware Discovery Days," which stress the theme of discovery-based education. In these efforts, faculty are helping other faculty break the cycle of "teaching as they were taught," in order to provide students with a powerful learning environment to help them meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Program Objectives and Implementation
Problem-based learning has many multidirectional interactions. Professors acting as senior learners guide the students in the learning process. An especially powerful feature also employed in a number of PBL classrooms at UD is the use of peer tutors. After training, these advanced undergraduates help guide student learning groups under faculty supervision. Peer tutors serve as role models for novice learners trying to adjust to the intellectual expectations of the university and benefit themselves with their own capstone learning experience.
To leverage implementation of PBL, introductory-level courses have been targeted for PBL to help students develop critical habits of mind as early as possible and to stimulate excitement and demand for more courses like them. This is helping to spread the reform effort throughout the curriculum, as is faculty support at all ranks and nearly every discipline. The level of faculty participation in PBL workshops and the over 100 ITUE fellowships awarded demonstrate the widespread interest in PBL.
Impact and Success
The impact of PBL at Delaware has been extensive: Over three thousand students have taken a PBL course to date. Active learning has become the focus of UD's academic priorities. The strong faculty development program offered by ITUE deserves credit for much of the success. In the first two years of the Institute, the demand for slots as faculty fellows was double the number of faculty ITUE originally expected to participate.
The most far-reaching change has been in attitude. The Uriversity of Delaware has experienced a renewed interest in the importance of undergraduate teaching aimed at meeting the real needs of students. This has been invigorating and effective for both students and faculty. Evaluation data suggest that students in PBL classes improve their ability to work together, to find information for themselves, and to tackle difficult problems. The positive student responses show how highly they value their enhanced skills.
| "The program was an opportunity to reflect on teaching and to view the classroom with student eyes and to become aware of active learning strategies that involve students in the course." | ||
| An ITUE Faculty Fellow |
For more information, please contact:
Dr. John C. Cavanaugh
Vice Provost for Academic Programs and Planning
University of Delaware
234 Hullihen Hall
Newark, DE 19716-0101
Phone: 302 831-2147
Fax: 302 831-8745
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Comments, suggestions, or requests to
ud-itue@udel.edu.
"http://www.udel.edu/inst/hesburgh/" Last updated February 16, 1999. |