Engaging faculty in active/cooperative learning

The Foundation Coalition has been providing leadership in improving engineering teaching and learning in a variety of ways, but especially in active and cooperative learning (ACL). Over 1000 copies of a one-page overview of ACL have been distributed, and it seems to help faculty members get over the activation energy barrier and get started. A CD-ROM and web site (http://clte.asu.edu/active) have been created to help provide further guidance. The site offers advice from engineering faculty on preparing students for teamwork, planning lessons and activities, and managing and assessing cooperative work. It also contains content-specific lessons and activities. This paper describes a process of deepening the development of materials to help faculty engage students in active and cooperative learning. We describe the initial framing around the five essential elements of a well-structured cooperative learning activity, the negotiation process to come up with topics for further development, the back-and-forth between individual and joint work, and the use of eproject for joint work. We will present the five works-in-progress and engage the audience in reflection and discussion about our approach and ideas for reaching more faculty members.