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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Chaya Gopalan, PhD, a professor in both SIUE’s School of Education, Health and Human Behavior (SEHHB) and School of Nursing (SON), leads a partnership between STEM faculty of collaborating four-year and two-year institutions awarded $2 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant, titled "Developing STEM Education Reform Leaders through a Multidisciplinary and Cross-institutional Community Transformation,” supports the development of STEM education by introducing an innovative teaching model known as “Flipped Teaching” to faculty members across Illinois. The amount of $1,228,850 goes directly to SIUE and their partnering two-year institution St. Louis Community College (STLCC).

Gopalan will be the lead Principal Investigator (PI) collaborating with Co-Principal Investigator Sharon Locke, PhD, Director of SIUE’s STEM Center.

“Our goal is to empower a dedicated cohort of faculty as change agents, ensuring that high-quality, student-centered, and successful STEM education becomes the rule, not the exception, in every classroom across our partnership and beyond,” said Gopalan, the project lead.

“In flipped teaching, students prepare for class with pre-readings or videos, and then during class they are actively engaged in discussion and problem solving, usually in small groups with their peers,” said Locke. “This flips the traditional lecture mode of instruction for the benefit of student learning.”

The following four-year and two-year institution partnerships received grants: SIUE and STLCC, Chicago State University and Shawnee Community College, Northeastern Illinois University and City Colleges of Chicago-Malcolm X College, and Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Oakton College.

“This award exemplifies SIUE’s growing leadership in advancing student-centered teaching and innovative STEM education,” said Christopher Slaten, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Research. “Drs. Gopalan and Locke are creating a powerful model for how collaboration between universities and community colleges can transform learning and expand opportunity. By equipping faculty to engage students more deeply through flipped teaching, this project will not only strengthen classroom learning but also enhance persistence and success for students across Illinois and beyond. We are incredibly proud of this work and excited to see its impact in our classrooms and the future STEM workforce.”

Gopalan is a professor holding a joint appointment between the Department of Exercise, Sport, and Nutrition Sciences in SIUE’s SEHHB and the Department of Nurse Anesthesiology in SON. A distinguished educator and accomplished researcher, her expertise spans two core areas: Neuroendocrinology and evidence-based pedagogical research in STEM education.

Locke’s research covers STEM education, with a focus in environmental and earth science education, which includes field-based and outdoor learning. She has served as Director of SIUE’s STEM Center since 2010 and is a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. Locke has been PI for numerous externally funded projects on effective STEM education, especially supporting increased participation of all students in science. She is a former program officer in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings at NSF.

Both have previously received NSF grants.

Locke added that this particular award is a state level expansion of a previous $598, 400 NSF grant to SIUE titled, “Examining Faculty Attitudes and Strategies that Support Successful Flipped Teaching."

Drs. Gopalan and Locke answered questions about the award-winning concept and plans.

Describe the award and what it will establish.

Gopalan: An NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Engaged Student Learning award has funded a major collaborative research project aimed at institutionalizing student-centered teaching across eight institutions: seven in Illinois including SIUE and one in Missouri. This initiative targets an underexplored area in STEM pedagogy by bringing together researchers and faculty from four community colleges and four paired universities. Expanding the successful Innovative Flipped Learning Instruction Project (IFLIP1) study, the project will train 48 faculty members as institutional change agents. These participants will engage in a professional development program focused on acquiring advanced flipped teaching strategies. Specifically, faculty will learn to integrate evidence-based practices to expertly redesign and enhance their undergraduate STEM courses. Beyond curricular reform, the project emphasizes developing the faculty's leadership skills to ensure systemic and lasting transformation. Supported by key stakeholder allies within their institutions, the faculty will create an inter-institutional community of practice to promote and sustain flipped teaching models.

Locke:  This award will support SIUE and St. Louis Community College STEM faculty to transform their courses to be student centered using the "flipped" approach to teaching. In flipped teaching, students prepare for class with pre-readings or videos, and then during class they are actively engaged in discussion and problem solving, usually in small groups with their peers. This flips the traditional lecture mode of instruction for the benefit of student learning.

What is your role in the project?

Locke: Dr. Gopalan will lead this effort, providing professional development to help faculty develop and redesign their courses. The STEM Center with the support of a co-supervised postdoctoral fellow, will study the new courses to determine the impact on faculty and students.

Gopalan: The success of this project relies on a strong, focused leadership structure. As the primary PI, I will assume the key operational and administrative duties, including overall project management, professional development coordination, and fiscal accountability. Our Co-PI, Dr. Sharon Locke, will concentrate on driving the project's systemic impact by supporting project planning, leading the faculty cohort’s leadership development, and focusing on the transformation aspects of change. Together, we are structured to ensure that both the grant’s administrative requirements and its ambitious pedagogical goals are met.

How did the collaboration come together?

Gopalan: Our collaboration is a direct result of the success of the original IFLIP1 study [NSF-IUSE Abstract # 821664], which demonstrated the power of the flipped classroom model in STEM. Building on that foundation, the idea for this large-scale project emerged from a shared vision: We recognized that to create lasting systemic change, we needed to move beyond simply training individual faculty. We saw an opportunity to scale up that success by forming a multi-institutional coalition, specifically partnering universities with community colleges. The idea, in short, was to institutionalize effective flipped teaching across a variety of institutions.

How does this teaching methodology apply to classrooms on the SIUE campus and beyond?

Gopalan: This study will build on the successful "flipped classroom" design of the IFLIP1 project, where faculty move lectures outside of class to free up in-class time for active, collaborative problem-solving. IFLIP2 will investigate both the support and barriers faculty face when implementing this method, enabling the examination of its effectiveness and generalizability across diverse contexts. On a larger scale, this work has profound implications as it intentionally includes community colleges—an area barely discussed in pedagogical literature—to better serve all student populations.

The research will produce a national model for systemic transformation, not only by increasing persistence and retention in critical first- and second-year courses, but also by generating an online open-access guide and a faculty certification program. These widely shared resources will directly contribute to the advancement of knowledge in STEM teaching and learning, making our proven, transformative approach available to educators globally.

Locke: Classrooms where students are actively engaged support student learning and retention and success in STEM. This project will train STEM faculty to use the flipped teaching approach, with the goal of improving outcomes for students. In addition, our team will study the model to determine how best to support faculty, and this model will be presented nationally to encourage adoption by other institutions.


Congratulations to Drs. Gopalan, Locke and the partnering institutions on this innovative and expansive faculty resource in a continuing effort toward academic success.  
 
PHOTOS:  NSF award winners Chaya Gopalan, PhD; Sharon Locke, PhD