We support openness—both in sharing what we know and what we do. On this page, we share what our teams have done this year, what they’re working on now, and what they have planned next. Contact us if you would like to know more about any of this work or collaborate with us.

Tracking our progress for 2022-23.

Teaching Innovation

The Teaching Innovation team consults with and advises Duke faculty on their teaching, leads development programs for educators and helps improve student learning at Duke.

Up next:

  • Support for 6 two-week-long summer faculty cohorts preparing to teach with Canvas in fall 2023, including offering 4 workshops per cohort, 1:1 consultations and office hours.
  • Developing webpage about best practices in teaching evaluation.
  • Assisting with Duke’s efforts in a 2023-24 Ithaka-sponsored research project on AI impacts on teaching and learning.

Ongoing:

Recently completed:

  • Collaborated with the Language, Arts & Media Program (LAMP) to provide course consulting for this year’s group of Bacca Fellows.
  • Coordinated 5 spring 2023 events, programs and blog posts related to ChatCPT/AI in teaching.
  • Managed the digital projects of five 2022-23 Bass Digital Education Fellows across multiple disciplines.
  • Offered a 2022-23 Inclusive Teaching event series to include faculty discussion sessions, workshops hosted by campus partners, and invited speakers.
  • Onboarded two new STEM Teaching Consultants.
  • Offered a second cohort of Collaborative Project Course Fellowship, May – December 2022, in partnership with Bass Connections (read about the first one here).
  • Offered spring Small Group Instructional Feedback sessions and spring Visit a Classroom groups.
  • Support assessment efforts related to introductory Math courses by leading, and training Math staff to lead, Small Group Instructional Feedback sessions for all sections in two intro Math courses in fall 2022.
  • Offered an end-of-term check-in meeting for the Summer 2022 cohort of the Active Learning Institute.
  • Summer Course Development Grant support including three-day kick-off workshop May 17-19, 2022, monthly summer meetings and individual consulting as needed for 10 summer course design projects through August 2022.

Learning Technologies

The Learning Technologies team breaks down barriers between teaching, learning, and technology at the university.

Up next:

  • Finalize training and content migration plans for Canvas.
  • Reconfigure Zendesk, Monday, and Slack to support both DLI and Continuing Studies.
  • Prioritize changes to DestinyOne in support of Continuing Studies.
  • Develop integration between OIT’s Name Pronunciation service and Canvas.
  • Plan a Wooclap pilot for next academic year.

Ongoing:

  • LMS Transition from Sakai to Canvas.
  • Supporting several learning technologies with faculty consultation and training and vendor liaison activities.
  • Collaborate with OIT on support, communication and documentation of changes and features in enterprise tools that support Flexible Teaching — ex: Zoom, Panopto, Warpwire 
  • Review LTI integration policies with Duke OIT.
  • Ed Lessons and Workspaces pilot.
  • Represent Duke as a member of the Ivy+ Directors of Academic Computing group.
  • Represent Duke as a member of the Learning Technology Consortium.

Recently completed:

  • Hiring new team members, Ashley Walker, Barbara Thompson, and Heather Valli.
  • Updated Sakai Add Participants to provide better error messaging for non-roster users trying to access Sakai sites.
  • Assist with the integration between Sakai and DukeHub for the Academic Integrity Tutorial.
  • Ed Discussions pilot – Ed Discussions has been licensed for the 22-23 academic year.
  • Hypothes.is pilot – Hypothes.is is a tool that lets you collaboratively annotate and discuss webpages and documents. Hypothes.is has been licensed for the 22-23 academic year.
  • Exploring the development of tools and services for syllabus generation and storage
  • Investigating Padlet usage at Duke.

Learning Experience Design

The Learning Experience (LX) Design team helps faculty develop online learning opportunities that offer flexibility to Duke students, reach the extended community of alumni and prospective students and extend Duke’s global impact.

Up next:

  • Providing instructor and learner support for Duke Engineering’s fifth cohort of the Coursera Certificate program on Blockchain Applications, a non-credit credential that stacks into Engineering’s new Master of Engineering in Financial Technology.
  • Designing course content for Duke’s Center for Computational Thinking’s (CCT) Introductory Data Science with R learning track. The first modules are now available on Duke Pathways.
  • As part of the CCT module incubator program, design modules on Open Design and Data Reproducibility
  • Wrap up media design work for case study videos for a core course in the Digital Intelligence (DQ Certificate program.
  • Completing a course design consultation for Department of Anesthesiology’s CTICU course for health professionals.
  • Designing a Coursera course on Christian Virtues for Spiritual Formation with Duke Divinity’s Professor Emeritus Stanley Hauerwas.
  • Completing the design of Duke’s new Specialization on machine learning software development (MLOps), created by Noah Gift and Alfredo Deza.

Ongoing: Courses & Programs Currently in Production

  • Completing the redesign and relaunch of UAS Applications and Operations in Environmental Science, a non-credit course series on drones technology from Duke Environment, as well as launch a Coursera course that allows learners to preview the program.
    • Also in conversations with Duke Environment and the Duke Climate Commitment to determine professional and lifelong learning priorities focused on environmental justice and climate fluency education for Duke students and alumni and working adult learners.
  • Continue to develop modules and videos for learning tracks and co-curricular learning as part of Duke CCT’s educational mission.
    • Also working with CCT to plan the design of digital learning materials in support of a new university-wide undergraduate course, “Let’s Talk About the Digital You”.
  • Working with Duke Divinity to develop a new Coursera Specialization on Church Administration, which will teach time management, strategic management and practical theological principles to church leaders and ministry professionals.
    • Also parntering with Duke Divinity to create a mental health track for Duke Divinity’s Theology, Medicine and Culture for-credit certificate for health professionals.
  • Continue partnerships with Duke’s professional schools on how Learning Innovation and Continuing Studies can support the schools’ professional and lifelong learning goals.
  • Collaborating with virtual reality (VR) developer SweetRush and Coursera to develop a VR simulation for Duke’s Introductory Human Physiology Coursera course. This project is funded by Meta.
  • Several new Coursera Specializations on Python are in the works:
    • Fall 2021 – Spring 2023: Drew Hilton (with Nick Eubank, Kyle Bradbury, Genevieve Lipp) — Python Specialization in data science. This would either complement a course taught in the MIDS program or would align with the MIDS pre-program Python bootcamp.
    • Spring 2022 – Fall 2023: Susan Rodger (with Daily, Stephens-Martinez, Velasco) — Introductory Computer Science Python Specialization that aligns with a revamp of Duke Compsci 101 that these faculty are currently working on.
    • Fall 2022 – Spring 2023: Noah Gift — Applied Data Engineering Specialization.
  • In strategic planning conversations with Duke Engineering regarding current and possibly new digital learning programs for working adult learns.
  • In discussions with the Duke Global Health Institute to consider digital learning strategies that could increase the Institute’s reach to new working adult learner markets. Also conducting market research to inform these strategic planning conversations.

Recently completed:

  • Completed media production for the development of patient simulations for Online Duke’s final Carry the Innovation Forward project.
  • Launched the Rediscovering the Heart of Methodism, a five non-credit, self-paced course series developed by Duke Divinity for church leaders and congregations of the Methodist tradition.
  • Redesigned Duke’s module on Academic Integrity, to provide first-year Duke students a foundational understanding of why academic integrity matters and how to apply the values of academic integrity in students’ lives and studies at Duke.
  • Published a module series on Telehealth Medicine, developed with the Duke Center for Interprofessional Education and Care, as part of Learning Innovation’s Carry the Innovation Forward program.
  • Completed a design consultation for the Academic Guides, who have created a guidebook to “the hidden curriculum”.
  • In collaboration with Learning Innovation’s Teaching Innovation team, consult on the design of faculty development training resources for designing and teaching hybrid courses.
  • Provided course design, education technology, and learner enrollment support for the 2022 Summer Computing Institute.
  • Completed a Carry the Innovation Forward project on developing interactive, video-based modules that trains medical residents on how to read radiological imaging and how to communicate findings to medical colleagues and patients.
  • Guided faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology in designing a course that trains health professionals on core concepts needed to carry out patient treatment using ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation).
  • Completed media production and design for videos for modules on Git and Linux in the Software Engineering learning track developed by the Innovation Co-Lab and Duke’s Center for Computational Thinking.

Research, Evaluation & Development

The Teaching Innovation R&D Lab team supports research and experimentation on teaching and learning across the Duke community with an emphasis on early-stage projects and translational research.

Up next:

  • Supporting a student-led research project examining the impacts of student reflections on learning in introductory math and statistics classes
  • Partnering with the Center for Christianity and Scholarship to collect data on a 3-year initiative to develop and launch a series of half-credit courses on ethics on critical thinking and analysis through the lens of Christian faith and education
  • Providing a professional development workshop for the Duke community on how to collect data and student feedback through Qualtrics, the university-provided survey platform
  • Working with the mechanical engineering department to evaluate the impacts of a graduate student-developed mentoring program aimed at increasing engineering graduate school applications from women and underrepresented minorities

Ongoing:

  • Providing data collection, analysis, and recommendations for a climate survey for the Chemistry department focusing on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Editing a book in the Transforming Teaching series that focuses on inclusive and equitable teaching practices
  • Variations in Student Sense of Community and Self-Efficacy in Introductory Quantitative Courses: Conduct research in partnership with Duke faculty members in math and statistics to determine whether different flexible teaching course structures and formats are associated with increases in student perceptions of community. This project is on-going since fall 2020 and will continue through 2023
  • Partnering with Dr. Sheila Patek, director and founder of Muser, to conduct research on the impacts of using technology to anonymously match undergraduates to faculty-led research opportunities.
  • Working with the Divinity School to refine their course assessment and evaluation tools for both graduate-level credit programs and non-credit professional development opportunities
  • Supporting over 15 faculty-led research projects on teaching and learning including:
    • Sue Mathias and Minerva Matos-Garner’s work which examines the role of cohorts in Graduate Communication and Intercultural Programs
    • Nicki Washington’s 3C Assessment which explores identity in computing classrooms
    • Deb Reisinger’s work on the impact of online international exchanges in French courses.
    • Genevieve Lipp and Siobhan Oca’s research on the impacts of incorporating applied research analyses on student interests in a robotics course

Recently completed:

  • Organized the 2022 Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium (PPRS), an online conference showcasing new research on teaching and learning innovations that have emerged during the global pandemic. We recently closed the call for proposals and will be releasing the program this spring. The conference is co-sponsored by Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania NC State University, the University of Georgia, and Princeton University.Read about the previous PPRS in our 2020 Annual Report
  • Collaborating with faculty members in the school of medicine to conduct research on medical education related to tele-health practices
  • Supporting the Trauma-Informed Teaching, Learning, and Education Bass Connections team to conduct research on how student experiences of trauma affect teaching and learning at Duke.
  • Collaborated with Mohammad Noor to conduct research on the effectiveness of using popular culture references (Star Trek Discovery) to teach college-level biology concepts
  • Collaborated with administrative groups across campus to collect data on trends and changes at Duke in the number and distribution of temporary faculty members to improve outreach and teaching support
  • Worked with Prof Amanda Hargrove on a research-based seminar course (Chem 81S) for first year students that will help retain women and underrepresented minorities in STEM majors by giving them early-career access to hands-on research opportunities. Learning Innovation is helping Amanda develop the screening instrument that students will use to apply for this unique course.

Recent Publications

Clemontina A Davenport, Steven Grambow, Tara Kramling, Nicholas Janes, Kim Manturuk, Quentin Ruiz-Esparza, Heather Hans, Gregory P Samsa, Jesse D Troy, Megan L Neely, L Ebony Boulware, Gina-Maria Pomann. 2022. “Preliminary Investigation of a Novel Hybrid Curriculum to Train New Investigators in Collaborative Research”, Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, forthcoming.

Reavis, G., Antonicci, N. & Manturuk, K. (2021). “A lot has become muted:” Supporting LGBTQ+ students living at home during the covid-19 pandemic. In K. Bista, K., Allen, R. M., & Chan, R. Y.  (eds.), Impacts of COVID-19 on International Students and the Future of Student Mobility (pp. 91-103). Routledge.

Manturuk, K. & Reavis, G. (2021).  Pedagogical implications of covid-19: A case study of what faculty learned about teaching well by teaching remotely during the covid-19 pandemic. In Bista, K., Allen, R. M., & Chan, R. Y.  (eds.),The Impacts of COVID-19 on Higher Education: Global Perspectives (pp. 154-166). STAR Scholars. https://starscholars.org/product/global-education/

Fitzgerald, T.N., Muma, N. J. K., Gallis, J.A., Reavis, G., Ukachukwu, A., Smith, E.R., Ogbuoji, O., Rice, H.E. (2021). Development of an interactive global surgery course for interdisciplinary learners. Annals of Global Health, 87(1):  33, 1–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3178De Gagne, J. C., Koppel, P. D., Park, H. K., Cadavero, A., Cho, E., Rushton, S., Yamane, S. S., Manturuk, K., & Jung, D. (2021). Nursing students’ perceptions about effective pedagogy: Netnographic analysis. JMIR Medical Education, 7(2), e27736. https://doi.org/10.2196/27736