Salve Regina receives Davis Educational Foundation grant
Salve Regina has received a $64,600 planning grant from the Davis Educational Foundation for the 2015 calendar year. The grant will fund research on a newly proposed instructional delivery method that aims to enhance student learning, increase faculty use of active and experiential learning methods, and reduce instructional costs.
Dr. Chad Raymond, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, and Dr. Traci Warrington, professor in the Department of Business Studies and Economics, are co-managers of the project.
The project involves piloting one course in the new delivery method during the fall 2015 semester, and includes funding for faculty development, course development and a planning team of faculty members to guide the project.
In the pilot course, students will first interact with course content online and then meet with faculty in small groups to apply the content in new ways. This proposed pedagogy involves using a “panel of experts” approach to developing and delivering flipped online content while meeting with students weekly to apply the online content using an experiential-based model.
One of the project’s main goals is to examine the effects of the delivery format on instructional costs, which have risen faster than inflation at both public and private universities.
“Recent studies conducted at Carnegie Mellon University and the University System of Maryland have demonstrated that alternative, hybrid course formats can result in student learning outcomes that are equal to those achieved in traditional courses, but at a substantial cost savings,” Raymond said. “If we can structure university curriculum that is engaging and relevant for students and results in outcomes that are as good, or even better than, traditional delivery methods while simultaneously becoming less expensive to provide, then everyone wins.”
The Davis Educational Foundation was established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.
