The Active Learning Initiative has awarded three postdoctoral grant fellowships to Cornell departments seeking to incorporate active learning strategies into a course or curriculum.

Beginning in Fall 2026, the two-year grants support three teaching postdoctoral fellows, one in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences (A&S), one in the Department of Psychology in the College of Human Ecology and A&S, and one in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment.

With a Ph.D. in their respective disciplines and a demonstrated strong interest in teaching, ALI postdoctoral fellows have both pedagogical and discipline-specific expertise, allowing them to collaborate with faculty to transform courses and learning approaches, and to develop and implement new teaching materials in ways that will benefit student learning.

"The postdocs are already working with faculty to design and implement new active learning strategies in fall semester courses, and we are excited to see the range of approaches tailored to humanities, STEM, and social science courses," said Carolyn Aslan, senior associate director at the Center for Teaching Innovation and the Active Learning Initiative.

Active learning strategies help to give students more agency over their learning by giving them time to process and discuss course topics, practice and apply their knowledge, and develop skills and facility with the subject.

While some examples of active learning can be as simple to incorporate as the oft-used "think-pair-share" activity, the projects the ALI postdocs are called to take on during their department fellowships are a different matter.

Transforming a course or, more broadly, changing a curriculum or the teaching culture of a department, requires nuance. The pedagogical and disciplinary expertise that postdocs bring to their roles allows them to take a more layered and in-depth approach to what learning can look like.

Through designing new course materials, assessments, and innovative projects, developing student-directed lab experiments, and creating video assignments and semester-long projects, the postdocs and their faculty collaborators create learning contexts that facilitate sustained student agency and engagement and result in students developing their own confidence and proficiency in a course or curriculum.

The 2026-2028 fellowships are funded by the provost's office and by Alex and Laura Hanson '87 and supported by Cornell's Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and the Center for Teaching Innovation.

Recipients of the 2026-28 ALI Postdoctoral Fellowships

History of Art and Visual Studies

In recent years, the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies (HART) has observed that students are less prepared than they have been in the past to engage with and develop critical skills, including close reading, finding and evaluating information, and constructing evidence-based arguments.

These skills are essential: They allow students to challenge their preconceptions, communicate their doubts and ask critical questions.

HART's grant will help address gaps in student learning with a newly restructured curriculum based on the belief that incorporating active learning strategies can foster a more engaging learning environment and better support the development of these core analytical and interpretive skills.

With these goals in mind, the department is redesigning two introductory courses focused on teaching a global perspective and on developing visual analysis skills, as well as two upper-level courses, one of which examines the global influences on early modern European art and material culture and the other which explores American black art from the 18th century to the present.

Psychology

Upon receiving its first ALI grant in 2018, the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychology introduced innovative learning activities to engage students and build community in five courses, while aligning learning outcomes and assessments with American Psychological Association guidelines.

The department has since merged with the Department of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology and is now looking to scale their previous ALI work. Their 2026 grant is centered on courses focused on human development, from infancy to adulthood, which draw students from across Cornell.

The goal of this project is helping students understand modern psychology in real-world contexts by embedding learning in familiar, everyday scenarios and connecting course content to pressing societal issues, such as misinformation, mental health, infant development and parenting.

Through this work, the department wants to ensure that students not only learn about psychology but also develop the skills and habits of thinking needed to practice it.

To support these goals, faculty and a postdoctoral fellow are incorporating active-learning strategies that foster inclusive learning and a sense of belonging. Examples of these strategies include brief in-class writing to promote reflection, test-enhanced learning to reinforce retention, and applied assessments that ask students to take on the roles of practitioners and decision-makers in real-world scenarios.

Natural Resources and the Environment

At the heart of the Environmental and Sustainability Sciences (ESS) curriculum is a desire to encourage students to think critically and work collaboratively to address complex social and environmental problems. The major is a cross-college collaborative effort available to students in both A&S and CALS.

Its curriculum is expansive, so the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment is using its 2026 ALI grant to build on the work of a 2019 ALI grant in the department to center systems thinking across the ESS curriculum and better prepare students for interdisciplinary work. The 2026 ALI grant is funding a postdoc to support faculty as they incorporate systems thinking into required core introductory and capstone courses.

The postdoc is also helping faculty to develop assessments that measure student understanding of fundamental systems-thinking concepts at the beginning and end of each course.