Education researcher Dr. Susan Singer to speak on active learning, DBER field

Most professors at Cornell have a research specialty, like quantum mechanics or early modern drama. But for some professors who are part of the growing field of discipline-based education research (DBER), their research focuses not just on what they are teaching, but how learning happens.

On April 7, the Center for Teaching Innovation will welcome Dr. Susan Singer, president of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. and previous director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education, todiscuss "The Past, Present and Future of Active and Engaged Learning," including the growth and possibilities of the DBER field.

The event will be held at 3 p.m. in the Fiske Room, Uris Library, and is open to faculty, graduate students, postdocs and staff. A poster session and light reception will follow from 4-5 p.m.

"Dr. Singer is a true national leader in the space of STEM education and education research, and an important early supporter and inspiration for many of our efforts here at Cornell," said Steven Jackson, Vice Provost of Academic Innovation. "If you've sat in a classroom informed and transformed by active learning and educational research - as more and more of our classrooms are - you have Dr. Singer in part to thank."

Singer has spent much of her career advocating for DBER, an approach to research and teaching that works to more closely knit the worlds of science and higher education together, with a goal of improving undergraduate education at scale.

Singer has helped to shepherd the history and trajectory of active learning and DBER in higher education. At the NSF, she led 14 federal agencies in implementing the goals of the first Federal STEM Education 5-year Strategic plan. This involved developing holistic approaches to helping undergraduate students succeed, using evidence-based strategies.

During Singer's tenure at the NSF, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine conducted a study to investigate effective approaches to teaching and learning in science and engineering. That study led to the 2011 publication of Singer's co-edited book "Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Education."

Nationally, DBER began to take root in the 1980s and 1990s, but the field grew significantly in the early 2010s, in part due to Singer's work at the NSF and that of Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman's advocacy for active learning in science education. An evidence-based teaching practice, active learning is often how the results of DBER show up in the classroom - it emphasizes how professors can increase student engagement with course content, as opposed to relying on lectures as a way of delivering information. Cornell's Active Learning Initiative was in part inspired by the original initiatives Wieman created at the University of Colorado and the University of British Columbia, and Wieman himself was an A.D. White Professor-at-Large in physical sciences at Cornell from 2019-2025.

Singer's work prefaces and parallels the growth of active learning and DBER at Cornell. In 2017, the university hired its first DBER faculty member, Natasha Holmes, Ann S. Bowers Associate Professor in the Department of Physics in the College of Arts & Sciences (A&S). Holmes studies how students learn physics, then applies this knowledge to help students build the skills and understanding they'll need to find success in their future fields.

Holmes' hiring was followed by that of Michelle Smith, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in A&S. Smith had worked with Wieman in Colorado as a postdoctoral fellow in education research.

Today, Cornell is home to a growing group of DBER faculty, graduate students and postdocs across the university, from A&S and Cornell Duffield Engineering, to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Cornell Bowers CIS, all of whom marry their academic work with research into methods to improve student learning, and who continue to build on the impact that this specialized research-based field can have in classrooms on campus.