In 2020, TCU joined Deans for Impact, a national organization that aims to improve student learning by transforming the way educators teach. In 2021, College of Education faculty implemented the organization’s Learning by Scientific Design program, which disseminates evidence-based teaching strategies aimed at upgrading the ways universities prepare future teachers.

To begin, TCU faculty gauged their students’ knowledge of the principles of how people learn by analyzing results of assessments given to students pursuing careers in education. The professors then integrated these principles into junior- and senior-level teacher education classes. The improved pedagogy allows students preparing to be teachers themselves to practice research-based methods of delivering information to their own students.

TCU IS FOCUSING ON TWO PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING BY DESIGN: 

“As our teacher candidates transition to their roles as teachers of record, they will make hundreds of micro- and macro-instructional decisions about student learning. It’s critical that those instructional decisions are grounded and informed by the best scientific understanding of how we learn. We also believe that our teacher candidates will design more successful learning experiences for their own students if they incorporate principles of learning science into their instructional decisions.”

• Frank Hernandez, dean of TCU’s College of Education