Director's Welcome | Cyberlearning Innovation and Research Center

The CIRC was founded to fulfill a vision to transform the student experience by developing innovative instructional technologies that leverage large student enrollments to facilitate synchronous interactions, as well as online tools that deliver personalized instruction at scale. Our goal is to push the boundaries of educational technology in order to enhance and extend teaching and learning in the digital age.

The CIRC vision and mission have been informed and guided by the University-wide Near and Long-term Impact of Instructional Technology Strategic Planning Committee that over an 18-month process created an interim report and final set of recommendations.

To date, CIRC has developed novel tools that are being used right now by thousands of students at Rutgers, and we are actively engaging faculty and initiating new partnerships to extend the scope of our activities and improve the quality of education to a broader range of students. If you or your department is interested in starting a conversation with us about these efforts, please reach out to me @ darrin.york@rutgers.edu

Sincerely,

Professor Darrin York, Executive Director

CIRC Vision

We envision the Rutgers of tomorrow to be one that transforms the student experience through immersion in a modern learning ecosystem where educators and learners interact seamlessly in a blended digital and physical learning environment that is continuously informed by rich data networks, and equipped with the tools and infrastructure to promote teaching and learning and deliver customized instruction and at scale. The creation of the CIRC as a premier center for discovery and innovation in teaching and learning will take great steps toward our goal of having SAS lead the effort to establish Rutgers as among the nation’s top public universities, preeminent in research, excellent in teaching, and committed to the community.

Through strategic planning, collaboration, and assessment, Rutgers University will become a model for teaching innovation in higher education, establishing itself as a leader within the Big Ten Academic Alliance and across the country. Students will seek out the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences for their education knowing that we are committed to pushing the forefront of instructional innovation to produce successful learning outcomes.

We live in a dynamic world with rapidly shifting economy, technology, politics and climate. Never has there been a time where a liberal arts education is more critical to our planet, instilling the world with educated citizens able to navigate this complex, rapidly changing landscape. The workforce of tomorrow must be trained to interpret vast quantities of data, analyze and diagnose complex social and global issues, synthesize innovative and environmentally responsible solutions, and communicate clearly and convincingly paths forward with great nuance, acuity, and cultural literacy. The CIRC embraces this vision, and takes a grass-roots approach, engaging faculty, instructional staff and students to catalyze large-scale transformations that advance teaching and learning, and prepare students for successful lives and careers in the new millennium.

CIRC Mission

The mission of the CIRC is to advance the forefront of teaching and learning at Rutgers and beyond by developing innovative technology to enable evidence-based approaches to be brought to bear on driving educational projects that are strategic SAS priorities. The CIRC will take a grass-roots approach to engage departments and faculty to catalyze transformative advances.

CIRC technology will be built to address critical factors in modern higher education that will reshape the future of teaching and learning at Rutgers, including:

Diverse time and place - eLearning and flipped/immersive synchronous/VR classrooms offer greater opportunities for remote, self-paced learning that enhance interactive, face-to-face instruction.
Student-focused learning - active, inquiry- and project-based learning paradigms that are learner-centric, and establish context through “field experience”; learn by doing!
Personalized instruction at scale - adaptive learning tools that inform learning networks and leverage data and artificial intelligence to customize the student experience.
Learning ecosystem - enable educators, peer mentors and learners to interact seamlessly in a blended digital and physical learning environment that is informed by rich networks, and equipped with the tools and infrastructure to promote teaching and learning.

The CIRC mission will be project-focused, and driven by faculty engagement. At the discretion of the CIRC Director, and informed by both a CIRC Advisory Board as well as a more global SAS Educational Technology Steering Committee, the CIRC will undertake high-impact projects geared at transforming the experience of matriculated students within the SAS, in both the physical and virtual space. A main area of focus will be on large-enrollment gateway STEM courses that are critical for many undergraduate degrees. These efforts will be closely coordinated with other efforts within the Office of Undergraduate Education, and in particular the Office of STEM Education (OSE), with additional points of contact with the Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and SAS Office of Information Technology (SAS IT).

Near-term project portfolio. The near-term CIRC project portfolio involves the building of prototypes for: 1) a state-of-the-art cyberlearning ecosystem that globally connects students with educators and instructional resources, 2) mid-tier technology that provides low-cost distributed inter-campus classroom connectivity, and 3) engagement and adaptive eLearning tools that enable the collection and manipulation of meaningful student data, and new modes of active learning and assessment to be explored. Major projects that integrate this technology involve General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Pre-calculus and Calculus, and Philosophy.

Highlight instructional innovation. The CIRC will spearhead efforts to spotlight instructional innovations within SAS at through public campaigns, academic publications and presentations designed to elevate our visibility and leadership.

Learning ecosystem. The CIRC will spearhead the creation of a vibrant learning ecosystem where educators and learners interact seamlessly in a blended digital and physical learning environment that is informed by rich networks of student data (including data generated from activities and performance tasks generated on the fly), and equipped with the tools and infrastructure to promote teaching and learning holistically. Toward this end, modular technology components will be developed that ultimately will come together to form the foundation of a flexible, extensible digital learning ecosystem.

Underlying these efforts will be the creation of a vibrant Rutgers University Learning Ecosystem where educators and learners interact seamlessly in a blended digital and physical learning environment that is informed by rich networks of student data (including data generated from activities and performance tasks generated on the fly), and equipped with the tools and infrastructure to promote teaching and learning holistically. Toward this end, modular technology components will be developed that ultimately will come together to form the foundation of a flexible, extensible digital learning ecosystem.

Students, peer and near-peer mentors (e.g., learning assistants, teaching interns and academic coaches) and instructors can interact and engage in active and collaborative learning with one another in virtual teaching and learning environments within the Rutgers University Learning Ecosystem at any time from any location with WiFi connectivity. Beginning with large entry-level service courses, the CIRC will build infrastructure that enables the collection of meaningful data by tracking activities and assessments, connecting them to specific learning outcomes, and measuring success through various engagement and eLearning tools. Some of these tools may come from third parties, others may need to be built in-house either to establish prototypes, proof of principle or steady-state solutions. The key factor is that the tools for online interactions and adaptive eLearning ultimately need to provide full, detailed, instantaneous access to all data such that smart networks can be created, studied, and applied to transform the student experience and improve learning outcomes. At the moment, this is a limitation for most third party solutions - this data is sequestered. For third party tools that do allow access to raw data, this data still needs to be curated and mapped into a global network connected to learning objectives. Thus an overarching theme of the CIRC is to facilitate data-enabled smart academic networks that will form the foundation for the Rutgers University Learning Ecosystem. This ecosystem will facilitate active, collaborative learning in cyberspace across all campuses, provide a mechanism for delivering custom instruction at scale, enhance placement and identify students at risk or struggling with mastery of specific learning objectives, and create personalized interventions to improve student outcomes. Most importantly, it will provide a mechanism where students can more easily help one another succeed.

Scalability and Sustainability. While these efforts need to start at relatively small scales with faculty and departments eager and committed to make transformative steps, ultimately there needs to be a mechanism that allows for scalability in a way that is sustainable. Toward this end, there needs to be in place close coordination and collaboration with SAS IT and in some cases OIT from the very start of new projects. It is equally imperative that both of these entities consult with CIRC leadership (as well as other entities) with the purchasing of large third-party contracts and licenses to support instruction at Rutgers. It has been the lack of such coordination and consultation from managing offices such as DoCS, and to some extent also the lack of serious involvement in large-scale educational projects on the ground (beyond front-end consultation and help-desk level support) that has prevented Rutgers in the past from making more progress in modernizing their online educational strategy. So while CIRC should remain agile so as to act as an effective catalyst for much needed transformation, there needs to be in place a mechanism for coordination with other offices, particularly SAS IT, that allows strategic planning and implementation of infrastructure needed for the transition into a scalable, sustainable model.

New modes of assessment. In support of the CIRC’s activities, infrastructure will be developed to pilot next-generation student assessments that leverage new technology being developed at Rutgers and elsewhere. Student assessment is a crucial element to the success of the core mission of SAS and University-wide academic initiatives, and a necessary component of any strategic approach to online instructional technology. Recent developments in cognitive science and information technology have opened the door for new paradigms in student testing that promise to significantly improve teaching and learning both in physical and virtual environments.

In order for Rutgers to fully embrace a modern culture of teaching and learning, it is paramount that we transform our modes of assessment to align with our desired learning outcomes as well as the needs of our diverse student population. The majority of today’s learners are digital natives that have grown up having access to vast amounts of data, and are adept at pattern recognition. Gone are the days where meaningful assessments can be made from generic bubble-filling, Scantron-graded common-hour exams. Rather, the CIRC will strive to create infrastructure and facilitate projects to create personalized assessments based on cognitively challenging performance tasks that can be taken asynchronously to allow flexible scheduling and/or multiple assessment attempts. Leveraging adaptive eLearning tools, cyberinfrastructure and multiple forms of media, assessments can be created that contain interactive, multistep problems designed to deeply probe each student’s mastery of concepts and problem-solving skills. The data collected by such assessments will inform networks able to identify the origins of individual learning obstacles, and afford a mechanism for delivery of personalized instruction at scale.

Advisory Councils and Steering Committee. A CIRC Advisory Board will be formed of faculty, administrators, and outside experts in instructional technology innovations. This board will be charged with providing strategic advice and dynamic perspectives on CIRC activities and direction. The board will meet at least two times per year. In addition, an SAS Educational Steering Committee should be formed as a working group charged with coordination of our current educational technology infrastructure, and development of an SAS plan for the design, implementation, deployment and assessment of innovative teaching technology. Tactical deployment of teaching technology should further SAS’s efforts to achieve its mission across a broad spectrum of activities, including a strategic plan for online education.