Mazur group will help to enhance teaching at University of Texas, Austin

A new effort between researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard has been created to help improve teaching and learning through educational innovation and technology.

Steven W. Leslie, executive vice president and provost at the University of Texas, Austin, said the endeavor brings together top educational researchers from the Mazur Group at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Harvard’s Department of Physics with educational innovators from the University of Texas, Austin.

They will lead the implementation and dissemination of cutting-edge, evidence-based, interactive strategies of instruction that leverage educational technology to improve student learning and success.

The primary vehicle used by the team will be the university’s new Course Transformation Program, a state-of-the-art effort to advance pedagogical innovation, effective teaching, and student success in general education courses.

“The Course Transformation Project’s integration of educational technology and scientific approaches to ensuring student academic success is unique,” said Julie Schell, a SEAS postdoctoral fellow, senior educational researcher in the Mazur Group, and lead collaborator on the project.

Eric Mazur, the Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics and area dean for applied physics at SEAS, heads one of the largest physics and engineering research groups at Harvard. Mazur is also the developer of Peer Instruction, an innovative, evidence-based teaching and learning method used in thousands of classrooms throughout the world.