Effect of a short compulsory course on teachers’ active learning practices

We investigated the impact that teachers' participation in a short compulsory course on active learning had on their teaching practice. The course was offered at all departments of a STEM faculty with a total of 516 participants. Evaluations showed that teachers especially appreciated collegial discussions and examples of teaching practices in the course. In a survey, 64% indicated the course had led them to implement active teaching. Comparing large-scale pre-course and post-course student surveys with up to 2389 individual responses revealed a significant increase in the number of courses with active learning. The course as a change strategy contains aspects of both middle-out and top-down approaches and organising the course at departments, enables movement from individual to structural level.