Educational Research
Educational Scholarship and Inquiry
Turning questions from teaching into knowledge for learning
Educational scholarship begins with curiosity about students, learning, teaching, and educational experiences. CITL partners with faculty, instructors, departments, and campus leaders to transform questions from practice into meaningful inquiry, evidence, and action.
Inquiry begins with
A question worth exploring
These questions often emerge from everyday teaching experiences, conversations with students, course data, assessment results, and observations about learning.
Curiosity, examined with care
Educational scholarship is a form of reflective practice. By systematically exploring questions that emerge from teaching and learning, educators can develop new insights, improve educational experiences, and contribute knowledge that supports colleagues across disciplines.
Scholarship can focus on a single course, a broader educational initiative, emerging technologies, faculty development, student experiences, or institutional programs. What these projects share is a commitment to using evidence to better understand and improve learning.
Whether you are new to educational inquiry or have experience conducting scholarship of teaching and learning, CITL can help you refine questions, design studies, gather evidence, interpret findings, and share what you learn with others.
Question → Explore → Study → Share
Educational scholarship is often iterative, but many projects move through four connected stages that help turn curiosity into evidence-informed action.
Question
Notice and name what matters
Identify a teaching, learning, or student success question that emerges from practice, reflection, data, feedback, or a new opportunity.
Explore
Refine questions and connect ideas
Review existing knowledge, consider relevant literature, identify possible approaches, and clarify what you hope to better understand.
Study
Gather and interpret evidence
Collect and analyze evidence through surveys, interviews, focus groups, course artifacts, assessment data, learning analytics, or mixed methods.
Share
Transform findings into action
Apply insights to improve teaching and learning, inform program decisions, present findings, or publish scholarship that can benefit others.
Where questions lead
Educational inquiry can take many forms. These areas offer starting points for the kinds of collaborations we support.
Teaching and Learning
How do teaching decisions influence student learning, engagement, and success?
Projects in this area explore instructional strategies, assessment practices, student engagement, classroom climate, feedback, active learning, and inclusive teaching approaches.
Courses and Curricula
How can educational experiences be designed for greater impact?
Faculty and academic units examine course redesign, curriculum alignment, learning outcomes, experiential learning, and program improvement efforts that support student success.
Innovation and Emerging Technologies
What becomes possible when we experiment with new tools and ideas?
Projects explore artificial intelligence, educational technologies, digital learning environments, learning analytics, instructional innovation, and new approaches to teaching and learning.
Student Experience and Institutional Learning
How can evidence inform broader educational improvement?
This work examines student belonging, persistence, faculty development, educational initiatives, program effectiveness, and institutional efforts that support teaching excellence and student success.
Inquiry in Action Across Illinois
Educational research is most meaningful when it emerges from authentic educational contexts. Across Illinois, CITL collaborates with faculty, departments, colleges, and campus organizations to investigate questions that matter to students, instructors, and institutions.
These projects represent examples of the kinds of partnerships we support and the kinds of scholarship that can grow from teaching, learning, and educational innovation.
Ongoing
Inclusive Course Redesign Initiative (ICRI)
How can course redesign support student learning and success?
This initiative examines how course redesign efforts influence student experiences, instructional decision-making, and continuous improvement.
Under review
Learning Analytics and Educational Improvement
How can data support reflective teaching practice?
Faculty and CITL partners explore how course data can inform instructional improvement, course redesign, and evidence-informed decision-making.
Emerging
Faculty Development and Educational Change
How do faculty develop, adapt, and innovate in changing educational environments?
Projects examine professional learning, civil discourse, faculty learning communities, AI integration, and educational innovation.
Active
Program Evaluation and Student Success Initiatives
What can we learn from educational programs and institutional initiatives?
These partnerships examine student engagement, belonging, mentoring, experiential learning, and programs designed to support student success.
Active
AI in Teaching and Learning
How are faculty and students using generative AI in educational practice?
CITL is exploring how generative AI influences teaching, learning, assessment, feedback, and educational decision-making.
In development
Experiential Learning Assessment
How do experiential learning opportunities influence student development?
These collaborations examine how experiential learning contributes to engagement, reflection, skill development, and student success.
Publications, submissions, presentations, and reports
Our collaborative projects contribute to peer-reviewed publications, submitted manuscripts, conference presentations, program evaluation reports, teaching resources, and institutional improvement initiatives.
Manuscripts and publications
Inclusive course redesign, learning analytics, civil discourse, STEM pathways, and educational improvement.
Presentations and resources
Conference sessions, campus workshops, faculty development materials, and teaching resources.
Evaluation reports
Program evaluation and evidence-informed recommendations for courses, initiatives, and campus programs.
Faculty collaborations
Opportunities to highlight classroom innovations and share what faculty are learning from practice.
How CITL can support your work
Faculty and campus partners can enter the process at different points. Some begin with a question. Others bring a project, innovation, data source, grant idea, or initiative that needs evaluation support.
Every educational innovation begins with a question
Many educational scholarship projects begin with curiosity about something happening in a classroom, course, program, or initiative. Faculty do not need a completed research design or a formal scholarship agenda to begin the conversation.
Whether you are redesigning a course, experimenting with a new teaching approach, implementing artificial intelligence, evaluating a program, examining student experiences, or exploring a question that has emerged from your own practice, CITL can help transform those questions into inquiry, evidence, and opportunities to share what you learn with others.