Welcome to the CASTLE Program!

As faculty, do you ever ask... As you grade exams, are you wondering if what your students learned is what you thought you were teaching? Do you wish you had an easy way to continuously monitor and assess your students learning? Do you wish you had a better understanding of what really motivates your students? Do you wish you had a tool to automatically grade tests and collect meaningful assessment data? Do you wish you had a better understanding of how your students really learn? If you answered "yes," to these questions, then the CASTLE program has some answers for you to explore... What is the CASTLE program? CASTLE stands for Continuous Assessment in a Teaching/Learning Environment.  The CASTLE faculty development program provides the resources for faculty to continuously assess and evaluate all aspects of the classroom, be it a virtual, hybrid or face-to-face learning environment: theories of learning and motivation applied in the classroom instructional strategies and interventions derived from these theories hypotheses of teaching and learning student learning and performance asssessment design What is classroom research? Classroom research may be simply defined as the ongoing and cumulative intellectual inquiry by classroom teachers into the nature of teaching and learning in their own classrooms.  The case study model provides a methodology for faculty to conduct this inquiry.  CASTLE classroom research follows the classroom research model espoused by Cross and Steadman in their seminal text Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching, 1996.  This model of classroom research is: a means by which faculty and students work together to structure classroom dynamics in ways that provide a mutually rewarding experience. the timely collection and analysis of assessment data to test hypotheses of teaching/learning. the ongoing intellectual inquiry into the nature of teaching/learning. supported by institutionally recognized groups focused on improving student learning.   Classroom research is a tremendously freeing idea in that what faculty are asked to do is what they do anyway, intuitively, anecdotally, and implicitly as part of their own teaching. CASTLE classroom research helps faculty articulate their intuitions and observations about how students best learn and helps them connect this experience to formal learning theories in order to design tactical classroom learning interventions to improve student learning. CASTLE offers faculty an expectional opportunity to engage actively in the scholarship of teaching by using their classrooms as laboratories for the study of teaching and learning to improve student achievement and performance. Among other project goals, the primary mission of the CASTLE program is to continually improve and document student learning.

CASTLE case studies

How does CASTLE support classroom research?

CASTLE project team

If you are interested in joining the CASTLE program or wish further information, please contact Chuck Hinz, dean of Learning Services chuck.hinz@kirkwood.edu or Rich Edwards, CASTLE program manager rich.edwards@kirkwood.edu