IDEALS Lab
IDEALS Lab
The Interdisciplinary Design for Empowerment and Agency through the Learning Sciences (IDEALS) Lab conducts research and faculty development in the Center for Teaching Excellence. The primary purpose of the lab is to support the Innovation and Design for Exploration and Analysis in Teaching Excellence (IDEATE) community and help them design, conduct, and publish Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research studies.
IDEALS Lab Mission
The Interdisciplinary Design for Empowerment and Agency through the Learning Sciences (IDEALS) Lab supports faculty in designing, conducting, and publishing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research. The lab operates on seven core principles that guide its work and community. All research focuses on designing powerful learning experiences and empowering learners from underrepresented communities through radical empathy—empathy accompanied by action. The lab embraces collaborative leadership where members are co-equal collaborators in strategic planning, role assignment, and research projects. Research is grounded primarily in learning sciences literature and views learning as simultaneous processes of becoming and knowledge construction at individual, collaborative, and collective levels. The lab incorporates design-based research methodology whenever possible and encourages fearless innovation in developing new data collection, generation, and analysis methods and tools.