Doing “All the Things”: Leveraging Data, Collaboration, and Evidence-based Design to Transform Gateway Courses
On Thursday, October 23, 2025, TLL hosted Dr. Denise Galarza Sepúlveda, Dr. Heather Rypkema, from the University of Michigan’s Foundational Course Initiative (FCI), and Dr. Alicia Romero, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Statistics, to discuss how they are transforming large, gateway courses from traditional lecture-based instruction to more learner-centered approaches that actively engage students.
Doing “All the Things”: Leveraging Data, Collaboration, and Evidence-based Design to Transform Gateway Courses
The University of Michigan’s Foundational Course Initiative (FCI) was established to support instructors in transforming high-enrollment gateway courses. At MIT, the General Institute Requirements (GIRs) are considered ‘gateway’ courses. These courses often serve as a student’s first introduction to a discipline and can significantly impact their chosen career path. “Doing All The Things”, Dr. Denise Galarza Sepúlveda explained, refers to a phrase that she often hears from faculty and graduate student instructors who feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities and many recommended “best practices” of teaching gateway courses.
Given the high stakes for students and the sheer size of gateway courses (for example, Michigan’s STATS 250 enrolls 2000 students in a semester), FCI’s approach centers on a multi-year partnership with each course, securing department buy-in, and convening cross-role design teams that include faculty, graduate student instructors, and undergraduates. These teams leverage available data to inform their design decisions, using an iterative process focused on sustainable changes. With such robust support, feelings of overwhelm are replaced with excitement about “doing all the things” the design team envisions. They are able to set priorities, explore various interventions, and establish sustainable practices that help the full instructional teams thrive while enhancing their course and improving student learning.
The speakers highlighted the following three examples of the FCI in breakout rooms
Key Redesign Efforts & Outcomes
Dr. Galarza Sepúlveda shared examples of two course redesign efforts focused on enhancing student engagement and addressing diverse needs: Earth 222 (Intro to Oceanography) and EECS 203 (Discrete Mathematics).
For Earth 222, the redesign took a “gameful approach,” focusing on fostering a sense of belonging, shifting the course from fact memorization to big-picture concepts, and responding to student interests. For example, assessments allowed for more student choice in a creative final project and provided more variety in the types of problems students completed. They also emphasized the course’s relevance by posing motivating questions for each topic.
Discrete Mathematics (EECS 203) undertook a systematic, multi-year effort that included a student-driven section choice to accommodate differing math backgrounds, the effective use of learning technologies such as Problem Roulette and E-Coach, and an emphasis on the whole student. The redesign efforts in both courses led to significantly increased student engagement and more positive perception of the material, demonstrating the success of making the learning process reasonably robust and well-scaffolded.
Using Data to Inform Course Design
Dr. Rypkema discussed how the FCI uses analytics to support course redesign decisions. These collaborations typically span three years and include an iterative assessment cycle repeated once or twice annually to develop and assess new interventions. Towards the end of this process, teams review longitudinal progress across various metrics and develop a sustainability plan so that course design teams can carry out iterative design work on their own.
Core Metrics Used in Analysis
- Institutional data, which includes student demographics and educational trajectories, the course’s context within the larger educational ecosystem, grade outcomes, and the equity landscape.
- Student survey data.
- Item Response Theory (IRT) – to evaluate the efficacy of multiple-choice questions.
- Event log analysis from instructional technology platforms to track how students navigate through a series of tasks.
- Gradebook analysis to evaluate for improved outcome equity.
Inside the Redesign of STATS 250: Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis
Dr. Romero described the redesign team’s experience with Stats 250, UMich’s largest class with 2,000 students and 68 labs, taught by 4 lecturers and 30 graduate student instructors. The design team included two instructors as well as graduate student instructors and undergraduate students who had taken the course, with facilitation by two FCI consultants. The design team began by creating a shared vision of their ideal classroom (and how students would experience it), identifying two core characteristics:
- Personal, in which students are seen and heard, and
- Collaborative, in which students collaborate in their own learning
After observing smaller classes on campus that incorporated active learning, the design team focused on three major changes to create a personal and collaborative learning environment:
- Student choice. Students chose between two formats of the course: a) active learning, or b) traditional lecture, with the opportunity to switch their choice after the first exam. 80% of students chose the active learning format.
- Structure. The two course formats varied in the amount of structure:
- Active learning was highly structured, with required attendance and pre-class work. The last 30 minutes of each class were devoted to small-group problem-solving. Lecture assignments made up 5% of the grade, and exams accounted for 20%.
- Traditional lectures had minimal structure, with optional attendance and no required pre-work or group work. Exams made up 25% of the grade.
- Building community. The first weeks of classes included community-building activities. To make time for these activities, content was reordered and more focused on key concepts. The review content was moved to an extra credit module.
Together, these examples of redesigning gateway courses highlight how instructors set priorities and use data to inform and iterate on their redesign efforts. With support from the Foundational Course Initiative, the instructors do not need to “do all the things” when teaching gateway courses; rather, they focus their redesign efforts on relevant, high-impact teaching practices to enhance student learning and engagement.
