The use of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) by the national STEM community has expanded exponentially over the almost-thirty years since its initial introduction in the early 1990’s as Workshop Chemistry with funding through the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 1994 the NSF introduced the Systemic Changes in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum Initiative, designed to support large-scale, multi-institutional projects that would make substantial changes in the design of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum, with a focus on the first- and second-year courses. PLTL formed the basis of one of the five projects that were funded under this Initiative. The PLTL project was the narrowest in design and the easiest pedagogical change to implement without revising the entire structure of a given course or curriculum. Thus, while all five funded efforts have achieved significant impacts across the national chemistry community, PLTL rapidly became the most identifiable and most easily disseminated of the five projects. This characteristic helped PLTL gain support for major dissemination grants from the NSF in 1999 and 2003 to further expand the implementation of this pedagogy across the national chemistry community. Under these grants PLTL explored the use of Workshop Project Associate (WPA) grants, small grants to other institutions interested in implementing PLTL on their campuses. With intellectual and practical support from faculty experienced in using PLTL, the WPA grants succeeded in expanding the national reach of PLTL to many additional institutions and to other disciplines. Over time the PLTL community has attracted major support from other foundations in addition to NSF to actively continue broadening and refining efforts in development, dissemination, evaluation, educational research, and cyber applications of this instructional model.

Support by the National Science Foundation for the development of peer-led team learning

255th National Meeting (2018)

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