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February 5, 2026
News from the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative
Greetings and Happy 2026! As we enter the final year of our work, our team members and partners are excited to begin sharing a series of new resources, tools, publications, and events designed to strengthen postsecondary learning and instruction in online STEM courses.
In this issue of News from the Collaborative, we share new blog posts that dive into our Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model and explore strategies for fostering student motivation, engagement, and success in online settings.
Hear from students who used the strategies in real-world courses and catch up on our researchers’ recent presentations at the International Society for Self-Directed Learning’s annual symposium and the 2025 Instructional Design Professionals Conference.
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New Resource
Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model
The Collaborative’s Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model offers college educators three evidence-based strategies to help college students manage their online learning better.
These strategies tackle key challenges of online learning by helping students cultivate habits that are strongly related to student success, including developing a sense of belonging that builds social connections, planning time for coursework, reflecting on progress to develop confidence and self-efficacy, and learning how to seek help when needed.
The model also includes two draft guides for instructors and instructional leaders interested in adopting and implementing the strategies.
New Blogs
Hearing From Learners: Student Reflections on Self-Directed Learning Strategies
Three students who completed courses that piloted the Collaborative's Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model share their experiences using evidence-backed strategies to foster and reinforce learning skills.
Embedding Self-Directed Learning Strategies to Strengthen Online STEM Instruction
At a recent conference for instructional designers, Collaborative researchers Hannah Cheever and Ellen Wasserman unveiled a set of research-based strategies designed to improve teaching and learning in online college STEM courses.
Putting Learners in Charge: A Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model
Collaborative researcher Louise Yarnall presented the Collaborative's new Self-Directed Learning Instructional Model at the annual symposium of the International Society for Self-Directed Learning.
Be sure to visit our website to stay up to date on our upcoming events as well as our past events. For past events, we provide all our presentation slides and materials.
Contact Us: Email us at postsec-collab@sri.com or visit postseccollab.org.
The Collaborative is a research and capacity-building center that aims to study and improve how faculty teach and use technology to help students apply and strengthen self-directed learning skills (SDL) to increase their success in online courses. The Collaborative is a partnership of SRI Education, the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Achieving the Dream, and nine broad-access colleges and universities.
