The Kansas University Center for Teaching Excellence has launched a $2.5 million National Science Foundation-funded project to improve STEM education methods at research universities, KU announced Wednesday.

Center director and professor of psychology Andrea Follmer Greenhoot is leading the five-year study, dubbed Transforming Education, Stimulating Teaching and Learning Excellence, or TRESTLE. According to KU, TRESTLE is based on a model Greenhoot developed and implemented at KU that uses evidence-based teaching methods that improve learning.

Center Faculty Fellows Caroline Bennett, associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, and Mark Mort, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, are co-principal investigators on the project.

Of the $2.5 million, $2.05 million was awarded to KU and the remainder awarded to collaborating institutions. TRESTLE partners include Indiana University, Queens University of Ontario, the University of British Columbia, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of California-Davis and the University of Texas at San Antonio.