Redesigning Instructional Design (and Teaching and Learning)

Martha Burtis, director of PSU’s Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative (CoLab).

Plymouth State’s innovative learning model continues to evolve, and a new grant-funded program is fostering a conversation across campus about its intersection with instructional design. The Davis Educational Foundation has awarded PSU $231,985 over the next three years to support “Designing Forward: Reimagining Instructional Design for Cluster Learning.” This is the second grant from the Davis Foundation to PSU since 2018.

PSU’s Cluster Learning Model reshapes how programs are structured at the University into a learner-centered experience that exposes students to other disciplines and encourages them to work on real-world issues, ideas, and challenges. It further strives to make the University’s knowledge and expertise accessible to anyone who needs it. 

Trustees of the Davis Educational Foundation described the PSU team as “impressive in its leadership, its collaborative spirit, and in the sophistication of its thinking about instructional design.”

President Donald Birx articulated his inventive vision for transforming higher education soon after his arrival on the Plymouth State campus in 2015, as outlined in his 2020 book, Redesigning Higher Education. Cluster Learning, the teaching and learning approach that powers the University’s unique academic environment, has been developed through collaboration with and research by PSU’s faculty. It is centered on interdisciplinary inquiry and research, open educational practices that remove barriers and empower students to contribute to the knowledge commons, and project-based learning that extends past the classroom walls.

“Cluster Learning is oriented around preparing our students to work in a changing world, in all types of different contexts that are exciting but unpredictable, and where they need to be prepared to engage with people and ideas they’ve never encountered before,” notes Martha Burtis, director of PSU’s Open Learning and Teaching Collaborative (CoLab). “Similarly, this latest grant from the Davis Foundation will help our faculty develop new models for teaching that can tackle unpredictable, emergent, and transformational class experiences. Our work now is to blend our Cluster Learning expertise with new approaches to designing education, at every level of the curriculum.”

The Davis Educational Foundation, established as a public charitable foundation in 1985, supports the undergraduate programs of public and private, regionally accredited, baccalaureate degree granting colleges and universities throughout the six New England states. Elisabeth K. Davis and Stanton W. Davis co-founded the foundation after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. The foundation is an expression of the couple’s shared support and value for higher education and has provided more than $130 million in grants to more than 175 institutions. Learn more at www.davisfoundations.org.

First-Ever “Snowpack Index” of Climate Change Impacts

Water-related disasters, such as the historic flooding that destroyed roads, infrastructure and property in northern New Hampshire in December 2023, continue to trend upward due to global warming. These increasing disasters place immense financial stress on the already-strained budgets of individuals, municipalities, states, and the federal government. The state of the winter snowpack—critical to the economy and lifestyles of northern New England—plays a significant role in the probability that these disasters will occur.

Plymouth State University has received a $192,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to analyze nearly a century’s worth of snowpack data from across the Northeast to develop a Snow Drought Index, the first of its kind in the nation. The index will look at measurements of depth and snow water equivalent and rank them by severity of deviation from a climatological baseline, improving our understanding of climate change’s relationship with winter related disasters such as the severe flooding in Plymouth and Holderness in December 2023.

Photo by Matt Rudzinski ’22, ’24MBA

“Various organizations have been measuring the region’s snowpack since the 1930s, but until now we have never had an observational baseline for a historical perspective of present-day snowpack conditions, an understanding of how the seasonal snowpack has evolved with climate change, nor developed a model for assessing snow drought conditions,” says Professor Eric Kelsey. “With this grant, we’ll be able to analyze two important variables—snowpack depth and snow water equivalent (the amount of water in the snowpack)—to produce standardized climate data that NOAA, NWS, and others can use in their modeling and forecasts.”

The Snow Drought Index will be the first of its kind in the nation. PSU is collaborating with other institutions, including the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, which oversees the grant, and the National Weather Service. The grant timeline calls for the project to be completed by April 2026.

Award-Winning Eats

Chef Mike Woodman. Photo by Denise Panyik-Dale

Whatever you think or may remember about college dining hall food, consider this: Plymouth State has bested hundreds of institutions in a nationwide culinary competition. High Liner Foodservice, a leading supplier of frozen seafood products, honored Executive Chef Michael Woodman earlier this year for his innovative “Classic Beer-Battered Pollock Sandwich.”

Judges noted Woodman’s sandwich is “A perfect balance of textures and flavors, with beer-battered pollock fillets fried to a golden, crispy exterior, encasing tender, flaky fish with a light, slightly malty sweetness. Fried jalapeños added a crunchy, spicy kick that complemented the mild pollock, while the buttery brioche bun balanced the heat with its sweetness. The house bistro sauce, tangy and savory with hints of Dijon mustard, tied everything together, creating a harmonious blend of creamy, tangy, and spicy flavors.”

Woodman won a cruise trip for two to Alaska, where much of the world’s pollock is fished, and his tasty and newsworthy creation was featured on WMUR-TV’s NH Chronicle program.

Plymouth State University’s dining service is operated by Chartwells Higher Education, a recognized leader in contract food service management, hospitality, and guest service, offering distinctive dining experiences for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to 300 college campuses throughout the US.