Yakut Gazi
Vice Provost of Learning Innovation and Digital Education
When I look at what LILE has accomplished this year, I’m filled with pride. This was a year of change for us – even to the extent that we changed our name to Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education in order to reflect our shared group and shared mission:
We will put Duke on the map as a powerhouse for learning innovation and lifetime education.
To accomplish this mission, we established and expanded a leadership team , and that team formed a multi-year Strategic Plan to strengthen our work with our Duke partners and our global community of learners. This work included key collaborations with important partners like Duke Kunshan University, Duke Corporate Education, Duke’s Climate Commitment, Duke Alumni Engagement and Development, and Coursera –underlining the global social impact we know we can effect.
In pursuit of our core values and commitments , we center all our work, in every team, on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access – bringing together instructors across Duke who are interested in making Duke teaching and learning practices even more inclusive, and extending educational opportunities to a community of learners, from pre-college to post-career, far beyond the borders of Duke’s campus.
To this end, we hosted our inaugural Emerging Pedagogies Summit – a multi-day conference for Duke instructors and others in our community who are inspired by and committed to making Duke’s learning experiences experiential and transformative. We also serve as Duke’s thought leader in AI, steering campus conversations, strategy, and innovation. We’re leading the charge on how to thoughtfully and purposely respond as artificial intelligence—and its ethical and environmental challenges—transforms higher education and every industry.
Looking at this year of great change and progress, I’m also inspired to do more. In the coming year, we will build on this great work and expand its impact. Our upcoming Emerging Pedagogies Summit is open to all – extending the conversation and inviting even more perspectives. Our lifetime education offerings will be expanding too – toward a market-driven and learner-centered portfolio that will prepare our global community of learners for the skills and strategies they need to be successful in a world revolutionized by emerging technologies and trends.
I hope as you look at our accomplishments from this year, you feel the same inspiration – and reach out to us with new ideas for collaboration and impact. Together, we can do great things.
Our Year By the Numbers
20,806 Learners served
We served over 20k learners at Duke and globally through face-to-face and online courses.
1,277 Alumni engaged
We enabled alumni to reconnect with Duke as lifelong learners.
342 Publications, talks and events
We created and shared knowledge in many ways this year, including workshops, hosted speakers, papers, book chapters, conference presentations, and more.
7,809 Instructors supported
From answering quick questions over email, to workshops on new pedagogies to one-onone consultations, we met instructors where they were on their teaching journey.
4.4 / 5 Learner satisfaction
Providing an excellent learning experience creates learners who trust Duke.
$13.45 Million Gross Revenue
815,676 Total enrollments
Many pre-college to post-career learners returned over and over, enrolling in multiple courses.
673 Learning experiences
The total number of courses and other learning opportunities we delivered globally.
36,231 Credentials awarded
Learners earned professional certificates, CEUs, certificates of completion, and other credentials that illustrate their newly acquired knowledge and skills.
2,536 courses on Canvas this year
Duke instructors enthusiastically adopted Canvas, our new classroom learning management system, this year.
198 New programs launched
We are constantly creating new courses and programs to meet modern learners’ needs.
67 Total employees
Enabling Transformative Teaching and Learning
We are enabling data-informed, research-driven, and equity-centered transformative teaching and learning on Duke’s campus and across a global community of lifetime learners.
Keeping Up with Generative AI
Generative AI (genAI) is rapidly impacting teaching and learning – so we are dedicated to providing frequent opportunities to engage with it.
• Our teaching guide on Generative AI and Teaching at Duke now includes guidance on classroom-level AI policies and incorporating genAI into coursework .
• We hosted a series of workshops for the Duke community that focused on practical ways to engage with genAI in participants’ everyday work as staff or faculty.
• In collaboration with Duke University Libraries and Duke Health, we opened a call for proposals to support six Duke faculty incorporating generative AI into an aspect of their existing 2024-25 courses. This Pilot AI Jump Start Grant program is aligned with the Duke 2030 goals and ambitions to transform teaching and learning at Duke; recipients will be announced in Fall 2024.
• In partnership with Duke Libraries, we joined 17 other institutions in Ithaka S+R’s two-year research project, “ Making AI Generative for Higher Education.” This initiative is assessing the immediate and emerging AI applications most likely to impact teaching, learning, and research, and exploring the long-term the long-term needs of institutions, instructors, and scholars as they navigate this environment.
• We joined forces with Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering to establish the Center for Research & Engineering of AI Technology in Education (CREATE) which will advance the use of AI in educational settings to benefit both educators and learners. Our first program as part of this initiative was the Duke Summer Coding Camp which provided high school students the opportunity to learn computational thinking and the basics of programming with Python.
713 participants registered for our AI workshops
Over $50,000 awarded to selected AI Jump Start Grant recipients in collaboration with the Provost
18 institutions participating in a collaborative research project led by Ithaka S+R
Through these diverse initiatives, we are contributing to the evolving landscape of generative AI in education, ensuring our community remains at the forefront of technological advancements in teaching and learning.
Exploring Emerging Pedagogies
As we look to the future of teaching and learning, there are conversations we need to be having now in order to prepare modern learners to thrive. Through our Emerging Pedagogies initiative, we are enabling forward-thinking instructors both within and beyond the Duke community to have these crucial conversations.
In Fall 2023, we hosted the inaugural Emerging Pedagogies Summit as a catalyst for important conversations around applied research and innovative practices in teaching and learning. The 2023 Summit featured an opening keynote by Sanjay Sarma and expert speakers on the following topics:
• Pedagogies of care
• Gamification
• Virtual and augmented reality
• Lifelong learning
• Design-based pedagogy
• Learning at scale
• Generative AI
The 2023 Emerging Pedagogies Summit, by the numbers:
137 registrants
23 speakers
216 viewers of Sanjay Sarma’s virtual opening keynote address
The Summit is returning for Fall 2024 - and is open to all educators who are passionate about emerging pedagogies.
Watch recordings from the Spring 2024 webinar
In Spring 2024, we hosted a series of Emerging Pedagogies webinars that looked at higher ed innovation at the university scale (macro innovation), program scale (mezzo innovation), and individual course scale (micro innovation).
We also sought to expand expertise on emerging pedagogies at Duke through our new Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grants and Fellowships initiative. We selected a cohort of nine faculty who are reimagining how, where, when, and with whom learning happens; exploring what 21st century Duke learning experiences can look like and need to be; and are developing their knowledge or creating scholarship about emerging pedagogies. They will advance our efforts to expand the scope of who are considered “Duke learners” to include those beyond traditional undergraduate and graduate students, and ensure all Duke-provided learning experiences in any modality are welldesigned, learner-centered, and apply evidence-based innovative pedagogies.
449 registrants of our Spring 2024 webinar series
The inaugural Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grant Recipients and Faculty Fellows.
Left to right: Megan Madonna, Michelle Webb, Jennie De Gagne, Thomas Newpher, Minna Ng, George Delagrammatikas, Cambey Mikush, Rebecca Simmons, and Karen Weber
We are deepening our commitment to advancing evidence-based teaching and learning practices by bringing together our teaching consultants and our research and evaluation teams under the leadership of Aria Chernik, our new Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Applied Research (FDAR) . This new role and unit will strategically advance the culture of research, assessment, and analytics in teaching and learning at Duke. Chernik will oversee LILE’s faculty development, research, evaluation, and learning analytics work and play a critical role in our efforts to continuously improve teaching and learning practices, understand impact, and inform systems change.
“Our faculty development and support will be intertwined with applied research in education. Our work will go beyond best practices, to bring data-informed decisions to these environments.”
- Yakut Gazi
Over 30 faculty research projects supported though services such as consultations, IRB development, consent management, and data analysis.
Making Accessibility Easy
UDOIT, a tool that integrates with Canvas to identify issues and provide guidance to empower faculty to improve accessibility within their courses.
Growing the Community of Duke Learners
We are increasing learning engagements with Duke by creating in-demand educational programs and services tailored to pre-college, college, working, and post-career learners.
Diving Into Climate Science with Pre-College at the Marine Lab
The Duke Pre-College Program provides advanced academic opportunities and an introduction to the college experience to middle and high school students. These young learners gain valuable experiences that prepare them not only for their college curriculum and careers to follow, but also their futures as empowered, influential leaders. Typically, students can participate in Pre-College programming at Duke’s campus or online. But for summer 2024, we expanded our offerings to provide a unique opportunity for students to spend a week at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC. Their courses included sustainability, conservation, and marine biology, with experiential learning opportunities held at the Pine Knolls beach and aquarium and aboard the R/V Kirby Smith - one of the Marine Lab’s oceanic research vessels.
Preparing Future Scholars and Leaders
We collaborated with the Office for Interdisciplinary Studies to offer the 2024 Duke Summer Graduate Academy – a catalog of 15 free online short courses that help emerging scholars prepare for high-level research, innovative teaching, leadership and/or public engagement. Courses in the Graduate Academy cover topics not typically included in a graduate curriculum, or they provide an intensive introduction for graduate students and postdocs who might not have the time or inclination to pursue a full course in a subject.
In addition to the courses taught at Duke, we were also able to partner with Yale to provide Duke students access to three courses taught at Yale, and vice versa. This kind of exchange program provides a unique opportunity for students to take courses that would otherwise be unavailable to them, and to connect with colleagues at peer institutions.
330 graduate students and postdoctoral participants in the 2024 Duke Summer graduate academy
18 total courses offered during the Graduate Academy
Hitting New Milestones with Coursera
In addition to giving Duke students, faculty and staff free access to more than 4,270 online courses and specializations, our partnership with Coursera has enabled us to provide access to high-quality Duke educational experiences to millions of learners across the globe. In 2023, all-time enrollments in Duke’s Coursera courses passed 10 million, and we are on track to celebrate 11 million this fall. We first partnered with Coursera in 2012; today, Duke University has more than 100 courses hosted on Coursera, all developed by Duke instructors with support from our Learning Experience (LX) Design team . We believe that well-designed online courses can empower learners to transform their academic, professional and personal lives; our LX designers are constantly exploring new ways to improve the online student experience (such as through implementing trauma-informed teaching practices and integrating case studies to illustrate topics’ real-world applications).
And More…
We invited Nelson Baker, Dean of Professional Education at Georgia Tech, to speak at Duke about the launch of Georgia Tech’s new College of Lifetime Learning. He shared how this initiative is dedicated to the primary purpose of educational institutions: creating opportunities that empower learners to transform their lives for the better.
2012 — the year we first partnered with Coursera
100+ courses created by Duke experts for Coursera
10 million enrollments surpassed in 2023
The Duke Nonprofit Management Program partnered with the Cameron Foundation in Petersburg, VA for over 10 years to bring capacity building training to nonprofit organizations in their service area. The program also added the Dan River Nonprofit Network, based in Danville, VA as a new partner in 2024. This partnership is an extension of the Nonprofit Program’s 17-year relationship with the Danville Regional Foundation. These partnerships allow the Duke Nonprofit Management Program to engage at the community level through custom training programs with these and other related nonprofits.
To improve the learner experience, our professional certificate courses began migrating to Duke’s new classroom learning management platform, Canvas, with our legal nurse consulting program being the first to do so.
Broadening Access to Duke Learning Opportunities for All
We are redefining who the Duke learner can be and developing inclusive pathways to learn for all types of learners, anywhere, at any age.
Welcoming Local Students to Duke for Community Days
New this year, Duke Pre-College hosted 40 local Chapel Hill middle school students for the first Community Days on Duke’s campus. Students spent their time in a course of their choosing – either AI Creative Writing and Machine Learning or Exploring Literature from Ancient Greece to Modern Times – while connecting with peers from their school district. This initiative not only gave students the unique opportunity to learn at Duke, but also met parents’ need for childcare on a teacher workday.
Advocating for Equitable Learning Experiences
Learners are diverse, and thus have varying needs when learning. Pedagogies of care are the foundation on which student-centered teaching is built: they direct how we create equitable learning experiences, and encompass many teaching methodologies, including trauma-informed teaching; community-engaged learning; and climate justice pedagogy.
Following the 2023 Emerging Pedagogies Summit, we built on its pedagogies of care panel to offer a “lunch and learn” series that illustrated how instructors across disciplines at Duke are incorporating forms of pedagogies of care. The following faculty’s efforts demonstrated the innovation and attenuation to care at our own institution:
Jan Holton and Warren Kinghorn spoke on trauma-informed teaching
Minna Ng and Kathy Sikes spoke on community-engaged and service learning
Adriane Lentz-Smith spoke on climate care and the Black freedom struggle
Major takeaways from these sessions, as well as recordings, are available in this recap blog post .
Left to Right: Jan Holton, Warren Kinghorn, Minna Ng, Kathy Sikes, Adriane Lentz-Smith
Expanding Experiential Learning Opportunities for OLLI at Duke Members
Learning doesn’t stop just because a person has graduated or retired, and all learners deserve engaging and meaningful learning experiences. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke is an inclusive community of nearly 2,000 adults who participate in educational programs and opportunities for volunteer service and social activity. This spring, OLLI at Duke’s catalog expanded to include the following experiential learning opportunities:
• Exploring the Piedmont Arts: Six OLLI at Duke members joined us for four excursions to lesser-known arts venues in Raleigh, Greensboro, Pittsboro, Saxapahaw, Chapel Hill and Carrboro to learn about a variety of art forms including contemporary art, architecture, pottery, puppetry, and more.
• Build Your Strength with Vivo: Online classes can still be experiential. We partnered with Vivo to provide 22 OLLI at Duke members access to an online strength-training fitness program designed for adults 55 and older. Over the course of 16 sessions, members improved their strength, balance and mobility to maintain their health and independence.
Being a Trusted Partner to Each Other and Duke
We are fostering collaborative, results-focused ways of working with our people, programs and partners.
Learning from New Global Universities
Newly established universities and colleges have certain advantages over well-established institutions – they can more nimbly and intentionally focus their programs, curricula and pedagogies on what learners need now and will need in the future. In June 2024, we partnered with Duke Kunshan University’s newly established Institute for Global Higher Education to offer the New Global Universities Summit at Duke in DC. This invitation-only gathering of founders, presidents, and provosts from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East explored the following questions:
• What have we learned collectively about the opportunities for and obstacles to launching new universities in the 21st century?
• What lessons do new start-up universities offer for higher education writ large? For established universities, governments, foundations, and others?
• Are there collective needs – for research, strategy, support, or otherwise – that this group has going forward?
A report of the key lessons learned from the Summit will be published in AY 2024-2025.
Stories about the Summit
New Ventures in Higher Education (Duke Today)
New Institutions Can Invigorate Higher Ed (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Global Summit Sets Vision for Education’s Future (DKU News)
Starting in the Middle: How “Mezzo Innovations” Can Drive Change in Higher Ed (LILE Blog)
Transforming Teaching and Learning at Duke with Canvas
Though Sakai served Duke well for more than 10 years, in partnership with Duke’s Office of Information Technology (OIT), we determined that it was time to transition to a new, more robust classroom learning management system (LMS) to support Duke’s goals over the next decade.
After careful consideration, LILE and OIT selected Canvas - one of the largest LMS providers in higher education. To minimize the impact on students, we set an ambitious deadline of transitioning entirely to Canvas within one academic year. To prepare instructors to teach with Canvas, we provided regular workshops, one-on-one consultations, in-person experiences, and a variety of self-directed learning resources.
Canvas at Duke in 2023-2024 by the numbers:
66% of all courses using an LMS at Duke for Spring 2024 were on Canvas
Spring 2024 Canvas usage data: 1,596 courses
1,577 instructors
12,528 students
23,611 assignments
126,823 files uploaded
2,598 workshop registrations
2022
December 2022: The transition to Canvas is announced
2023
Summer 2023: The first instructors at Duke to adopt Canvas were approximately 25 summer instructors we called our “First Adopters.” These instructors graciously worked very closely with us as we began to implement and configure Canvas.
Fall 2023: To ensure that we were able to support Duke’s Canvas users in its first full, standard term, we limited the number of Fall instructors who could teach with Canvas – our “Early Adopters” – to just 350, though many more were eager to start using the new platform.
2024
Spring 2024: Canvas was made widely available for all instructors who desired to use it at Duke.
Summer 2024: Canvas officially became Duke University’s only classroom LMS. We continued offering training and support resources to instructors who would use Canvas for the first time in Fall 2024.
Embedding Climate Science into the Curriculum with the Climate Commitment
When Duke announced its Climate Commitment , we were eager to help fulfill their goal to “educate and empower a climate-and sustainabilityfluent student body.” This year we partnered with them on two impactful initiatives:
• The Climate and Sustainability Summer Institute : As the effects of climate change are felt across the globe, the time is now for enacting sustainable, climate-smart policies and solutions. Designed for motivated, early-to mid-career professionals in careers related to policy who are interested in building a stronger foundation of knowledge in climate and sustainability, this course gave 13 learners a robust professional toolkit and a deeper understanding of climate and sustainability issues across industries and issue areas. This story from Duke Today gives some insight into what the participants gained from the program.
• CAST Fellows: The Climate and Sustainability Teaching (CAST) Fellows Program provides support and a peer learning community for faculty and other instructors who are interested in redesigning an existing course to substantively engage with issues of climate and sustainability.
Meet our second cohort of 11 faculty who are exploring the connections between climate change and sustainable solutions using a ‘systems thinking’ framework of examining multifaceted challenges.
Toddi Steelman speaking at the reception following the completion of the course.
Photo: Rachel Earnhardt
Increasing Collaboration through Shared Leadership
Our mission, to bring innovative, evidence-based teaching practices and learning opportunities to Duke’s faculty and community of learners across a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and geographies , is one shared by many other units at Duke. To better align our efforts and ensure we are providing Duke’s vast community of learners a more cohesive experience, we have begun formally partnering with other units by establishing dual appointments of influential leaders.
Duke Kunshan University (DKU): DKU’s commitment to research-oriented, globally focused, and interdisciplinary education make it an ideal partner for LILE. The appointment of Ying Xiong as the Assistant Vice Provost for Learning Innovation & Assessment will create opportunities for collaboration on the research of innovative and future-oriented educational practices.
Alumni Education and Development (AED): With its Forever Learning Institute and Lifelong Learning YouTube channel , AED is committed to giving Duke alumni ongoing opportunities to keep learning with Duke. Together, AED and LILE are now able to align our efforts in providing exceptional learning experiences to Duke alumni. This work is made possible by the leadership of Jenn Chambers - LILE’s Associate Vice Provost of Learning Innovationand Jacques Morin , our Senior Director of Professional Programs & Learner Services.
Thanks to our partnership with AED, we had more opportunities to provide access to lifetime educational experiences from Duke to 1,277 alumni this year:
36 alums engaged in our nonprofit management or professional certificates programming
305 alums purchased OLLI at Duke memberships
320 alums enrolled their young learners into our Pre-College programming
616 alums participated in a Coursera course
LILE and AED also collaborated with the Climate Commitment to survey Duke alumni about their needs and preferences regarding online climate education. This feedback led to the development of Climate Science for Everyone, a Coursera course that launched Fall 2024 and already has over 1,000 enrollments, and has informed more upcoming online offerings.
Ying Xiong, Jenn Chambers, and Jacques Morin
Our Influence
The people of Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education are establishing Duke University as a place where expertise in teaching and learning resides.
Academic Publications
Carlone, H.B. & Lancaster, M.R. (accepted, in production 2024). “Getting along” and “using evidence” in elementary engineering: Desettling commonplace cultural narratives. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
Chu, Chun & Dewey, Jessica & Zheng, Weiwei. (2023). An Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory Technique Course using Scaffolded, Inquiry-Based Laboratories and Project-Based Learning. Journal of Chemical Education. 100. 10.1021/acs. jchemed.3c00547.
Davenport, C. A., Lee, H.-J., Ruiz-Esparza, Q., Janes, N., Neely, M. L., Rende, L., Samsa, G. P., Stilley, K., Troy, J. D., Truong, T., Grambow, S. C., & Pomann, G.-M. (2024). Accelerating resident research within quantitative collaboration units in academic healthcare. Stat, 13(2), e689.
Dewey, J., Pautz, M., & Diede, M. (2023). How do we Address Faculty Burnout? Start by Exploring Faculty Motivation. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10755-023-09685-2
Hefferon, K., & Levina, A. (2024). Can a Simple Metacognitive Intervention Influence Students’ Knowledge, Behavior, and Performance? Journal of College Science Teaching, 53(5), 491–498. https://doi.org/10.1080/004723 1X.2024.2373017
Lancaster, M.R., Rogers, H. (2024, July). Designing with Empathy: Integrating Trauma-Informed Principles in Asynchronous MOOCs. Conversations with Colleagues presentation at the annual meeting of Distance Teaching & Learning (UPCEA DT&L), Minneapolis, MN.
Contributions acknowledged: Ostrovsky DA, Heflin MT, Bowers MT, Hudak NM, Leiman ER, Truong T, Waite K. Development, Implementation, and Assessment of an Online Modular Telehealth Curriculum for Health Profes sions Students. Adv Med Educ Pract. 2024 Jul 29;15:743753. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S468833. PMID: 39099682; PMCID: PMC11297582.
In the Media
Concise Overview of the Changing Learning Innovation and Lifelong Learning Landscape since the Pandemic - Hilary Culbertson & Shawn Miller (IACEE Newsletter, September 2023)
Customer-Centric Education: Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners - Jenn Chambers (Illumination Podcast by Modern Campus, October 2023)
Redefining success: Embracing alternative assessments in higher education - Maria Kunath (Duke Chronicle, October 2023)
UPCEA Alternative Credentials Network Spotlight on Dr. Yakut Gazi (UPCEA, Jan 2024)
AIs Enrolling as Students in Michigan University’s Experiment - Elise Mueller (Inside Higher Education, January 2024)
Duke Retirees and Alumni Keep Learning With OLLI - OLLI program (Duke Today, February 2024)
Revitalizing the Institution: Embracing Lifelong Learning Through RebrandingHilary Culbertson (Illumination Podcast by Modern Campus, March 2024)
Lifelong Learning with Chris McLeodChris McLeod (Aging Well Podcast, March 2024)
Presentations & Speaking Engagements
Gazi, Y. (September 2023). Gender Equality in Science Education, United Nations General Assembly Science Summit UNGA78, NYC and online.
Mueller, E. (October 2023) Fostering Responsible Innovation with AI: Mitigating Negative Impact on Student Learning Outcomes, AI in Teaching and Learning Conference, Orlando.
DeRiso, L. (October 2023). Diversity through data: How collecting and analyzing various data can enhance diversity in programming. Presentation accepted for the Association for Pre-College Program Directors Annual Conference. Los Angeles, CA.
Culbertson, H. (November 2023). “You’ll Thank Me Later”: A Flexible Market Analysis Framework and How to Talk About It. Presentation accepted for UPCEA MEMS Conference. Portland, OR.
Mueller, E. (November 2023). Doing it the Duke Way: Generative AI in Teaching and Learning, Duke Campus Club, Durham.
Mueller, E. (November 2023). Teaching with Generative AI in Practice: Leaning into AI Literacy, ACC Academic Leaders Network Conference, Durham.
Reavis, G. (February 2024). Overcoming Barriers to SoTL Research: How a Small Team Created a System to Support SoTL Research at an R1 University. Presentation accepted for the meeting of SOTL Commons. Savannah, GA.
Gazi, Y. (March 2024). Rethinking Affordability, Engagement, and Pedagogy in Online Learning , University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI.
Gazi, Y. (March 2024). Bridge Over the Pond: The Future-Ready Potential of American & British Universities , UPCEA Annual Conference, Boston, MA.
Gazi, Y. (April 2024). New Universities of the 21st Century, Duke Emerging Pedagogies Webinar Series, online.
Gazi, Y. (April 2024). Co-organizer of the Duke AI Summit , Durham, NC.
Dewey, J., Rogers, H., and Smith, A. (June 2024). Making Good Trouble in the Ivory Tower. Virtual presentation at the first Virtual Gathering Making Change, Taking Space.
Gazi, Y. (June 2024). Co-organizer of the New Global Universities Summit , Washington, DC.
Created by:
Blythe Tyrone, Author
Hilary Culbertson, Editor
Michelle Couch, Graphic Designer