Walker’s work in the Center for Educational Innovation focuses on investigating the impact of educational innovations on teaching and learning in higher education. In collaboration with CEI and faculty colleagues, he has conducted studies of the effectiveness of new, technology-enhanced classroom spaces; the role of social-psychological constructs such as belonging, stereotype threat, and imposter syndrome in determining academic outcomes; flipped and blended-format classes; the social context of teaching and learning; and the effects of different types of remote class participation.
Walker consults with faculty on empirical research design; psychometrics; survey design; and statistical analysis. He is co-author of the 2016 book A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom (Stylus, 2016) and of numerous papers published in scholarly journals, including Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, the International Journal of STEM Education, and CBE - Life Sciences Education.
Walker received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996, and he has served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota - Duluth, the University of Pennsylvania, and Franklin and Marshall College. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Quantitative Methods in Education from the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota in 2010.