eDream advocates for emergent educational models and university transformation which foster and support a broad, interdisciplinary and project-based undergraduate curriculum. eDream works closely with other affiliate university institutes including Illinois Informatics Institute and the Institute for Computing in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to achieve these goals.
eDream advocates for new university mechanisms to support a student-centric approach to curriculum design. New educational models can adapt and transform from a knowledge-transmission model to a knowledge-acquisition model, i.e., from teacher-centric lectures (the "sage on the stage") to student-centric collaboratorium environment (with student teams assisted by a teacher "guide on the side"). This approach is problem-oriented education rather than discipline-oriented.
eDream supports and advocates for curriculum that blends research and undergraduate education.
eDream Institute is working with various Colleges and programs to achieve the above goals. These include the Provost’s Office, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, College of Fine and Applied Arts, Engineering, and the College of Media. eDream is working with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to support students who are interested in developing an Individual Plan of Study.