Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Inclusion and Understanding: Assessment and Quantification of Mathematics Exam Problem Characteristics Gavin LaRose LSA - Mathematics Elaine Lande LSA Hanna Bennett LSA - Mathematics $10000.00 |
The primary goal of this project is to understand and develop measures of how accessible exam problems are to different students in introductory mathematics courses, especially to underrepresented groups in mathematics and STEM courses. Additional goals are to determine measures by which course coordinators can quantify the difficulty of exam problems and exams as a whole, and to better understand how to present past exam problems so that students will learn more when using them as a study aid. In sum, these will allow course coordinators in the Mathematics Introductory Program to improve the inclusiveness of their courses, write exams that are more consistent in difficulty and learning objective, and improve student's learning. We will accomplish these goals by analyzing existing data about student performance on past exams. We expect to be able to isolate a relatively small set of such characteristics that are correlated with significantly worse performance by certain student groups, and heuristic measures that will allow coordinators to understand when problems are likely to be less accessible to these students. We will describe the difficulty of exam problems by determining measures to quantify that difficulty, which we expect to include cognitive demand, problem presentation, and the type of work required of students to successfully solve the problem. Finally, we will use the insights gained from the work on the project to improve the presentation and supporting information students have when using old exam problems to study, with the goal of improving student learning overall. |
| e-Book Widgets for Experimenting with Materials Processes, Functionality, and Fundamental Concepts John Kieffer Engineering - Materials Science and Engineering $5980.00 |
The principal objective of this project is to create the next-generation study resources for Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) students and professionals. MSE is a very diverse and rapidly evolving field of study, and requires its practitioners to be educated in a broad spectrum of knowledge and skills. For the last two years, I have been working to develop a framework for the rapid preparation, testing, and implementation of effective instructional content. This framework consists of e-books authoring software, a JavaScript (JS) programming environment, and a web server. The products we generate are a series of tablet-based interactive knowledge exploration modules and accompanying web content. The key innovation of these e-books is that they have apps embedded, designed to simulate processes and phenomena that are at the heart of materials behaviors, properties, and processing techniques. These apps are essentially virtual experiments that allow the reader to interactively explore materials behaviors at the atomistic level and fundamental concepts that form the basis for materials theory. Learning takes place by swiping a finger on a tablet to manipulate parameters settings via slider positions or by dragging a curve to change its shape, and then observe the effect that these actions have on the depicted phenomenon or materials response. The interactivity with the learning resource provides a fully immersive and unconventional learning experience. With this request we seek funds to support for student programmers to help develop these apps. |
| Reproductive justice education: collaborating with reproductive justice advocates to create a video-based teaching. Charisse Loder Medical School Lee Roosevelt Nursing Chris Chapman Medical School $10000.00 |
Reproductive justice is defined as “the human right to maintain bodily autonomy, have children, not have children and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities”. In the United States, there is a history of reproductive injustices in which health professionals were complicit in coercive sterilization, experimentation with sexually transmitted diseases and new contraceptive technologies on women of color. Currently, there is no formal reproductive justice education for health professionals, however, reproductive justice advocates are interested in designing education in cultural humility, reproductive rights and social determinants of health to train providers.Women's studies undergraduates learn about reproductive justice, however, experts in this topic area are often outside of the academic realm. We propose to create video-based education through collaboration with a diverse group of reproductive justice advocates to educate undergraduates in Women’s Studies, graduate nursing students and medical students. These 5-8 minute videos will introduce key reproductive justice topics and can be used in conjunction with lectures, small group discussion and written case discussions. We will assess student and facilitator satisfaction with the video learning tool, student attitudes and confidence with applying reproductive justice skills. Additionally, we will use qualitative methods to determine if learners incorporate key reproductive justice knowledge and skills into coursework. |
| The Design and Implementation of Case Studies for Marketing for Social Change P. Sol Hart LSA $6000.00 |
I propose the development of a series of hands-on, problem based case studies that will be implemented in COMM 417 / ENVIRON 417 - Marketing for Social Change. The case studies will be developed to promote the following course goals: 1) Mastery of course material - theory and application 2) Collaborative team learning 3) Skills in iterative problem solving for real world problems. Funds are requested to support time to research relevant case studies and convert real world cases into classroom projects that will guide students through case-based problem solving class activities utilizing relevant class theory and content. |
| Girls Encoded Class: Promoting Diversity Within Computer Science and Engineering Rada Mihalcea Engineering Laura Wendlandt Engineering $5725.00 |
Even while the field of computer science (CS) is experiencing rapid growth, women continue to be underrepresented, both in the workplace and the classroom. In an attempt to address these concerns and improve the enrollment of women in UM’s computer science programs, we will be offering a new freshman class “Girls Encoded”. The class will be a one-credit class which, while open to everyone, will be particularly aimed at women with no formal programming experience who are interested in learning more about the field of computer science. We have support from the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) division for this class and will be offering it for the first time in Fall 2018. It will be taught by Professor Rada Mihalcea and PhD student Laura Wendlandt, co-directors of the Girls Encoded initiative, a CSE organization promoting the recruitment and retention of women in computer science (see girlsencoded.eecs.umich.edu). |
| Lessons from the Front Lines: Piloting an Online Platform for Strengthening Community Organization Courses in the School of Social Work Via a Michigan Organizers Video Archive Katie Richards-Schuster Social Work Barry Checkoway Social Work Larry Gant Social Work Joseph Galura Social Work Shanna Kattari Social Work Odessa Gonzalez Benson Social Work Lorraine Gutierrez Social Work Beth Reed Social Work William Vanderwill Social Work Amber Williams Social Work $5970.00 |
The proposed project aims to create an online platform through which community organizers’ experiences and stories can be captured, taped, and archived in a curated video format and used across multiple classrooms in and outside of the School of Social Work. As an innovative and sustainable teaching model, the project would enhance student learning by integrating Michigan’s community organizers into classrooms using a dynamic digital platform. Lessons from the Front Lines: Community Organizing Archives will feature 15 to 20 organizers in 20-minute videos, sharing their own experiences and their practice, key skills and strategies, lessons from the field, and other information in an interview style setting. These videos will be coupled with short biographies, photos, information about communities/issues, suggested readings, and links to additional resources. For more robust access, the information will be searchable by “type” of practice, and will also have keywords connected to organizers’ profiles. We anticipate partnering with Academic Innovations to create the most user friendly and dynamic online experience while also leveraging the A/V, communications, and technology resources already available to us at the School of Social Work. The videos will be used within multiples community organization social work courses at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels, to supplement and enhance current course content. We intend to reach approximately 100 undergraduates and over 200 graduate students annually. This project supports the School’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion goals to bring diverse voices and experiences into the classroom in new and meaningful ways. |
| Layering Film Into Anatomy Curricula B. Kathleen Alsup Medical School Glenn Fox Medical School $5992.00 |
The goal of this project is to incorporate film as part of mixed multimedia learning strategies for students in U-M Anatomy curricula (ANAT 403; M1 Foundations of Gross Anatomy; D1 Head & Neck Gross Anatomy; etc.) and for non-U-M students who also use U-M anatomical resources. Incorporating micro-documentary style with parsimonious learning objectives, we will develop and produce films which educate and serve as a useful conduit to inspire continuous learning for students in the study of anatomy. Film provides a link of engagement at a lower cognitive load for students in ways that text-based and other visual-based multimedia are unable. Our goal with process creation will be to create a means by which project films may be developed and produced by various groups of students, faculty, and clinicians. These films will be curricularly-incorporated into existing U-M Anatomy courses and publicly available by incorporation into our existing web resources. |
| Integration of a Virtual Reality Curriculum for Medical Students, Pediatric Residents, and Pediatric Cardiology Fellows for Cardiac Anatomy and Congenital Heart Defects Sonal Owens Medical School James Cooke Medical School $6000.00 |
Virtual reality involves the use of headsets containing dual display screens to mimic binocular vision. An immersive 3D environment is then rendered from a host computer, allowing the user to explore and interact with the 3D world. A virtual reality software package called "Stanford Virtual Heart" (SVH), developed by a team at Stanford University utilizes this technology to allow users to place themselves "inside the heart," trace the flow of blood throughout the heart, as well as explore different and nontraditional views of the heart, providing a unique learning experience. The software currently includes the normal heart and several common congenital cardiac defects (atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, aortic stenosis, pulmonic stenosis, coarctation of the aorta, and patent ductus arteriosus). The UM team will also collaborate with the Stanford team to add several complex cardiac lesions that are critical to understanding cardiac physiology and benefit from early identification and intervention. We plan to introduce this novel educational tool to pediatric residents, pediatric cardiology fellows, and medical students at the University of Michigan to improve upon content delivery and provide a more robust assessment of learner understanding of cardiac structure and physiology. Efficacy will be measured using pre- and post-intervention assessments. Our overall goal is to improve content delivery, learner engagement, visuospatial understanding for these complex congenital heart defects, provide a model for other similar visuospatial-intensive subjects, and provide a scalable model for broader dissemination. |
| Standardizing Language Instruction in Spanish 280 $5883.50 |
Spanish 280, Conversation through Spanish/Latin American Film, was created in 2011 to respond to the students demand for more oral practice at the advanced level. Since then the course has grown from 4-6 sections per academic year to 10-12. This growth has come hand in hand with a variety of topics and a diversity in teaching approaches that make it very rich in terms of content. However, it has come at the expense of consistency across sections particularly when it comes to the primary reason why the class was created: to improve the level of oral competency of our students. Having already identified the level of oral competency that, on average, students enrolling in Spanish 280 have as Intermediate High according to the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages, this project aims to address the need to create materials that will push our students to the next level of competency, Advanced Low. I am requesting funds to hire 1-2 GSIs who have recently taught the course to help establish linguist goals and develop material that can be used in all sections to standardize language instruction in Spanish 280. This material would then become the skeleton around which each one of the 280 sections is built and filled with content. We would create a sort of textbook for the course that would emphasize the linguistic objectives of the class and define ways in which each instructor can work with their group to achieve those goals |
| Improvement of Teaching: Fostering Graduate and Faculty Development Through an Instructional Incubator and Teaching Apprenticeship Model Aileen Huang-Saad Engineering $10000.00 |
Our project proposes to develop an iterative model for graduate and faculty development which engages the entire Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department in sustainably transforming BME education at the University of Michigan. Our model is a 2-semester Incubator/Apprenticeship sequence. During the first semester (Incubator), graduate students and post docs work with BME faculty to research rapidly changing BME workforce trends, while learning about evidence-based best teaching practices, to conceptualize 1-credit undergraduate BME courses. During the second semester (Apprenticeship), graduate students are mentored in executing their 1-credit courses. The 1-credit courses were designed in response to BME student demand for more early stage BME classes that address industry needs while the graduate student engagement was designed in response to increasing demands to expose graduate students to alternative postgraduate opportunities. Immersing faculty and graduate students in creating courses informed by evidence-based teaching practices will transform how BME is taught in higher education. Finally, cross-departmental involvement will address the department-wide call for a more integrated community. Development of the model is informed by social constructivist theory and situated learning theories, instructional beliefs, and organizational change theory. Monitoring of the progress of the course design will be done through qualitative analysis of pre- and post-course surveys, end of course University evaluations, and focus groups conducted at various points in the sequence. Dissemination will focus on academic research and practitioners with plans to report to appropriate academic communities and utilize social media and the laboratory web page (Transforming Engineering Education co-Laboratory) to reach practitioners. |
| Learning from our mistakes: Addressing stigma toward mental disorders in undergraduate public health education Briana Mezuk Public Health $5439.00 |
In Fall 2017, UM launched a new undergraduate major in Public Health. There is high interest in this major, with twice as many applications received as slots available for the first cohort. A notable gap in the existing curriculum is a course focused on psychiatric and substance use disorders. Unlike many public health topics, stigma toward common mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse has remained essentially unchanged over the past two decades. Stigma forestalls creative and critical thinking about the ways practitioners and researchers can address mental health needs in the population. The goal of this proposal is to support the development of a new undergraduate course in Public Mental Health that explicitly addresses the ways stigma attitudes shape student understanding of this topic. The question this proposal seeks to answer is: How can we design a course to teach students about mental disorders while simultaneously reducing stigma attitudes toward these conditions? Doing so will require purposeful, innovative, and creative thinking that will benefit from focused discussion from a wide range of disciplines and pedagogies. To facilitate this dialogue, I will host a 1-day retreat for faculty across UM with the aim of developing a suite of lesson plans and a set of assessment tools for measuring change in stigma attitudes of students. If successful, this course could serve as a model for how faculty at UM – and beyond – can address stigma attitudes in their teaching. |
| Understanding student learning in introductory astronomy classes Eric Bell LSA $9268.00 |
More than 2500 students per year fulfill at least in part their natural science and quantitative reasoning requirements with an intro astronomy class for non-science majors. To make this learning experience as impactful as possible, we should understand what our students are learning (facts, concepts, skills or attitudes) and how instructors shape that learning. Accordingly, the astronomy department has been assessing the learning of ~1000 students/year in some large enrollment 3 and 4 credit classes. This effort has provided an understanding of typical learning gains, how these gains vary between students with different backgrounds and characteristics and gives a rich dataset for both more nuanced analysis and as a baseline for assessing the impact of interventions. This effort allows us to frame some urgent, important and as-yet-unanswered questions. a) Has learning actually improved over the last four years, and if so, has that affected students from diverse academic and social backgrounds? Or, have we instead been monitoring but not improving? b) What, if any, is the measurable impact of particular interventions? c) How are students learning in our other large-enrollment classes? The goal of this proposal is to provide the funds to support the effort an astronomy education researcher to continue our assessment effort and answer these questions. This proposal strongly aligns with the Whitaker Fund goal of ‘assessing courses and/or curricula’, and supports our assessment and prioritization of ‘innovations in teaching methods or approaches’ and ‘inclusive teaching practices that foster success for students of all academic and social backgrounds.’ |
| UARTS 150: Intro to Creative Process-Creating a More Integrative Experiential Teaching and Learning Environment Ali Shapiro LSA Laura Hirshfield Engineering Katie Rubin Art & Design Jeremy Edwards Music, Theatre & Dance Jono Sturt Architecture and Urban Planning $9570.00 |
This request will provide the resources to redesign and refine UARTS 150: Introduction to Creative Process. This is a required 4-credit interdisciplinary arts-integrative project-based writing course for first-year Living Arts students, a Michigan Learning Community (MLC) housed in the Bursley Residence Hall on North Campus. Themed around arts integration and collaboration, this MLC actively recruits students from the School of Art and Design; College of Architecture and Urban Planning, School of Music, Theatre and Dance; College of Engineering; and the College of LSA. The purpose of UARTS 150 is to introduce students to creative process across disciplines, as an exploration of their own creative process as a lifelong skill for success. The course was redesigned prior to the Fall 2017 semester to formally fulfill the LSA First Year Writing Requirement (FYWR) for arts and architecture students (for engineering it fulfills the "creative expression" breadth requirement). A significant challenge of this course is to integrate the FYWR (academic writing) curriculum into this complex and time-intensive course. The existing writing curriculum seeks to connect with the "making" components of the course through written essay assignments concerned with the broad theme of "creativity." However, students report (and instructors agree) that the academic writing portion is separate from the "making" parts of the course, and the disciplinary sections could be better integrated with each other. With Whitaker Fund support, we hope to co-evolve the FYWR curriculum alongside the making component of the course, seeking deeper and more specific connections between the making and writing. |
