Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Online Components for Intensive Language Learning (OCILL): Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Hindi and Urdu Adi Raz LSA Nilay Sevinc LSA Syed Ali LSA $10000.00 |
The proposed project is aimed to allow language instructors to develop online drills students can do at home and receive immediate automated feedback in preparation for material activation in the inverted classroom setting. |
| The Impact of Assessment Collaboratives on Secondary Mathematics Teaching Interns' Development Maisie Gholson Education $10000.00 |
The project is designed to improve the system for collecting and analyzing secondary mathematics teaching interns performance in field placements by providing timely, coherent, and authentic feedback. Assessment collaboratives will be comprised of faculty, field instructors, and local-area cooperating teachers, and will leverage automatic following devices that record and live stream video data to remote computers. The use of an automatic following device system allows multiple members of the assessment collaborative to provide immediate feedback regarding the enactment of specific teaching practices. Assessment collaboratives will participate in training sessions to learn the technology and clarify the performance criteria of teaching interns. At the end of the semester, the project will be analyzed as a set of case studies that describe the functioning of different assessment collaboratives and teaching interns growth and development around programmatic teaching competencies. |
| Integrating basic and diagnostic sciences using team-based pedagogy in the DDS curriculum Carol Anne Murdoch-Kinch Dentistry Vidya Ramaswamy Dentistry David Brzezinski Medical School Erika Benavides Dentistry Theodora Danciu Dentistry $10000.00 |
Oral Health practitioners need to draw upon the basic sciences to make high quality clinical decisions for optimal patient care. Supporting this principle, the American Dental Association will implement an integrated national licensure exam as of 2020 testing students’ ability to use basic science knowledge to inform clinical practice. One challenge at the School of Dentistry (UMSoD) is the reliance on lectures to teach basic sciences. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is an instructional strategy that allows active learning, fosters better integration and decision making than lecture and promotes critical thinking. The TBL focus is on application of knowledge with immediate feedback from the instructor; this instructional strategy promotes student engagement and assists in the development of team skills while allowing a single instructor to manage several small groups in a large classroom. Team skills are a necessary foundation for interaction between healthcare professionals. Our intent is to conduct this study as a pilot in the Winter 2018 2nd year diagnostics course and, if results are promising, to implement across the basic sciences 1st year curriculum (Fall 2018-2019) and eventually in parts of the entire dental curriculum. This project thus will provide foundational data for ongoing efforts to reinforce integration of basic science concepts with clinical practice skills in the UMSoD curriculum using the TBL pedagogy. |
| In-Situ Critical Care Simulation to Improve Critical Patient Care by Senior Medical Students Michael Cole Medical School Deborah Rooney Medical School Matthew Stull Medical School Brendan Munzer Medical School $5998.00 |
This project employs medical simulation to instruct senior level medical students on essential aspects in the care of the critically ill patient. This is a novel method of critical care instruction at the University of Michigan and will train students in multiple facets of care involving ICU-level patients including: therapeutics, pathophysiology, interprofessional skills and procedural competence. These are skills that contribute to competency-based learning that has become an essential component in modern medical education and this method of instruction provides students a unique method for students to experience autonomy in clinical care. |
| Development of an inquiry-based C.elegans project for Genetics Laboratory $6000.00 |
MCDB 306: Genetics Laboratory is an upper level laboratory course for CMB, neuroscience, biology and microbiology concentrators that is offered each fall and winter term. For the past 10 years, a portion of the lab used the animal model, C. elegans, to introduce students to genetic mapping of a known mutation. I propose to transform the C. elegans project into one that is more exploratory in nature and update the genetic methodology. Students will pursue new regulators of a highly conserved cellular signaling pathway, Wnt signaling, using RNAinterference (RNAi). This technique is commonly used in C. elegans research labs and allows one to specifically inhibit the activity of a particular gene. Students using transgenic C. elegans lines displaying Wnt-dependent fluorescence will introduce to the worms bacteria that express a variety of dsRNA that correspond to a specific set of C. elegans genes. Alterations in the fluorescence patterns would suggest a modification of Wnt signaling and allow students the chance to find something new about this important pathway. At the end of the term, students will have learned new, modern techniques and have received a true research based experience, as opposed to following cook-book lab instructions to genetically map a known 'unknown.' |
| Interactive Video Demonstration and Self-Reinforced Teaching and Learning to Customize Oral Hygiene Behavioral Shaping Chin-Wei Wang Dentistry Martha McComas Dentistry $6000.00 |
Teaching and modifying a life-long habit such as oral care is a great challenge for any dental health care provider. However, improving patients’ daily home care for oral hygiene is a critical therapy by itself. The complexity of successful oral hygiene therapy in a dental school clinic constitutes both student education and patient education. Key skills needed for successful therapy are the ability and motivation of the students to implement critical thinking, recognize individual differences, formulate customized oral hygiene instructions, and shape patient behaviors through effective teaching. Customized oral hygiene instructions include “teaching” each individual patient a targeted approach according to their needs using selected adjunctive devices and evidence-based methods. Often, students give only general instructions instead of utilizing a more personalized interactive demonstration, which includes an evaluation program to assess how much patients “learned”. By integrating customized interactive videotaping into the teaching and learning dynamics during patient care, it will establish a more effective and self-motivated education, culture and successful therapy. This project empowers both students and patients a tool for self-assessment and reinforcement about their instructions and performances with the instructors. Videos will be sent to patients for easy-access “at home” review. Patients’ treatment outcome will be a new evaluative process for which student competency will be assessed. (indicating they can actually teach and apply clinically). This project will establish a collection of case-based materials with interactive videos as resources for sustainable education and improve patient care culture for oral health care students and future providers. |
| The Use of a Web-based Application in an Integrated Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry Course Mustapha Beleh Pharmacy $10000.00 |
A new course series introduced in 2011 at the College of Pharmacy integrates the pharmacology and medicinal chemistry courses, aligns topics with the therapeutics series and provides struggling students with in-class remediation. Assessment data show that the integration process is a success, however a few problems linger; a perceived heavy workload, students viewing the content as separate courses and having difficulty correlating the material to clinical applications and the lack of tools to further aid the remediation process. A new web-based application to address some of these concerns is the focus of this project. This application is based on an online textbook integrating the course content from both disciplines for each section of a topic. The online textbook will use an interactive learning environment, with a split screen; the first provides the information as text with links that are projected as interactive animations and media into the second window. Clinical case studies designed in a hierarchical model that allows students to review and modify their decisions based on outcomes will be included. The final component of the application are remedial tools tailored specifically for struggling students to help them address knowledge deficiencies. These tools allow students to pick their own learning path and provide an assessment at the end of each path for immediate feedback. The effectiveness of the web-based application will be assessed using surveys, focus groups and comparing students’ scores on course examinations prior to and after introducing the application and based on patterns of use. |
| Enhanced Free-form submissions in WeBWorK: Deductive Proofs Gavin LaRose LSA $6000.00 |
WeBWorK is a popular on-line homework and assessment package that is in wide use at the University of Michigan and at other universities. We propose to extend WeBWorK’s current capabilities to allow it to determine the correctness of free form responses such as are needed to write out a formal proof in any area of mathematics. This represents a large step forward in the capabilities of the system, and will allow us to use WeBWorK better in existing mathematics courses, and will extend its applicability to other courses in the mathematics curriculum. By doing this, we expect to improve student learning by providing students with more extensive, immediate feedback on their homework, and by thus freeing up class and instructor time to focus on students’ conceptual understanding of the material being covered in their classes. |
| Technology Integration into the Musical Theatre Cirriculum Catherine A. Walker Music, Theatre & Dance $6000.00 |
General trends in education as well as the genre of musical theatre have continued to evolve toward the consistent use of technology. It is important for the Musical Theatre Department to remain current and well versed in the technical trends of the industry as used in both rehearsal and performance. The objective of this proposal is to help students achieve success as musical theatre performers and also to prepare them with the technical skills required to excel and sustain a career in this the industry. By integrating new technology into the Musical Theatre curriculum, we will be able to offer the students in our department the opportunity to strengthen their technical competency as well as their musicianship fluency. These combined skills will improve their flexibility and effectiveness as an artist in this highly competitive and rigorous field. This project is designed with two major components. Part One involves the creation of a Computer Workstation/Music Writing Lab for Musical Theatre Majors in the Walgreen Drama Center. This workstation will include software for: Sibelius, Logic, Pro X, Mainstage, and Kontakt. Part Two is designed as a “flipped classroom” This will provide students with On-line Musicianship Tutorials specifically designed for our curriculum. These tutorials, called F.L.I.P. [Facilitating Learning & Instructional Programming], will not be course specific and will be available to all majors in the Musical Theatre Department. |
| From Methods to Applications: A Proposal for Redesigning a Course Providing an Interdisciplinary Educational Experience for the Modern Quantitative Epidemiologist Sung Kyun Park Public Health Bhramar Mukherjee Public Health $6000.00 |
The present curriculum for doctoral students in epidemiology does not offer the option of in-depth learning of statistical models and methods in various contemporary topics that arise frequently in the present scientific context, such as modern techniques for model building and variable selection and methods for causal inference. Present doctoral students in epidemiology are still challenged when asked to explain or interpret the analysis they carried out using a software module in actual statistical terms or write down the models governing/underlying their analysis. In addition, courses designed for biostatistics majors are too technical for epidemiology students. On the other hand, the present curriculum for biostatistics students is not sufficient enough to cover modeling epidemiologic data and communications with epidemiologists. The need for such a “fusion” course that bridges the gap between the technicality of modern statistical methods with the broader application context for non-majors (especially doctoral students in epidemiology) have been felt for a number of years in the School of Public Health. In order to make the course accessible, useful and interesting to the applied scientist, a unique format is needed that blends statistical theory with compelling and relevant datasets. The proposal and the course will be developed primarily by a collaborative team of two faculty members, one from Biostatistics and one from Epidemiology, with expertise in the statistical theory and knowledge of the applications context. The course will equip the new generation epidemiologists with state of the art statistical methods, and teach them the craft of translating a practical problem to mathematical equations. |
| Middlebrook: an anthology web series about campus life $9500.00 |
"Middlebrook: an anthology web series about campus life" is an innovative independent media production project comprised of three classes: SAC404-The Indie Film and Web Series, SAC404-Advanced Editing, and PAT 441-Image, Sound and Story. Each year, students will produce a season of a web series set on the fictional Middlebrook University campus. Each season will deal with an important issue related to campus life. Gilbert Whitaker funding will be used to support the production of season one in which a sexual misconduct complaint serves as a springboard for a complex story about the issues surrounding campus rape. |
| ENHANCING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM USING ONLINE APPLICATIONS Dimitrios Zekkos Engineering $6000.00 |
CEE345 "Geotechnical Engineering" is a heavily-loaded 4-credit required course of the undergraduate civil engineering curriculum in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department taught to 80-100 students per year. It introduces students to the fundamentals of soil mechanics and their application in design of civil infrastructure. The instructors struggle to keep a balance in the course content between the need to solve example exercises and actively engaging students on a discussion of the applications in engineering practice of the fundamental concepts presented in the classroom. To address this instructional dilemma, the PI proposes to develop engaging online exercises that the students will use in their own time and at their own pace. Transferring this class component from the chalk-and-blackboard to an online platform will not only allow more time for active student participation in the classroom, but also will improve the effectiveness of the exercise-solving component of the course. Through the proposed platform, exercises will become more appealing by incorporating audiovisual effects. Students will be able to choose which and how many exercises to solve. Exercises can be solved in "passive" mode (students just view the solution) or "active" mode, where the platform guides the student step-by-step requiring active student participation. Key assessment data will be collected and correlated to student performance to assess how students truly learn. The proposed resources will be valuable not only in CEE345, but to similar sources in other Universities. They can also serve as "proof-of-concept" for other courses in CEE and beyond. |
| Toward flipping the classroom: developing an online learning module for introductory biology Gyorgyi Csankovszki LSA - Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Laury Wood LSA $6000.00 |
The teaching team of Biology 172 (Introduction to Biology—Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology) will develop an online learning and assessment tool. The goals of this tool are to bridge the gap between students of diverse levels of preparation and to provide a superior learning experience by providing more opportunities to practice higher level cognitive skills. Students will have to complete a two-part online quiz before each class. Part 1 will ensure that students come to class prepared, having acquired some of the basic concepts on their own. Class time will then be spent discussing more difficult concepts and developing critical thinking skills. In the second part of the quiz, students' critical thinking skills will be tested on concepts already discussed in class. Students will be able to take the quiz multiple times, each time receiving feedback on which concepts they need to review. On each try, they will receive a new set of questions testing the same concepts. To successfully implement this system, we need a large question pool covering all important concepts taught in the course. The main goal of this project is to generate this question pool. BIO 172 instructors from all terms are involved in the project. This team effort will not only benefit a large number of students, but it will also even out the introductory biology experience across all terms. |
| Algorithms and Quality in Collaborative Writing: Extending MediaWiki Tools for Assessing Upper Level Writing Paul Conway Information $5557.00 |
This project will make substantive modifications and improvements to the assessment model and techniques for SI 410 Ethics and Information Technology. The modifications include introducing new quality assessment analytics from the Wikimedia Foundation into the course and applying the analytics by and with students to evaluate the quality of collaborative writing in MediaWiki, which serves as the writing platform for the course. The project seeks to explore the extent to which quantitative metrics of MediaWiki contributions (new writing and editorial work) can serve as proxies for quality and, with the help of an "expert panel," to engage students in the application of algorithm-guided assessment. The project is a recursive exploration of the ethics of collaborative writing and peer grading, combined with a potential technical advance in the assessment of wiki-based writing assignments. The project will also feature an invitational workshop for UM faculty who are using wikis in classroom assignments, in order to connect the project as widely as possible with campus instruction. |
| Development of Environmental/Aqueous Geochemistry Laboratory Classes Udo Becker LSA Rose Cory LSA $10000.00 |
Environmental Geochemistry (EARTH 325) is a course on fundamental geochemistry concepts as they relate to our environment. The curriculum focuses on the geochemistry of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere and the ways in which they affect the biosphere. An important goal of the class is to grasp the present-day implications of these interactions mostly through the discussion of problems in environmental geochemistry. Earth 478 is a more advanced class on the behavior of chemicals in the environment and also on the relation of chemistry-climate-biology in the Earth's history. While the lectures introduce students to the concepts of environmental geochemistry and the homework to assignments to quantitative exercises on the subject matter, additional hands-on environmental sampling and geochemical analyses are central to an all-around understanding of environmental chemistry. The proposal is to add a field/laboratory component to the class, which not only gives students hands-on experiments on the intricacies of sampling and water analysis, it also makes them alert of some of the problems of environmental sampling and evaluations of sample analyses that are performed by professional laboratories. In addition, this experience will be an invaluable experience for students to prepare them for their own research in graduate school. |
