Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Field Trip to the Steinway Piano Factory Robert Grijalva Music, Theatre & Dance Wayne Petty Music, Theatre & Dance $500.00 |
This field trip is intended to provide a unique look at the construction of the world's finest piano, Steinway, at their factory in New York City. Unlike their colleagues in the instrumental world, pianists are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to knowing and understanding the design philosophy and execution of a piano's design. The complexities of the instrument are a barrier for most pianists, and it creates a unique reliance upon a professional piano technician to service and tune their instrument. Students who aspire to become professional pianists need to immerse themselves in piano technology in order to inform their playing, as well as to learn to communicate with their own piano technician. The factory tour is a first step in that immersion experience. Past students who have experienced the factory tour in conjunction with the Intro to Piano Technology class taught by me at the SMTD have expressed how their entire attitude and approach to playing has been transformed. Knowing how the keyboard action is constructed, for example, explains how the feel of individual pianos varies from piano to piano. This is an important factor for a pianist when choosing an instrument for performance, in competition, or as a personal choice during the purchasing process. Learning about the three majors schools of tone currently favored by piano builders around the world gives a pianist an appreciation for the history and development of piano tone. European, American and Asian tone are all different, and their roots are in the histories of music for each region that gave them birth. This can influence the choice of instrument for specific types of piano literature. Steinway is the pre-eminent representative of the American tonal model, the most prevalent in schools and conservatories in the United States, including at the SMTD. Learning about the historical role that Steinway played in creating the American model gives rise to possibilities for appreciating the approaches of the Europeans and the Asians. When a pianist finds out that pianos continue to evolve and change, the stereotype of pianos as static and unchanging is swept away, and leads to a renewed sense of awe and possibilities. In its heyday, during the Industrial Revolutions of Europe and the United States, the piano was considered the most technologically advanced hand-built item in the world. Steinway grew in its pre-eminence as a result of its contributions to the manufacturing environment in the United States. It is fitting that we go there to open our eyes and widen our perspective, investigating up close how an old technology continues to fit in our lives through continuing innovation while cleaving to the past. |
| Improving the Gameful Learning Experience in Public Health Students Olivia Anderson Public Health Dave Bridges Public Health $500.00 |
Gameful Learning, a pedagogical approach that was developed based off elements of the Self-Determination Theory1 that leverages student autonomy, abilities, and interests to produce intrinsic motivation when engaging in course assessments. It was implemented into NUTR 630: Principles of Nutritional Sciences in Fall 2017, a first year, first semester and required course for Nutritional Sciences (NS) Master of Public Health (MPH) students. Although the first year of implementation was successful as evidenced by course evaluations, we have much room for improvement with the overarching goal to support student learning outcomes in the most effective way possible with this innovative pedagogy that fosters student autonomy. For this proposal we have two key objectives: 1) Learn from other instructors - how they developed, implemented and revised their Gameful Learning experiences in order for their students to achieve their learning outcomes. 2) Gain student insight pertaining to “what worked well” or “needed improvement” -specifically after going from this to the next course in the series (NUTR 631) as well as other required courses in the program. |
| Performance by Digital Music Ensemble in the Delaware Copper Mine (Upper Peninsula) Stephen Rush Music, Theatre & Dance $500.00 |
In an unusual turn of events, the Digital Music Ensemble (an experimental ensemble using electronic means to create sound art/concerts) was invited to perform in the Delaware Mine in Delaware, MI, which is located in the heart of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The group will rehearse in a "virtual mine" (see below) during September, GO to the mine and perform in October, then perform again in Ann Arbor - emulating the ambience of the mine in sight, sound and smell. The director has visited the mine already, doing an "impulse response," (capturing the acoustical behavior of the performance space/Delaware mine digitally - for reproduction in rehearsal in Ann Arbor). During classes/rehearsals at U-M we will "sound" like the mine. The students will also be reading books, "The History of the Delaware Mines" and "Life of Douglas Houghton" by Steve Lehto. In these books they will learn three things: The economic and geological history of Michigan, the importance of specifically copper mining to the United States and to Michigan, and a new aspect on the history of the institution of the University of Michigan. The students, will then travel to the Upper Peninsula, live in a Yurt for four days, and performing underground in a Michigan Copper Mine. They will have the experience of learning about digital emulation of unique sonic spaces and a vastly (if visceral) expanded appreciation for the history of the state of Michigan and the University. This is a unique but non-complicated technology. It will allow all students to explore the sound of the spaces they experience more fully. |
| webZyme - a tool for teaching kinetics Bruce Palfey Medical School $500.00 |
Kinetics is vital in many disciplines, and is taught at all levels. A lot of math is at the core of kinetics, which is easy for an instructor to lecture about - leaving students bored, intimidated, and missing the point. The real power of kinetics lies in interpreting experimental data, building models from it of the molecular details of reactions, and testing the hypotheses by designing and performing new experiments. Kinetics isn’t a spectator’s sport and can’t be learned without participating. We’ve developed webZyme, which delivers the intellectual challenges of investigating a system by kinetics without the huge expenses of lab classes. With webZyme, the instructor defines a reaction mechanism for each student. It is up to the student to solve the puzzle by designing, executing, and analyzing virtual experiments. This engages students as they apply concepts from lectures in a meaningful way. Because these virtual experiments are delivered through a web-browser, there are no expensive instruments, no TAs, no chemicals, no training in unfamiliar techniques, no lab-space, no schedule-restrictions. The realism and flexibility of webZyme are demonstrated when students occasionally consider hypotheses never imagined by the instructor and then design and perform experiments to test them. Thus webZyme succeeds in fostering creative and critical thinking. IDF funding will support the efforts of new programmers as they test and debug the new version of webZyme and create a new user-friendly interface. |
| Gamefully Connecting Students with Mentors for Exploration of the Engineering Discipline Fred Terry Engineering $500.00 |
According to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, “In the realm of science and engineering, we might say that a good mentor seeks to help the student optimize an educational experience, to assist the student's socialization into the disciplinary culture, and to help the student find suitable employment.” Engineering 110 “Design Your Engineering Experience” currently uses a two-pronged approach for mentoring first semester engineering students, through mandatory office hours with faculty and weekly discussion sections guided by junior and senior engineering student peer mentors. We will leverage initial successes in both areas by exploring frameworks to further this intentional approach toward connecting first-year engineering students with mentors. For this proposal, we have three key objectives: 1) Develop a sustainable structure for faculty engagement in mentorship, with a goal of focusing on the exploration of the discipline and the development of the engineering experience plan. 2) Explore models to enhance peer mentor, while giving students agency in determining which peer mentors to engage in various parts of their exploration and design process. 3) Explore opportunities for alumni mentorship, to better connect the exploration of the discipline with career opportunities. Additionally, we will reevaluate the grading rubric for the course to incorporate these mentorship opportunities using a gameful learning approach. |
| Online Resources for Piano Literature Matthew Bengtson Music, Theatre & Dance $500.00 |
I have been developing educational enrichment materials on the piano, its repertoire, and its culture. This project aims to utilize the power of the web to present information in an engaging way that is easily accessible and connects musicians with materials for further study in performance, analysis and interpretation. In the summer of 2017, one set of videos about the solo piano mazurka genre and another set about the piano music of Bela Bartók were filmed at the Duderstadt Digital Media Center (DMC). The content of both sets of videos highlights relationships between art music, folk music and dance. Although these topics are fundamental to understanding the inspiration behind this music, they are typically understood only at a superficial level. In an online educational video form, conversations, performances of art, folk, and dance music, dance steps, musical scores, and textual overlay can all be combined into one powerful integrated learning experience. Our videos on the mazurka genre and on the music of Bartók are the first of their kind. They have the potential to become a primary, or first-stop resource to learn about one of the dominant dance forms of the 19th century, and about one of the early 20th century’s leading modernists. They should be of great interest to all pianists and pedagogues, and highly useful for private piano instruction, as well as courses in piano literature, musicology, dance, and Slavic studies, among others. |
| Design of Reflection-based assignments to enhance Self-Authorship in Engineering 110 (Design Your Engineering Experience) Frank Marsik Engineering $500.00 |
Self-authorship has been defined as “the internal capacity to define one’s beliefs, identity, and social relations” (Baxter Magolda 2008). Cultivating a student’s sense of self-authorship is a major focus of the College of Engineering’s (CoE) elective, first year course “Engineering 110: Design Your Engineering Experience”. Through reflective assignments, the course seeks to assist students in the design of a plan for their time within the CoE: (a) which highlights academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities that are consistent with their personal identities, values and goals, and (b) which will allow them to achieve their personal and professional goals. End-of-term course evaluations, as well as personal conversations with students, suggest that while students see value in individual reflective assignments, they fail to see how these assignments combine to support their decision making. This proposal seeks funding to support a review of the reflective assignments associated with Engineering 110 to determine how their content, delivery and assessment (that is, instructor feedback to students) can better support the learning goals of this course. The funding sought will provide salary support for Kevin Jiang, who will be reviewing these assignments through the lens of his direct experience as a former Departmental Ambassador (teaching assistant) for Engineering 110. His work will result in the redesign of both the content and delivery of existing, and potentially new assignments, during the upcoming Fall Term 2018 offering of the course. Magolda, M. B. (2008). Three Elements of Self-Authorship. Journal of College Student Development, 49(4), 269-284. doi:10.1353/csd.0.0016 |
| Fabrication in the Fiber Arts Christianne Myers Music, Theatre & Dance $500.00 |
As a costume designer and theatre artist my design aesthetic has been informed by my long history with the textile arts. I often infuse my choices with unique, manipulated textiles. Whether it’s marker and ribbon plaids, aging and distressing, or simply not settling for the original color of the fabric, as resources allow, I do not feel tethered to what is available in the store; all fabric is a blank canvas. This creative practice should be conveyed to students in out theatre technology courses. In the past fifteen years, the tools and materials available to fiber artists have changed. More options are available and some have been phased out. I will develop a series of teaching textile samples that incorporate surface treatment as well as new fabrication techniques. I hope to discover new techniques that will be integrated into practice and develop new instructional modules for our costume technology courses. |
| Psychological Development Through Children's Literature Shelly Schreier LSA - Psychology $500.00 |
This grant will help fund a revision of a special topics and first year seminar course Psychological Development Through Children’s Literature I will be teaching fall term 2018. Funds will help purchase additional books to enhance the educational experience for my students. I am looking to include books that promote empathy and moral development as well as update the picture books that are read in each class about physical and emotional development. Materials purchased will help expand on the young adult novels that students will be reading about resilience, diversity, and social justice. In addition the grant will provide resources expanding active learning activities by adding to my biography collection to include a broader representation of historical and contemporary figures. Finally, the grant will purchase books for a class known as Berenstain Bears Day, where students critically evaluate content in a broad selection of these classic children’s books. |
| PROPOSAL TO PRESENT AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATORS $500.00 |
A teacher of an engaged–learning course at the Residential College, Empowering Community Through The Arts, has been invited, to present an interactive workshop at The International Conference for the Association of Experiential Educators in Orlando, Florida in November 2018. The teacher is also the founding director of Telling It (lsa.umich.edu/tellingit), a community-based resiliency and trauma-informed program for youth. As part of the Empowering Community class, U-M students intern at one of the Telling It sites with youth in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor where they experience and are trained to implement an arts-based engaged-learning pedagogy. This request to the IDF is to help fund this lecturer’s participation in the conference where she will lead a workshop that will scaffold the engaged-learning pedagogy she employs to teach university students and school-aged youth, and which interrogates teaching methods that incorporate the expressive arts as a teaching tool across subjects and for healing trauma. The lecturer will return from this conference having collaborated with colleagues in examining this pedagogical approach to teaching, learning and healing and with new ideas and innovative strategies that are used by educators around the world. |
| IEDP Senegal: Application for the Instructional Development Fund (IDF) Grant Shobita Parthasarathy Public Policy $500.00 |
We are requesting $500 in grant funding from CRLT, to help defray the costs of a field research trip to Senegal during winter break 2018. This will be used to help pay for ground transportation for the 20 graduate students who are participating in the trip. The students need ground transportation throughout the 9-day trip so that they can conduct interviews with policymakers and stakeholders across the city of Dakar, Senegal's capital. These interviews will be analyzed and used to inform policy research projects focused on youth unemployment, climate change, infectious disease, and children's rights in Senegal. Overall, the course is designed to teach students how to conduct country case study analysis to inform policy, and how to conduct qualitative research in service of this goal. Upon their return to Ann Arbor, students will give public presentations and write reports summarizing their findings. |
| Social Justice Ling 101 Savithry Namboodiripad LSA - Linguistics $500.00 |
Language is an integral part of social justice initiatives. Not only does it inform how we approach and frame issues, language and accent are the basis of discrimination in housing, the courts, and the classroom, and it can contribute to other forms of identity-based discrimination. In every iteration of Language & Discrimination (LING 370), students discuss not only the issues the course deals with with but also what they can do to address issues of linguistic prejudice and discrimination, often from a social justice-oriented standpoint. This grant will support two proximal goals: 1) compiling and cataloging relevant materials to support GSIs as they teach sections and the summer version of the course 2) collecting syllabi and materials from other iterations of this type of course to support planned expansions of LING 370 and facilitate the integration of linguistic discrimination topics in other courses. |
| Poster Session for EECS 598-008: Mining Large-scale Graph Data Danai Koutra Engineering $500.00 |
This semester I am offering a graduate-level, project-based course (special topics) on mining large-scale interconnected data (such as social networks, brain graphs, protein-protein interactions, and computer networks). Topics in the course include community detection, anomaly detection, deep learning over networks, summarization and recommender systems. I am applying to request funds to support a poster session for the students’ semester-long projects, which would allow for disseminating their data science work to the UM community. |
| Architecture for All: Complexity Made Simple Julia McMorrough Architecture and Urban Planning $500.00 |
The purpose of this grant is to fund the printing of multiple sets of twelve original books for children, on the subject of architecture. The books are being written and designed by architecture and urban planning students in the course “Fresh Graphics: Complexity Made Simple,” with the input of local preschool and elementary children. The grant will allow the finished books to be professionally printed and bound, and donated to the libraries of the University of Michigan Children's Center and Thurston Elementary School. The efforts of this course embrace a design logic set forth in the early twentieth century by Otto and Marie Neurath, pioneers of visual education. The course is organized as a simultaneous research seminar and design workshop. Throughout the semester, students have investigated not only masterful graphic communication (including the Neuraths’ Visual History of Mankind and the Isotype), but also relevant architectural ideas, concepts, designs, history, and architects. The culminating effort of the course is the production of a set of children’s books about architecture, written and designed by the students. |
| The Classroom as a Learning Space: Tools for an Educative Transformation in the Spanish as a Second Language Class $500.00 |
This proposal seeks funding from CRLT to attend a course entitled “The Classroom as a Learning Space: Tools for an Educative Transformation in the Spanish as a Second Language Classroom.” Attendees will learn to transform the classroom into a more suitable space for active learning, facilitating access to knowledge while making students responsible for their own learning. The course will teach participants how to create an environment where the humanity of the teacher, each individual student and the class content is visible. From this broader perspective, teachers will learn how to advance students’ cognitive learning as well as to help them draw a meaningful connection between the Spanish class content and their own experiences, making their whole selves engaged in the learning process. |
| Balinese Puppetry and Japanese Butoh Practice as Research Workshops Emily Wilcox LSA $500.00 |
I seek funding to cover honoraria so that two scholars of Asian performance who will be visiting campus this semester to give talks at the International Institute can also visit my classes and give specialized, experience-based workshops to my students on topics we are covering directly in the classes. Practice as Research is an important component of performance and dance studies that both visiting scholars themselves use. The workshops will allow students to learn about the materials we are covering in class through kinesthetic, auditory, and visual engagement and to learn about how scholars integrate art practice into their research. Dr. Jennifer Goodlander, a scholar of Southeast Asian theater, will give a Balinese puppetry demonstration and discuss her research methods in my graduate seminar "ASIAN 546: Critical Studies in Asian Performance." In preparation for the visit, students will read Dr. Goodlander's book Women in the Shadows: Gender, Puppets, and the Power of Tradition in Bali. Dr. Rosemary Candelario, a scholar of Japanese dance studies, will teach a Butoh workshop in my advanced undergraduate seminar "ASIAN 480: Dance in Modern Asia." In preparation for the visit, students have already learned about the history and theory of butoh through readings and film viewings. |
| The Early Hispanic Harp as an Accompaniment Instrument Louise Stein Music, Theatre & Dance $250.00 |
In Hispanic baroque music of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, throughout Spain, colonial Mexico, and Latin America, the harp was the principal accompaniment instrument. This fact is not well enough known to many music scholars or even to players of baroque music who think first of the harpsichord, a keyboard instrument, as the heart of all basso continuo ensembles. An outstanding expert in early harps, Christa Patton (Queen's College CUNY) will be in Ann Arbor for public concerts with the Piffaro ensemble. She is one of a mere handful of professional players of baroque harps and the arpa doble in North America. Her visit offers a unique opportunity for students in my two baroque music courses this term to hear, see, and participate in live demonstrations of how early harpists improvised accompaniments and basso continuo parts on the harp as the center of the early Hispanic instrumental ensemble and as accompaniments to singers. In the course of my own research, I have identified (and photographed) rare examples of songs with notated accompaniments for double harp from seventeenth-century Spanish and New World manuscripts. Modern harpists do not tend to attempt this repertory because their modern instruments do not replicate the stringing and tuning of early harps. There is no substitute for hearing and singing with early instruments in an intimate setting to enhance understanding of early Hispanic music and historically-informed performance. Students in Prof Gascho's early music performance courses will join my classes for the March 15 visits. |
| Teach-In on the Global Histories of White Supremacy Anne Berg LSA $500.00 |
White supremacy uses history to fuel its 2ictions. Its promulgators anchor their vision of a racist future in mythical depictions of the past. But the past is not the place that white supremacists imagine it to be. We must reclaim and retell the global history of race. Today’s media narratives and public discourses often seem shocked by contemporary expressions of racism, xenophobia, and hatred—as though white supremacy’s violent present is somehow anomalous, rather than an enduring part of modernity’s core legacy. Yet the roots of white supremacy are deep and dreadful. The ideals we cherish, the words and material goods we use, and the institutions we value are all historically tied to the oppression of non-white, non-Christian, non- European populations. But even most white nationalists cannot truly fathom the violent outcomes that attend the politicization of racial hatred. We must 2ight back with knowledge. As historians we believe that careful collective re2lection on the past is crucial for comprehending our present moment. This teach-in invites us all to critically reexamine what we know about white supremacy and how we know it. We seek to provide historical context, not only to understand the ideological heritage of today’s opportunistic racist agitators, but more importantly to trace the origins and trajectories of white supremacy to better guide our struggle for true humanism. Understanding and interrogating our racial past has never been more urgent than it is right now. |
| Cultural Trip to Dearborn $340.00 |
With assistance from the Instructional Development Fund, I will take the students from my cultural studies course AMCULT 311: Camels, Kabobs, and Kahlil Gibran to the Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn for a guided tour and a discussion about the museum’s role in representing the Arab American community, as well as meal of traditional Arab foods. The trip will take place on Feb. 21, 2018, in conjunction with the “Exhibiting Arabness” section of the course. Prior to the trip to the AANM, the students will have visited the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, where they will see how non-ethnic museums exhibit other cultures, particularly Arab and Middle Eastern cultures. The trip to the AANM will be to examine how an ethnic museum represents its own community. Since the thrust of the course is an exploration of how Arab Americans construct their own identities, a trip to the AANM in Dearborn is a necessary and vital part of the course. |
| Developing interactive “workshops” for the Discussion Sections for a new Cell Biology course Ann Miller LSA $500.00 |
A new sophomore-level cell biology course that we are in the process of developing (BIO 272, Fundamentals of Cell Biology), which will be offered for the first time in Winter 2018, will introduce students to essential principles that guide our current understanding of cell biology. In addition to two 1.5 h lectures each week, BIO 272 students will participate in a 1.5 h Discussion Section each week. The purpose of the Discussion Section is to clarify, expand upon, and deepen student understanding of the topics presented in lectures. We request IDF funds to support developing interactive “workshops” for the Discussion Sections. By designing Discussion Section content that incorporates active learning and encourages students to develop scientific ways of thinking, we hope that the result will be improved student learning and knowledge retention. IDF funds will provide salary support for a graduate student to work with me to develop Discussion Section workshop activities. |
