Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Embodied-Knowledge in the Post-Pandemic Humanities Classroom $5569.67 |
In recent years, scholars have increasingly demonstrated the benefits of embodied learning for students’ acquisition of knowledge. To date, however, this emphasis on the body’s role in knowledge acquisition has not translated into pedagogical advances in humanities-based classrooms. This oversight has led to an over-reliance on passive student engagement and assessment, leading to poorer academic outcomes and increased student disconnectedness. I am applying to the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching to translate the lessons I learned related to embodied knowledge from my pandemic-era instruction into my post-pandemic teaching. Specifically, I seek funds for three new courses I am developing for the 2022-2023 academic year at the University of Michigan. Embodied-Knowledge activities will include the creation of Parchment Scrolls, Aramaic Incantation Bowls, and Books in the Book Arts Studio. Students will also engage with curated items from the Kelsey Museum, the Papyrology Collection, and early books in University’s Special Collections Library. Hands-on and embodied assessment options will also be encouraged. These include opportunities for students to create an exhibit of early Jewish and Christian art or create a 4-to-8-minute video or podcast to showcase their knowledge of a particular area. I will also incorporate regular opportunities for student feedback throughout the course through verbal and written forms to ensure student learning. By creating body-based and sensory-infused pedagogical experiences and assessment options, these courses will introduce students to the ancient world, the Bible, gender, religion, and Early Jews and Christians in a more embodied way. |
| Developing and Evaluating a Film-based Pedagogy for Intersectionality and Sexual Health Education Erin Kahle Nursing Renee Pitter Nursing $5810.00 |
Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) inequities disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, specifically groups with intersecting and underrepresented identities, including by race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Key to reducing SRH disparities is health care provider education that includes curriculum that expands knowledge of the impact of intersectionality and underrepresentation on health inequity, broadens perspectives and attitudes around holistic care across all populations, and improving cultural consciousness through self-reflection and dialogue. To address this, our project will develop and evaluate an innovative pilot curriculum using film-based pedagogy to explore issues of intersectionality and SRH disparities. The use of art pedagogy has been used to improve communication skills, enhance empathy, and expand cultural consciousness. Using the artistic medium of film, students will have the opportunity to engage in shared learning experiences through facilitated dialogue and critical reflection. The visual nature and in-depth discussions will assist students in integration of the material into future studies and practice. The objectives of this project include collaborating with topical experts to identify relevant films that address broad, cross-cutting topics of intersectionality, identity, and health, and pilot testing course modules, including film and interactive curriculum materials, among a sample of UMSN undergraduate and graduate students. If shown to be valuable and feasible as a educational program, we will expand the course as a health sciences elective curricula in alignment with UMSN principles and creative integration of interdisciplinary elements addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion. |
| Simulated Cardiac Arrest (Code Blue) Training for University of Michigan School of Nursing Undergraduate and Graduate Students Using a High-Fidelity Patient Simulator and Crash Cart Melissa Bathish Nursing Deborah Price Nursing $8929.00 |
When a cardiac arrest occurs in the hospital setting a ‘code blue’ emergency response is initiated. The code blue team immediately responds and utilizes a crash cart to resuscitate the patient. University of Michigan 2018 nursing graduates identified they were not prepared to function in the nursing role during a code blue situation. In response, a cardiac arrest simulation is in development using a high fidelity human patient simulator (HPS) and a simulated crash cart equipped with the necessary resuscitation supplies. UMSN currently has a HPS to use in the cardiac arrest simulation, but not a simulated crash cart. This funding would aid in purchasing a training crash cart for use in this ‘Cardiac Arrest Simulation’ with the purpose of increasing confidence and competency of future nurses responding to a cardiac arrest situation, as well as improve patient outcomes. All senior level undergraduate nursing students and advanced practice nursing students will participate in the ‘Cardiac Arrest Simulation’. A ‘Cardiac Competency Assessment’ tool that will assess the student’s knowledge, skills and attitudes related to cardiac arrest before and after completing the code simulation. Students will be asked to provide feedback about their perceptions of the effectiveness of the simulation experience using the Simulation Effectiveness Tool Modified (SET-M). This project will augment didactic course content, strengthen competence and confidence in cardiac arrest situations, and positively influence safe practice and patient outcomes. The simulation will be available to roughly 200 undergraduate nursing students and 60 graduate advanced practice nursing students per academic year. |
| ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF THEATRE DESIGN AND PRODUCTION AT MICHIGAN Christianne Myers Music, Theatre & Dance Rob Murphy Music, Theatre & Dance Nancy Uffner-Elliott Music, Theatre & Dance $10000.00 |
This Gilbert Whitaker Grant will facilitate the means to engage an external reviewer, develop surveys for recent alumni, and provide a small stipend to each of the participating faculty members so we can dedicate ourselves to revamp, and to learn ourselves, best practices moving forward. No such holistic review has been conducted, and we want to ensure certain content is covered over a four year period as well as identify and eliminate any redundancies. A series of retreats with current faculty, reviewers, and a student rep would work to identify short and long term goals, to articulate the mission of our academic area, brainstorm new courses and sequencing, and develop job descriptions for open faculty lines. The second phase of this grant period would then loop in new faculty members as we take a deeper dive into our actual teaching spaces. We wish to examine our own teaching practices and think critically about how we can best serve the students and the department as a whole- all with the overarching goal of fostering a rigorous and inclusive learning environment for our undergraduate students. |
| Improving Directed Self-Placement Naomi Silver LSA - Sweetland Center for Writing Colleen LaPere LSA - Sweetland Center for Writing $10000.00 |
DSP has been evaluated and revised twice (most recently in 2008). At this point in time, evaluation is again needed in order 1) to advance equity and inclusiveness in the placement process; 2) to enhance learning outcomes for students in courses that fulfill the first-year writing requirement (FYWR) and upper-level writing requirement (ULWR); 3) to improve the placement guidance given to academic advisors and incoming first-year students; and 4) to enhance pedagogy in FYWR courses. |
| The Team, the Team, the Team: Using the Cooperative Board Game Pandemic to Teach Effective Leadership, Communication, and Teamwork in Medical Education Emily Peoples Medical School Lara Zisblatt Medical School $6000.00 |
Teamwork is essential for the practice of medicine, particularly in the perioperative setting. Team training has been shown to improve communication and reduce the incidence of adverse events in the perioperative setting. Teamwork and crisis resource management have been included in anesthesiology training since the development of the first comprehensive anesthesia simulation environments. Although multimodal, longitudinal interventions are more effective to change behavior, significant barriers such as time, human resources, money, and simulator availability limit the ability of programs to provide more simulation-based education. Cooperative games, including online and board games, are being explored to engage learners in new ways while observing and teaching teamwork in another arena for implementation in the clinical setting. The purpose of this study is to determine if teamwork-related behaviors are demonstrated and can be observed while health professionals are playing the cooperative board game PandemicTM to teach effective cognition, communication, cooperation, and leadership. For this educational program and study, we will have anesthesiology interns play PandemicTM while divided up into teams. The session will start with an explanation of teamwork including discussions about cognition, communication, cooperation, and leadership. The facilitators will discuss important strategies for managing teams and attributes of effective team members while monitoring progress of the games and debriefing at different points during game play to enhance learning. Success of the intervention will be assessed through a combination of learner self-assessment (using the Teamwork Effectiveness Assessment Module), facilitator assessment (using the Anesthesia Nontechnical Skills instrument), and focus groups. |
| Biology 305 (Genetics) Active Learning Video Project Hilary Archbold LSA - Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Andrzej Wierzbicki LSA - Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Delbert Green II LSA - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology $9996.00 |
While a picture is worth a thousand words, video can be an invaluable tool to help students visualize complex three dimensional, kinetic processes in molecular and evolutionary genetics. Students gravitate towards YouTube videos to understand complex concepts, but instructors cannot vet the accuracy of the massive amount of content available. The first goal of this proposal is to develop a video project that provides Biology 305 (Genetics) students the opportunity to demonstrate their subject mastery by creating short videos on key concepts in genetics. The second goal of this proposal is to develop a searchable video database of this original, curated and accurate content using MiVideo. With MiVideo, we can link the database to the course Canvas page, as a resource for current students, and can expand access to this educational resource to the wider community, by coupling the archive to a publically available website. A limited pilot program was launched in Winter 2020, with an expected participation of approximately 20 students. This proposal seeks funding for stipends for the Winter 2021 instructional team to A) analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the pilot program, and develop the project to become a key component of student learning and assessment in the course, scaled for a class with 300-400 students per semester; B) coordinate with the LSA Technology Services to develop a video creation and editing workshop specifically for the Genetics student, and C) to develop best practices for video archiving, with the assistance of hourly student employees. |
| ELI Graduate Writing Curriculum Review Katie Coleman LSA - English Language Institute Chris Feak LSA - English Language Institute $10000.00 |
The English Language Institute began providing English for Academic Purposes support for University of Michigan graduate students in the late 1980s, but now seeks to renew its course offering to reflect changes in graduate enrollment patterns, student requirements, the availability of technology to support teaching, and concerns for student well-being. This renewal is most acute for our genre-based writing curriculum, which consists of four credit-bearing courses. These courses were developed decades ago and targeted to doctoral students with an interest in traditional research genres (journal articles, theses, and dissertations). Our writing curriculum has changed little, despite changes at U-M. Our research genre focus needs to be expanded to include new writing genres, such as professional philosophies, research writing for lay readers, and policy memos. Importantly, we want our writing courses to better align with the needs of master’s students, who now constitute the majority of graduate students. In addition to matters of content, our writing curriculum needs to more systematically consider student well-being, including the effects of stress on writing, and more directly attend to issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion, two important issues not addressed when our courses were first developed. Thus, in our curriculum renewal we aim to expand course offerings to help all graduate students develop a genre mindset with which to approach their current and future writing (Swales & Feak, 2012) while prioritizing inclusive pedagogies and student wellness. |
| Arts-based Social Justice Practice: Course Development $10000.00 |
This proposal responds to the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the improvement of Teaching by focusing on the discovery and testing of innovative arts-based teaching methods and approaches, in order to develop a course in Arts-based Social Justice Practice. Our proposal goes beyond the traditional “art therapy” for social work clients to explore more expansive principles of artistic creation and experience and their usefulness in the realm of social justice. Ultimately, students who choose to take the course will learn art theories and techniques vis-à-vis social work practices, which will prepare them to teach social work clients the skills they need to engage with art as a means of self-reflection and advocacy toward myriad social problems. This course will complement other developments (e.g., areas of specializations, such as advocacy) currently taking place in the School of Social Work, and will be benefit students in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, and to students from across campus interested in the taking the course. |
| Putting Physics Under the Microscope Dante Amidei LSA - Physics Michelle Coeman LSA - Physics $9855.00 |
The University of Michigan graduates one of the largest medical school bound cohorts in the U.S. Most of these students will take the foundational course Physics 135-235, “Physics for the Life Sciences. ” We propose here to begin revising the associated laboratory course Physics 136-236 to employ more directly the physics methods for the life sciences in the 21st century. Approximately 800 students will be affected per semester. We envision replacing the standard studies of billiard-ball motion with an exploration of transport processes in fluids, on the microscopic scale. Life science students need to know this, and it is, for them, the natural place to introduce the study of motion. It requires that we develop the microscope instrumentation in the context of the introductory physics laboratory. The program has the advantage of using one apparatus as a platform for several experiments and is a cost/effort efficient way to establish a longer-term program of revision. We propose a concentrated program of work over summer 2020 to kickstart the process, followed by pursuit of equipment funding so that we could roll out at least one microscope-based experiment by Winter 2021. To support the initiation of the project we request $9855, which will allow us to acquire the apparatus ($2777) and support a graduate student to assist in the laboratory (2 months at $3539/mo). The success of this project could be measured by directed questions on student evaluations. |
| Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention (NAPPI) Training for Undergraduate Nursing Students Jennifer Massarelli Nursing Paul Edick Nursing $6000.00 |
Violence towards nurses is a growing concern. Contributing factors can include: working with individuals with a history of violence, changes in mental status (i.e. delirium, psychosis) and/or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In the current undergraduate nursing curriculum there are no teaching activities that cover the specific topic of workplace violence towards nurses. More specifically, there is no current training for nursing students on how to identify potential escalating agitation and aggression in patients. In this project, we will be using the Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention (NAPPI) training program to teach nursing students a proactive approach to de-escalation and safe management of aggression, as part of their undergraduate clinical education. Using evidenced based, effective strategies, students would be taught: verbal de-escalation, restraint avoidance, and personal safety. During the 2020-2021 academic school year and the fall semester of 2021, junior level undergraduate nursing students (n=96) would be provided with 12 hour NAPPI training and certification as part of their 112 mental health clinical hour requirement. If the program is proven successful, the long term plan would be to provide this valuable training/certification to all undergraduate nursing students before graduation. In terms of sustainability, having faculty at the school of nursing with current certification to teach this course would mean this training and certification can be provided to future students at only the cost of books/materials ($12/student). If provided to all undergraduate nursing students, this education would reach approximately 160 students annually. |
| Assessing Outcomes and Improving Infrastructure of the Medical Education Scholars Program Alexandra Vinson Medical School $5850.00 |
The Medical Education Scholars Program (MESP) was founded in 1998 and has provided substantial professional development to over 250 University of Michigan Medical School faculty. Our program strives to make a tangible impact on participants' careers by increasing their skills as clinical teachers, education researchers, and institutional leaders. As the program moves into its third decade, a program evaluation and revision are necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of the program. Our objectives are twofold. First, we will conduct a qualitative outcomes assessment by interviewing mid-career course alumni to inform the development of course-level learning objectives and a program mission and vision. Second, we will improve the program infrastructure by writing an internal program manual, revising the learner handbook, and pursuing strategic initiatives to create community among the University of Michigan programs that support faculty development across the health professions. Because the faculty who participate in MESP have significant educational responsibilities, they impact the development of every medical student, intern and resident who works with them, not only through the educational interventions executed during their MESP Independent Research Projects, but also through their clinical teaching skills, which they refine during MESP. |
| Design-Specific Leadership in Architecture Irene Hwang Architecture and Urban Planning Reetha Raveendran Architecture and Urban Planning Joana Dos Santos Architecture and Urban Planning McLain Clutter Architecture and Urban Planning $10000.00 |
Our team’s objective is to develop and introduce design-specific leadership models and concepts to the architecture curriculum (graduate and undergraduate) and pedagogy at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The goal is to shift the culture of architectural education and practice from one that is more individualistic and authoritarian, to one more collaborative and inclusive. We plan to begin this project on design-specific leadership through the continued evolution of the required, graduate-level course, Arch 583 Professional Practice. Arch 583 is considered the primary academic course where students learn about the profession of architecture. In spite of this course’s core position in the design curriculum, its format, concepts, and pedagogy have not changed in many decades. Evolving demands placed on the discipline of architecture, where projects are far more complex and require a higher level of collaboration and communication across diverse perspectives and concerns, require that our graduates possess an understanding of updated leadership principles and frameworks. Working with experts from our field and other fields, with our students and our faculty, our project team will learn how leadership impacts our design profession. To improve the effectiveness of Arch 583, as well as to evolve the entirety of the architecture curriculum, this project aims to first understand and discern those concerns and priorities of leadership in architecture and then to create a path to make the teaching of leadership concepts a standard component of architectural education. |
