Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Increasing Access to Experiential Learning Selena Smith LSA - Earth and Environmental Sciences LSA - Program in the Environment (PitE) Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) LSA - Museum of Paleontology John Benedict LSA - Program in the Environment (PitE) LSA - Biological Station LSA - Residential College Jeremy Moghtader Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Noah Webster Institute for Social Research Joseph Trumpey Art & Design Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) LSA - Program in the Environment (PitE) $16200.00 |
We aim to turn the Ann Arbor campus into a field station for the Program in the Environment (PitE). Our goal is to expand our students’ opportunities to do the kind of immersive, engaged field work that is central to Environmental Studies. The Environment major and some minors administered by PitE require students to complete a “practical experience” course. Their current options, which include the University of Michigan Biological Station, Camp Davis, and selected study abroad and internship opportunities, pose financial and logistical challenges for some students, since they require students to leave Ann Arbor and usually must be completed during the summer. Students may have to sacrifice their housing or summer jobs, and financial aid might not be available. To address this problem, we propose to create a suite of disciplinary and interdisciplinary environmental studies courses (including new and revised courses), located in Ann Arbor and offered throughout the year. These courses will center on immersive experiential learning and include components of field work, applied problem-solving outside the classroom, and civic engagement. Along with these courses, we plan to develop the infrastructure–including campus, practitioner-educator, and community partners, ongoing research projects, and strategies for collaborating across disciplines and across courses–to support further field course development centered at the Ann Arbor campus. This infrastructure will help us to integrate engaged, experiential learning more extensively into the PitE curriculum. |
| Building SiD 2.0: A Detroit Community Process Craig Regester LSA - Residential College Rose Gorman LSA - Residential College $17500.00 |
Semester in Detroit (SiD) requests support from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund to launch a community process to develop “SiD 2.0,” an advanced curriculum for our current living-learning internship program that will deepen students’ community-engaged learning experiences in the City of Detroit. SiD began as a student-driven initiative in 2006. Based on their passion for the City of Detroit, U-M undergraduate students set out to create a program that would fulfill their vision of applied education, community engagement, and social justice. Their project gained support from other students, faculty, administrators, and most importantly, Detroit-based community organizations eager to build relationships within the city. SiD launched three years later, welcoming its first cohort in Winter 2009, with 14 students working alongside Detroiters at organizations such as Alternatives for Girls, Detroit Eastside Community Collaborative, and the Urban League of Southeastern Michigan. Now, in 2024, we’ve reached the 15th anniversary of a program with demonstrated success in student learning and engagement through sustained, mutually beneficial relationships in Detroit. With Level 2 support from the fund, SiD plans to form a community advisory board made up of program alumni and community partners that will collaboratively design an advanced curriculum and internship experience (“SiD 2.0”), which we’ll pilot with two student cohorts during the Spring/Summer 2025 and Fall 2025 terms. |
| Extending Anatomical Reality Glenn Fox Medical School B. Kathleen Alsup Medical School $10000.00 |
Learning must be accessible. Anatomy is a fundamental discipline that connects the past, present, and future of medical education by leveraging technology with best teaching practices. While learning directly and actively from anatomical donors is the gold standard of anatomy education, virtual reality (VR) provides opportunities for comparable engagement with anatomical donors to support health care education. A well-curated library of VR assets from anatomical donors supports an engaging and robust foundational experience for health care professionals at any stage of their educational careers, and allows UM anatomical sciences curricula to be available for free to support learners and educators world-wide. The BlueLink project is among the premier online learning platforms for anatomy, with free and open access to most University of Michigan Anatomy curricula and resources to the world. BlueLink XR (eXtended Reality) is currently in a pilot phase of building curricular experiences and resources for first year medical students and seeks to build upon its early successes and leverage this model of curricular support to all UM anatomy courses (Medical Gross Anatomy, Dental Gross Anatomy, ANAT 303, ANAT 403, and to future UM anatomy massive open online courses (MOOCs). This next phase of XR work focuses on: 1) building interactive 360 photographic and video curricular experiences using anatomical donors in Uptale, 2) building a library of labeled VR anatomical donor dissections in Sketchfab, and 3) integrating XR experiences into BlueLink web curricula and sharing these with the world. |
| Uniform Spanish 232: Creating materials to enhance student learning and alleviate their financial burden Andrew Noverr LSA - Romance Languages and Literatures Carla Iglesias Garrido LSA - Romance Languages and Literatures $17500.00 |
This proposal will fund the creation of original materials (grammar explanations and homework activities) that will be added to the curriculum of Spanish 232 Standard & 232 Topics. Our goal is to make these available online at no cost to students. These materials will replace products currently provided by publishing companies with prices of $137.50 (Standard) & $172.00 (Topics) each semester. In doing so, we will alleviate the financial burden students face in taking our courses while unifying core aspects of our curricula. |
| Mi-VISION: Michigan Virtual Immersion Surgical Interactive Operation Navigation Alton Johnson Medical School $17500.00 |
In response to the challenges posed by traditional surgical training methodologies, our project proposes the adoption of Immertec's Virtual Reality (VR) platform. The conventional "See one, do one, teach one" model faces limitations, including restricted access to procedures, cramped operating rooms, and constrained schedules. Immertec's VR platform offers a revolutionary solution by providing an immersive and interactive experience for postgraduate trainees in orthopedic surgery. This project is poised to redefine the learning landscape by offering trainees unprecedented access to recorded surgical procedures. Immertec's technology transcends the confines of traditional training environments, offering a dynamic and comprehensive view of surgeries from any angle. Trainees equipped with VR licenses will benefit from an enriched understanding of surgical procedures, overcoming the challenges associated with limited exposure, crowded spaces, and rigid schedules. The immersive experience goes beyond observation, allowing trainees to interact with the surgical environment and medical instruments in ways previously unattainable. This project's overarching goal is to bridge knowledge gaps, boost trainee confidence, and establish a repository of recorded procedures for continuous learning and innovation in orthopedic surgery. The project not only addresses the immediate needs of postgraduate trainees but also pioneers a shift in the paradigm of surgical education. The adoption of Immertec's platform sets the stage for a more accessible, flexible, and engaging learning environment. By harnessing the power of technology, we aim to redefine the future of surgical education, ensuring that trainees are better equipped and more confident as they enter the complex and dynamic world of operating rooms. |
| Skin Deep Art Installation: Developing Critical Consciousness to Abate Colorism $17500.00 |
Colorism is a form of racism based on the misguided notion that people with lighter skin tones are superior to those with darker tones. Colorism disadvantages Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and contributes to social, cultural, economic, and health disparities. Skin Deep is a mixed-media art installation, video and photography, whose goal is to explore the root causes and consequences of colorism, and how it also manifests among people of color. Skin Deep is an autoethnographic project that explores intersecting identities – skin tone, aging, queer status – from the perspective of an immigrant who is genotypically and phenotypically racially/ethnically mixed. Skin Deep uses personal experience as a springboard to name and criticize the subjugation of BIPOC. Skin Deep was conceptualized to be a vehicle to help audience members to develop Critical Consciousness, a window of awareness that inspires artwork viewers to reflect on oppression, in this case colorism, and become inspired to act against it. Skin Deep videos and photographs excavate (1) social and legal processes that purport to establish a person’s race; (2) reductionist notions that human beings can be organized into racial categories; and (3) the concept of “race” as a reductionist bio-sociological concept. Skin Deep will engage student audiences to appraise and reflect on colorism via community dialogues designed to help people identify sources of internalized, interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism. Skin Deep contributes to a knowledge base on colorism that includes diverse historic, sociological, and cultural perspectives. |
| Design of two MSE technical courses within a social justice framework Emmanuelle Marquis Engineering - Materials Science and Engineering $10000.00 |
The absence of social context in engineering education tends to further deepen students’ belief of depolitization, meritocracy, and that the social is irrelevant. Yet, we expect our students to magically learn and master the social facets of engineering, comprehend and apply DEIJ principles, and become leading thinkers and doers with major impacts on people, society, and the environment. To help address this challenge, this project proposes the redesign of two technical junior and senior materials science and engineering courses by interweaving social justice concepts with technical content. Such effort will fill the gap between introductory material covered in 1st year Eng100 sections and participatory design pedagogy adopted in 4th year senior design courses. It will create continuity and opportunities for students to formulate and develop their own identity as socially responsible engineers. The project will focus on a core junior course: MATSCIE330, Thermodynamics of Materials, and a senior technical elective: MATSCIE470, Physical metallurgy. Through a redesign of course delivery, assessments, and introduction of bi-weekly discussions, assignments and/or guided reflections, and implementation during fall 2024 and winter 2025, students will have the chance to learn and reflect on the historical context in which the theoretical framework of thermodynamics was developed and establish connections between engineering and social, racial, and environmental justice. In addition to expanding engineering students’ literacy in social justice, we hope that engaging in shared social justice values may be a longer-term avenue toward increasing the retention of students from marginalized groups through increased sense of belonging. |
| Development of a graduate level on-demand course in X-ray crystallography Raymond Trievel Medical School Uhn-Soo Cho Medical School Jennifer Bridwell-Rabb LSA - Chemistry Nicole Koropatkin Medical School $9872.40 |
The goal is to develop and execute an on-demand graduate-level course in X-ray crystallography for current U-M graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and interested undergraduates. More than 49 U-M faculty use this technique in their research to determine structures of biological molecules to understand chemical and biological systems to support drug design, industrial innovation, or solve environmental problems. The proposed on-demand course will consist of thirteen topics/modules, each integrating conceptual and practical information followed by an online quiz demonstrating mastery and collecting feedback. Modules will be developed and instituted by a team consisting of coordinator Jeanne Stuckey, multidisciplinary faculty currently using X-ray crystallography in their labs, and two students paid by this grant. Three embedded hands-on workshops will be provided each semester by the Center for Structural Biology lab staff. Completion of the course will provide deeper student understanding by coordinating conceptual and technical learning, provide an ongoing resource available for repeated access as needed, and increase research productivity while taking maximal advantage of limited faculty teaching resources. |
| Communication education: Using evidence based training Heidi Mason Nursing April Bigelow Nursing Karen Harden Nursing Deborah Price Nursing Jude Divers Medical School $9700.00 |
Proficient communication skills are key to helping patients and families understand their illness and allow them to make decisions based on their personal goals and individual values. Unfortunately most programs do not offer specific communication training. Education to improve communication skills has been associated with earlier and better serious illness conversations. Education and improved communication skills is also linked to an improvement in documentation of goals of care. VitalTalk is an education program that uses evidence-based training methods with simulated patients in a controlled setting to help providers improve their communication skills when having difficult conversations with patients and family members. The course involves a didactic component that teaches the process and a simulation component that enables participants to practice the skills they have learned. Participants are armed with the necessary skills to improve their conversations with patients, particularly those that are sensitive, difficult, or challenging. Nurse practitioners in every specialty need to develop the skills necessary to communicate effectively with seriously ill patients and their families. At the present time the University of Michigan graduate nurse practitioner programs do not have a specific, comprehensive program to teach communication skills to our graduate nursing students. The goal of this project is to teach students specific strategies in effective communication, delivering bad news, and initiating difficult conversations using this method. This can be done though lectures which will teach the evidence based methodology and tools and. This will be augmented by simulation to practice using the skills. |
| Summer Writing Workshops for Engineering Graduate Students Sarah Burcon Engineering - Technical Communication $9820.00 |
The pandemic presented a variety of challenges for graduate student writers, and many now find themselves 1-2 years behind in their lab work and corresponding publications. We would like to offer graduate student writing workshops during the Spring and Summer 2023 terms to help boost students’ productivity and get them back on track with their writing and publications. The workshops would be modeled on TC 610: Technical and Professional Communication for Graduate Students. This course is designed for graduate students who are producing a significant piece of writing and/or oral presentation(s) and who wish to refine their skills as academic and professional communicators. One component of TC 610 is a weekly workshop, during which students work together to improve their writing and their classmates’ writing by providing feedback; the course instructors facilitate this process. During the workshops, students apply writing principles learned during lectures and one-on-one meetings. The workshops are also an excellent opportunity for students to support one another as they grow more comfortable with academic and professional writing processes. We propose offering writing workshops this spring and summer to help engineering graduate students improve their writing and presentation skills, specifically, skills and techniques for creating high-level written documents: e.g., dissertations, proposals, articles, and presentations. We would use a portion of the course content from TC 610, but much of the workshop time would be spent reviewing students’ writing and providing feedback for revision. |
| Scaffolded Experiential Learning: An Equitable Approach to Dietetics Training Susan Aaronson Public Health Sarah Ball Public Health Liv Anderson Public Health $10000.00 |
This project aims to holistically and thoroughly evaluate a new dietetics training model where experiential learning is scaffolded into the dietetics curriculum in a novel way with the aim to increase student access to opportunities and educational equity. In a traditional dietetics curriculum, students learn counseling techniques and medical nutrition therapy concepts through standard coursework and are then expected to apply these skills through an internship experience in a real-world setting, often 1 to 2 years later. This leaves students to find and explore their own opportunities to gain experience prior to the real-world internship, which means that certain students get left behind, struggle more, and feel as though they have to catch up. Instead, we will employ a scaffolded approach with more opportunity to grow through simulation and “safe” real-world settings. All students will apply their learning immediately through a stepped approach - 1) learn concept; 2) classroom simulation exercises; 3) peer or community member counseling opportunities with faculty oversight; 4) clinic experiences with preceptor evaluation. We plan to evaluate each step in the process through targeted course evaluation questions, student focus groups and final preceptor focus groups to assess readiness to enter the field of dietetics. |
| Development of a Translation Major Kristin Dickinson LSA - Germanic Languages and Literatures Nicholas Henriksen LSA - Romance Languages and Literatures Julie Evershed LSA - Language Resource Center $10000.00 |
We request support from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund to develop and submit a proposal for a Translation Major, housed in Comparative Literature and open to undergraduates across all departments. The introduction of this new major into the LSA curriculum is based on our department’s ongoing commitment to translation studies, and comes with the enthusiastic endorsement from external reviewers in our Fall 2022 departmental review. The major will encourage students to build on the LSA language requirement by taking advanced courses related to translation; it will enable them to pursue translation as a double major with a specific language or discipline; it will also encourage diverse students with multilingual backgrounds to integrate translation into their undergraduate studies. Translation Majors will learn about translation as a process and a product, and gain skills to prepare for careers in professional translation. We have formed a planning team of six members from Comparative Literature and other units who will meet with external consultants during the 2023-24 academic year, to discuss different models for developing an undergraduate translation program. In addition, our team will reach out to Undergraduate Chairs and Senior Lecturers in LSA language and literature departments, to collaborate on designing new courses that will meet requirements for the major and support enrollment in advanced language courses in other units. After gathering external and internal feedback, the team will submit our complete proposal in March 2024 to the LSA Curriculum Committee, with the goal of launching the Translation Major in Fall 2025. |
| Student-centered re-design of Earth 223, Introductory Oceanography Laboratory Michela Arnaboldi LSA - Earth and Environmental Sciences LSA - Program in the Environment (PitE) Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) $6000.00 |
EARTH223/ENVIRON233 is a companion laboratory course to EARTH222 Introductory Oceanography meant to provide hands-on experience associated with selected lecture topics. As we returned to a residential college experience after the Covid19 pandemic, we re-evaluated our curriculum and it became apparent that Earth223 no longer meets students’ expectations and instructors’ teaching philosophies or needs. All our labs will benefit from a student-centered re-design process. Some labs mostly will need updates and the purchase of materials to make them more hands-on, inquiry-based, and experiential. For others, we will create new laboratory exercises that utilize facilities and collections like the Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory, Natural History Museum, Clark Library, and Zoology Museum. We also have the opportunity of adding new curriculum by utilizing three vacated weeks. This will be a collaborative experience involving faculty, researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students. We particularly value the perspective of undergraduate students that so far has been absent from our curriculum development. We want to hire undergraduates who took the course, science and non-science majors, as curriculum development assistants to help design and evaluate new activities that will replace or add to our current curriculum. This process will be iterative, happening over a full year, allowing us to conduct interviews, focus groups, surveys, mid-term evaluations, and content knowledge assessments before and after the re-design. This project will serve as a prototype allowing other Earth faculty to re-design or improve introductory labs, and we will disseminate the data collected to inform best practices for laboratory curriculum development. |
| MBot-ROS: Flexible and scalable mobile robot platform to support robotics coursework at Michigan and beyond Peter Gaskell Engineering - Robotics Abhishek Narula Engineering - Robotics $10000.00 |
The MBot is a small, low-cost mobile robot platform developed at the University of Michigan (UM) to support hands-on labs in robotics courses. The main objective of this proposal is to support development of a new software suite for the MBot platform. The new software suite will be flexible to support modular course development; it will be scalable by enabling easy adaptation, and it will be accessible to the wider robotics community here at Michigan and beyond. To achieve these objectives, we propose to transition the MBot software from the current Lightweight Communications and Marshalling (LCM) framework to the Robot Operating System (ROS). ROS is an open-source robotics middleware suite, consisting of software libraries and tools that support building robotics applications. ROS is widely used across the wider robotics community. Transitioning to ROS will enable flexibility and scalability for the MBot platform; it will allow for robotics students at UM to get hands-on experience with a valuable software suite used in industry and academic research; and it will increase accessibility of the MBot platform and software for robotics students outside UM as the ROS suite is supported by extensive documentation and an online community of robotics researchers. |
