Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Measuring Sense of Belonging in the Engineering Classroom Laura Hirshfield Engineering - Chemical Engineering Pauline Khan Engineering - Engineering Other $5225.00 |
Sense of belonging refers to how a student feels that they fit in to a community. If a student does not feel that they belong to a certain community, they are likely to be demotivated, have less confidence, and be more likely to disengage or even drop out of the community (Smith et al. 2012). If students develop a sense of belonging in their specific courses, they may be able to find a peer community within their course, seek the proper support, improve learning, and, more importantly, persist in their field of study. There has been a considerable amount of research conducted to investigate how engineering students think that they belong as engineers in general: in the profession, in their engineering college, or in their university at large. However, we propose that more research is necessary to investigate a student’s sense of belonging, specifically in their engineering classrooms. The primary focus of the proposed project is to create and pilot an assessment instrument that can measure a student’s’ sense of belonging in the classroom. Furthermore, the researchers would like to determine the specific factors, such as team dynamics in project work, instructor feedback, interactions from classmates, and course material, that may impact students’ sense of belonging. Smith, Tamara Floyd et al. 2012. “Investigation of Belonging for Engineering and Science Undergraduates by Year in School.” Pp. 1–11 in American Society for Engineering Education. |
| Transformation of Health Sciences Scholars Program Core Curriculum toward Team- and Problem-Based Learning, Interprofessional Education, and Humanism Adam Eickmeyer LSA - Health Science Scholars Program $6000.00 |
The Health Sciences Scholars Program is a living-learning community that supports 120 first-year pre-health undergraduates each year through academics, leadership development, and community building. Students in HSSP are required to take ALA 106 and 109 (Perspectives on Health and Healthcare I and II) during their first year. These courses focus on aspects of health and health care that students often do not learn about until late in undergraduate studies or graduate school. Topics covered include: health policy, health care reform, international health, health disparities, social determinants of health, ethics, and more. Each course is currently 2 credits, and taught as a 1.5-hour lecture and 1-hour discussion section each week. Through the Gilbert Whitaker Fund support, I propose to develop a core team as well as faculty/staff advisory members to fundamentally change HSSP’s membership courses and subsequently evaluate these changes. We will adopt a problem- and team-based learning approach, further integrate interprofessional education, and deepen the humanistic components of these courses. These changes will allow us to provide a more holistic experience for our students as well as better prepare them for the rest of their pre-health studies. |
| Digifab Process Library Sophia Brueckner Art & Design $6000.00 |
Stamps’ new Digital Fabrication Studio has incredible machines, but there is so much unrealized potential for both student and faculty work. I propose to create an extensive library of inspiring and informative samples that illustrate the uses of our equipment on all kinds of materials. This library will complement the Materials Collection at the Duderstadt by focusing on demonstrating what our equipment can do and by showcasing what students themselves have produced. Arts & Design students are out-of-the-box thinkers who think through making. Students need to see in things in real life and touch physical samples. They need to know what settings/tools/etc. were used to get those effects with our machines in order to gain expertise and be innovative. It is important that this is driven by students’ work because when new students encounter the library they know whatever they see or touch is achievable...they are accessing things made by fellow students rather than exemplar pieces made by professionals. There is also an equity of access issue at play, with students who are less well off hesitating to buy and experiment with unfamiliar materials. This library would encourage more creative risk taking in all students but especially for those who are financially disadvantaged. This library will demonstrate the potential of new digital fabrication technologies when applied to fine art, design, and traditional crafts, encouraging all Stamps’ faculty and students to push the creative limits of this space as well as serve as a resource for the rest of the University. |
| Continuing Implementation of Gameful Pedagogies and Gradecraft in Second Language Classes Qian Liu LSA $10000.00 |
In 2018, our team of four language instructors were awarded an LSA Level 2 grant to develop and implement gameful learning practices into their respective curricula; Chinese 405, French 103, and Italian 232. This proposal is to support follow up activity based on the work accomplished and successes realized from our initial work. The work the Whitaker grant will support is codifying the best concepts of gameful learning for second language acquisition and to build on the previous pilot courses; to examine the results of attitudinal surveys, course feedback, and instructor experience, to synthesize those results, then revise the gameful implementation strategies piloted in Fall 2018 and Winter 2019 courses in the next iteration of course designs, to be implemented during the Fall 2019 and Winter 2020 semesters. For example, one beneficial aspect of designing the curriculum around gameful pedagogies is the ability to take advantage of a variety of different activities, including relatively spontaneous, real-world, opportunities that may present themselves. A successful example of this occurred in Italian, when Lasker-Ferretti added a “mini translate-a-thon” to her course. This service based learning experience engaged the students with real-world, authentic, language allows them to experience practical use of their emerging language skills. Facilitating this type of iterative course re-design provides opportunities for students to engage with real-world topics, experiential learning, and creates space for diverse learning styles, as well as provides learning opportunities that traditional learning courses may not have the impetus to include. |
| 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. |
| Virtual Anatomy Glenn Fox Medical School B. Kathleen Alsup Medical School $5997.00 |
The goal of this project is to create and integrate 3-dimensional (3-D) anatomical images into curated, curriculum-specific virtual reality (VR) experiences for students in Anatomy curricula. These VR experiences will be curricularly-incorporated into existing U-M Anatomy courses and publicly available as free resources by incorporation into our existing web resources. |
| Debriefing Training for Healthcare Learners: Learning to Process Distressing Events Together Nasuh Malas Medical School Kelcey Stratton Medical School Kathleen Robertson Medical School Katie Feder Medical School Patricia Keefer Medical School $10000.00 |
Healthcare professionals are likely to be exposed to traumatic events and emotional distress repeatedly during their training and careers. However, many learners report receiving limited or no training in coping with patient deaths and other distressing events, which can contribute to isolation, professional stress, moral or ethical distress, and burnout. The proposed project seeks to fill an important training gap in how distressing events in healthcare settings are identified and discussed. The Departments of Psychiatry, Palliative Care, Clinical Ethics, and the Office of Counseling and Workplace Resilience propose an innovative, interactive, and multidisciplinary training initiative to teach healthcare learners essential skills for debriefing. The debriefing workshop is a 2-hour training session in which skills are discussed, modeled, and practiced. The workshop provides a unique opportunity for self-reflection and active learning, as well as an inclusive forum that recognizes the diverse roles, responses, and experiences of healthcare team members and learners. Debriefing sessions are effective in addressing the emotional impact of distressing events, and can improve concentration, morale, work engagement, and individual and team performance, which are critical components of learning. Funding will allow for the refinement of training materials, assessment of the implementation strategy, and partnership with academic divisions and educators to create multidisciplinary learning opportunities. The project will also contribute to Michigan Medicine and GME priorities regarding learner, faculty, and staff well-being and resilience. |
| A holistic approach to calibrating clinical dental faculty for assessments that support a “growth mind-set” Diane Hoelscher Dentistry Tracy de Peralta Dentistry Carol Anne Murdoch-Kinch Dentistry Vidya Ramaswamy Dentistry Romesh Nalliah Dentistry $9960.00 |
Standardization of faculty, which occurs as a result of calibration activities, is a particular challenge across all of dental education. Dental students must learn and be assessed on literally hundreds of procedures, techniques and clinical activities. At the UMSD as in other dental schools, dental faculty are diverse, graduating from clinical training programs around the world, with variations in clinical philosophies of care. The UMSD employs hundreds of full-time and adjunct-faculty often teaching in different clinical disciplines and in multiple locations, who must be calibrated on teaching and assessment; these factors create barriers to successful and sustainable calibration programs using traditional approaches. Calibration activities seek to achieve “consistent application of protocols, techniques, and philosophies, so the student experience is as consistent as possible.” (McAndrew, 2016). In this proposal, we present a much broader approach to calibration that supports and broadens faculty members’ knowledge of educational principles and their ability to facilitate a growth mind-set culture and humanistic learning environment within the UMSD learning environment. This program will utilize a variety of technology-based solutions to make learning opportunities more accessible to faculty and provide innovative ways to track and communicate the outcomes of calibration activities. Program goals will include increasing faculty intra and inter-rater reliability for selected student assessments and increasing faculty participation and collaboration in calibration activities. Study design and analysis will include a needs assessment, preliminary assessment of current systems using mixed methods, a calibration training intervention and a program outcomes assessment. |
| Training Data Savvy Public Health Practitioners: A Proposal to Modernize Computer Labs for Biostatistics 521 Matthew Zawistowski Public Health $6000.00 |
Biostatistics 521 is an introductory statistical analysis course offered in the School of Public Health (SPH). Designed to foster data analysis skills in future public health practitioners, the course serves a large and diverse audience of >200 graduate students each Fall semester. Increasing expectations on practical data analysis skills have rendered the computer lab component of BIOS 521 outdated in content and philosophy. The current format of closed-ended problem sets and antiquated data simply do not meet the training needs of today’s public health students. We propose to modernize computer labs to an “authentic” learning experience that explicitly mimics the open-ended statistical tasks these students will perform in their future careers. First, we will team with faculty from across SPH disciplines to identify public health datasets that are current standards in their fields and develop a set of timely scientific questions for students to explore. Next, we will design a set of innovative, modular lab assignments that each focus on a specific piece of the statistical analysis procedure. The modules will naturally build upon each other to guide students through the logical steps of a statistical analysis. At the conclusion of the semester, each student will have designed and implemented a complete statistical analysis, from exploratory figures to multivariate inferential modeling, on a modern public health dataset. Our revised lab structure provides hands-on experience and enhances the training of first-year graduate students eager to jump into analyzing data on the latest public health topics. |
| Good with Words: Speaking and Presenting $6000.00 |
One of the most important skills professionals of all kinds need to develop is also, unfortunately, one of the most undertaught: the ability to speak clearly and compellingly. Good with Words is designed to address that problem by turning what was a very successful pilot course on public speaking into an innovative suite of digital, print, and in-person resources. |
| Inclusion and Understanding: Assessment and Quantification of Mathematics Exam Problem Characteristics Gavin LaRose LSA - Mathematics Elaine Lande LSA Hanna Bennett LSA - Mathematics $10000.00 |
The primary goal of this project is to understand and develop measures of how accessible exam problems are to different students in introductory mathematics courses, especially to underrepresented groups in mathematics and STEM courses. Additional goals are to determine measures by which course coordinators can quantify the difficulty of exam problems and exams as a whole, and to better understand how to present past exam problems so that students will learn more when using them as a study aid. In sum, these will allow course coordinators in the Mathematics Introductory Program to improve the inclusiveness of their courses, write exams that are more consistent in difficulty and learning objective, and improve student's learning. We will accomplish these goals by analyzing existing data about student performance on past exams. We expect to be able to isolate a relatively small set of such characteristics that are correlated with significantly worse performance by certain student groups, and heuristic measures that will allow coordinators to understand when problems are likely to be less accessible to these students. We will describe the difficulty of exam problems by determining measures to quantify that difficulty, which we expect to include cognitive demand, problem presentation, and the type of work required of students to successfully solve the problem. Finally, we will use the insights gained from the work on the project to improve the presentation and supporting information students have when using old exam problems to study, with the goal of improving student learning overall. |
| Understanding student learning in introductory astronomy classes Eric Bell LSA $9268.00 |
More than 2500 students per year fulfill at least in part their natural science and quantitative reasoning requirements with an intro astronomy class for non-science majors. To make this learning experience as impactful as possible, we should understand what our students are learning (facts, concepts, skills or attitudes) and how instructors shape that learning. Accordingly, the astronomy department has been assessing the learning of ~1000 students/year in some large enrollment 3 and 4 credit classes. This effort has provided an understanding of typical learning gains, how these gains vary between students with different backgrounds and characteristics and gives a rich dataset for both more nuanced analysis and as a baseline for assessing the impact of interventions. This effort allows us to frame some urgent, important and as-yet-unanswered questions. a) Has learning actually improved over the last four years, and if so, has that affected students from diverse academic and social backgrounds? Or, have we instead been monitoring but not improving? b) What, if any, is the measurable impact of particular interventions? c) How are students learning in our other large-enrollment classes? The goal of this proposal is to provide the funds to support the effort an astronomy education researcher to continue our assessment effort and answer these questions. This proposal strongly aligns with the Whitaker Fund goal of ‘assessing courses and/or curricula’, and supports our assessment and prioritization of ‘innovations in teaching methods or approaches’ and ‘inclusive teaching practices that foster success for students of all academic and social backgrounds.’ |
| Lessons from the Front Lines: Piloting an Online Platform for Strengthening Community Organization Courses in the School of Social Work Via a Michigan Organizers Video Archive Katie Richards-Schuster Social Work Barry Checkoway Social Work Larry Gant Social Work Joseph Galura Social Work Shanna Kattari Social Work Odessa Gonzalez Benson Social Work Lorraine Gutierrez Social Work Beth Reed Social Work William Vanderwill Social Work Amber Williams Social Work $5970.00 |
The proposed project aims to create an online platform through which community organizers’ experiences and stories can be captured, taped, and archived in a curated video format and used across multiple classrooms in and outside of the School of Social Work. As an innovative and sustainable teaching model, the project would enhance student learning by integrating Michigan’s community organizers into classrooms using a dynamic digital platform. Lessons from the Front Lines: Community Organizing Archives will feature 15 to 20 organizers in 20-minute videos, sharing their own experiences and their practice, key skills and strategies, lessons from the field, and other information in an interview style setting. These videos will be coupled with short biographies, photos, information about communities/issues, suggested readings, and links to additional resources. For more robust access, the information will be searchable by “type” of practice, and will also have keywords connected to organizers’ profiles. We anticipate partnering with Academic Innovations to create the most user friendly and dynamic online experience while also leveraging the A/V, communications, and technology resources already available to us at the School of Social Work. The videos will be used within multiples community organization social work courses at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels, to supplement and enhance current course content. We intend to reach approximately 100 undergraduates and over 200 graduate students annually. This project supports the School’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion goals to bring diverse voices and experiences into the classroom in new and meaningful ways. |
