Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Improvement of Teaching: Fostering Graduate and Faculty Development Through an Instructional Incubator and Teaching Apprenticeship Model Aileen Huang-Saad Engineering $10000.00 |
Our project proposes to develop an iterative model for graduate and faculty development which engages the entire Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department in sustainably transforming BME education at the University of Michigan. Our model is a 2-semester Incubator/Apprenticeship sequence. During the first semester (Incubator), graduate students and post docs work with BME faculty to research rapidly changing BME workforce trends, while learning about evidence-based best teaching practices, to conceptualize 1-credit undergraduate BME courses. During the second semester (Apprenticeship), graduate students are mentored in executing their 1-credit courses. The 1-credit courses were designed in response to BME student demand for more early stage BME classes that address industry needs while the graduate student engagement was designed in response to increasing demands to expose graduate students to alternative postgraduate opportunities. Immersing faculty and graduate students in creating courses informed by evidence-based teaching practices will transform how BME is taught in higher education. Finally, cross-departmental involvement will address the department-wide call for a more integrated community. Development of the model is informed by social constructivist theory and situated learning theories, instructional beliefs, and organizational change theory. Monitoring of the progress of the course design will be done through qualitative analysis of pre- and post-course surveys, end of course University evaluations, and focus groups conducted at various points in the sequence. Dissemination will focus on academic research and practitioners with plans to report to appropriate academic communities and utilize social media and the laboratory web page (Transforming Engineering Education co-Laboratory) to reach practitioners. |
| 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. |
| Reproductive justice education: collaborating with reproductive justice advocates to create a video-based teaching. Charisse Loder Medical School Lee Roosevelt Nursing Chris Chapman Medical School $10000.00 |
Reproductive justice is defined as “the human right to maintain bodily autonomy, have children, not have children and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities”. In the United States, there is a history of reproductive injustices in which health professionals were complicit in coercive sterilization, experimentation with sexually transmitted diseases and new contraceptive technologies on women of color. Currently, there is no formal reproductive justice education for health professionals, however, reproductive justice advocates are interested in designing education in cultural humility, reproductive rights and social determinants of health to train providers.Women's studies undergraduates learn about reproductive justice, however, experts in this topic area are often outside of the academic realm. We propose to create video-based education through collaboration with a diverse group of reproductive justice advocates to educate undergraduates in Women’s Studies, graduate nursing students and medical students. These 5-8 minute videos will introduce key reproductive justice topics and can be used in conjunction with lectures, small group discussion and written case discussions. We will assess student and facilitator satisfaction with the video learning tool, student attitudes and confidence with applying reproductive justice skills. Additionally, we will use qualitative methods to determine if learners incorporate key reproductive justice knowledge and skills into coursework. |
| UARTS 150: Intro to Creative Process-Creating a More Integrative Experiential Teaching and Learning Environment Ali Shapiro LSA Laura Hirshfield Engineering Katie Rubin Art & Design Jeremy Edwards Music, Theatre & Dance Jono Sturt Architecture and Urban Planning $9570.00 |
This request will provide the resources to redesign and refine UARTS 150: Introduction to Creative Process. This is a required 4-credit interdisciplinary arts-integrative project-based writing course for first-year Living Arts students, a Michigan Learning Community (MLC) housed in the Bursley Residence Hall on North Campus. Themed around arts integration and collaboration, this MLC actively recruits students from the School of Art and Design; College of Architecture and Urban Planning, School of Music, Theatre and Dance; College of Engineering; and the College of LSA. The purpose of UARTS 150 is to introduce students to creative process across disciplines, as an exploration of their own creative process as a lifelong skill for success. The course was redesigned prior to the Fall 2017 semester to formally fulfill the LSA First Year Writing Requirement (FYWR) for arts and architecture students (for engineering it fulfills the "creative expression" breadth requirement). A significant challenge of this course is to integrate the FYWR (academic writing) curriculum into this complex and time-intensive course. The existing writing curriculum seeks to connect with the "making" components of the course through written essay assignments concerned with the broad theme of "creativity." However, students report (and instructors agree) that the academic writing portion is separate from the "making" parts of the course, and the disciplinary sections could be better integrated with each other. With Whitaker Fund support, we hope to co-evolve the FYWR curriculum alongside the making component of the course, seeking deeper and more specific connections between the making and writing. |
| Working with Graduate Students to Modernize Physics Laboratory Curriculum $5930.00 |
Despite the ubiquity of computation in both academia and the private sector, STEM college courses have yet to embrace computation in a way that will adequately prepare students for their next step. However, the physics department here at Michigan has been working to rectify this problem. This project is focused on working with and training graduate students to develop new, computer based, curricular materials. The requested funds will be used to compensate the graduate students for the time that they devote to curriculum development. This project will utilize the “Backwards design” framework, ensuring that the learning goals of the labs are clearly articulated from the outset. Further, the newly developed curricular materials will have evaluation metrics built into them from the start, which will allow us to measure their efficacy. Finally, we will engineer a specific workshop-style event (to take place at the end of term), which will allow us to disseminate the results of the lab evaluations and iteratively improve the labs. |
| Technology-Driven Curricular Innovation for Performing Arts Technology 200/201/202 Jeremy Edwards Music, Theatre & Dance Paul Dooley Music, Theatre & Dance Christopher Burns Music, Theatre & Dance $10000.00 |
We propose innovative strategies for teaching introductory topics in recording engineering and music production. These techniques are intended for a newly created course, PAT 200/Introduction to Electronic Music (targeted primarily at non-PAT-major students, and being discussed for inclusion in a potential Popular Music minor), as well as existing PAT 201/Introduction to Computer Music and PAT 202/Computer Music courses for majors. Together, these courses reach 25 PAT majors and upwards of 300 students from other majors each year. We are developing new approaches to instruction and hands-on practice in microphone selection, positioning, and mixing. Previously, these topics could only be explored in group settings, and in highly-equipped recording studio spaces not accessible to introductory courses. Technological advancements, coupled with new pedagogical approaches, make it possible for us to teach these materials in more modestly-equipped classroom spaces such as our Music Technology Lab, and to give novice students individualized, practical experience with these key techniques. We intend to broaden the musical diversity of our curriculum, and thereby increase the inclusivity of our teaching, by adopting new approaches to instruction in music production. Hip-hop and other styles of global contemporary electronic music production are increasingly centered on sample-triggering hardware control surfaces. By embracing these devices for both new pedagogical materials around electronic drum programming and sample manipulation, and existing topics including live performance, we can convey to students from diverse backgrounds that we embrace genres of music important to them, and help to inspire their creative work in the classroom and beyond. |
| 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. |
| Girls Encoded Class: Promoting Diversity Within Computer Science and Engineering Rada Mihalcea Engineering Laura Wendlandt Engineering $5725.00 |
Even while the field of computer science (CS) is experiencing rapid growth, women continue to be underrepresented, both in the workplace and the classroom. In an attempt to address these concerns and improve the enrollment of women in UM’s computer science programs, we will be offering a new freshman class “Girls Encoded”. The class will be a one-credit class which, while open to everyone, will be particularly aimed at women with no formal programming experience who are interested in learning more about the field of computer science. We have support from the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) division for this class and will be offering it for the first time in Fall 2018. It will be taught by Professor Rada Mihalcea and PhD student Laura Wendlandt, co-directors of the Girls Encoded initiative, a CSE organization promoting the recruitment and retention of women in computer science (see girlsencoded.eecs.umich.edu). |
| Evaluating a New Undergraduate Curriculum Bonnie Hagerty Nursing $7350.60 |
The purpose of this project is to develop an evaluation plan for a new, innovative School of Nursing undergraduate curriculum. This curriculum will shape the education and professional competence of over 150 students who graduate each year. This curriculum represents a risk in that it is an entire departure from our history that focused primarily on specialty-driven teaching. This is unique, based on an ecologically organized, concept-driven structure that will guide teaching and learning. The structure and courses are organized based on our model and will propel significant changes in concepts, teaching methods and activities, student learning, student evaluation methods for students in both lecture and the clinical practicum, and outcome expectations. The School of Nursing needs to develop proactively a comprehensive evaluation plan for the new curriculum in order to: a) determine the quality of the new curriculum using multiple metrics, b) establish benchmarking for continuous quality improvement, and c) provide solid evaluation data for the Commission on College Nursing Education (CCNE) program accreditation in 2021, for which standards have changed. This project is urgent given that evaluation processes need to begin with the freshmen cohort of 2018. The plan is to create an evaluation task force; engage a consultant with expertise in nursing curriculum evaluation; develop a comprehensive evaluation plan including expected outcomes, quality indicators, and evaluation metrics; and create a sustainability plan to integrate on-going evaluation into curriculum implementation. |
| Learning from our mistakes: Addressing stigma toward mental disorders in undergraduate public health education Briana Mezuk Public Health $5439.00 |
In Fall 2017, UM launched a new undergraduate major in Public Health. There is high interest in this major, with twice as many applications received as slots available for the first cohort. A notable gap in the existing curriculum is a course focused on psychiatric and substance use disorders. Unlike many public health topics, stigma toward common mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse has remained essentially unchanged over the past two decades. Stigma forestalls creative and critical thinking about the ways practitioners and researchers can address mental health needs in the population. The goal of this proposal is to support the development of a new undergraduate course in Public Mental Health that explicitly addresses the ways stigma attitudes shape student understanding of this topic. The question this proposal seeks to answer is: How can we design a course to teach students about mental disorders while simultaneously reducing stigma attitudes toward these conditions? Doing so will require purposeful, innovative, and creative thinking that will benefit from focused discussion from a wide range of disciplines and pedagogies. To facilitate this dialogue, I will host a 1-day retreat for faculty across UM with the aim of developing a suite of lesson plans and a set of assessment tools for measuring change in stigma attitudes of students. If successful, this course could serve as a model for how faculty at UM – and beyond – can address stigma attitudes in their teaching. |
| The Design and Implementation of Case Studies for Marketing for Social Change P. Sol Hart LSA $6000.00 |
I propose the development of a series of hands-on, problem based case studies that will be implemented in COMM 417 / ENVIRON 417 - Marketing for Social Change. The case studies will be developed to promote the following course goals: 1) Mastery of course material - theory and application 2) Collaborative team learning 3) Skills in iterative problem solving for real world problems. Funds are requested to support time to research relevant case studies and convert real world cases into classroom projects that will guide students through case-based problem solving class activities utilizing relevant class theory and content. |
