Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Investigating Students’ Communication, Collaboration, and Self-Agency in Their Understanding and Application of Core Teaching Practices Chauncey Monte-Sano Education $8000.00 |
The elementary teacher education program at the U-M focuses on our U-M student’s learning of core instructional practices that have proven effective in supporting children’s learning. Yet, we have much to learn about our elementary teacher education students’ understanding of these practices and their ability to enact these practices while taking our courses and once they begin student teaching in local K-5 classrooms. What do elementary teacher education students learn about core instructional practices during our courses? How well does that learning transfer once they are outside of structured coursework and interning in local classrooms? Is there something more we can do in elementary teacher education coursework to support student teachers’ learning? This project focuses on the core instructional practices of modeling reading strategies and facilitating discussion because they highlight important aspects of engaged learning. If U-M teacher education students can model their thinking process as they use reading strategies, they will be able to communicate the skills of being a reader in ways that children can understand. To facilitate a discussion with children effectively, U-M students must learn to communicate clearly, collaborate with children, and promote collaboration among children. Finally, to transfer core teaching practices from the sheltered environment of U-M to live K-5 classrooms requires our students to demonstrate agency and risk taking. This study will lend insight into our student teachers’ engaged learning, their ability to transfer this learning outside of structured courses, and how we might improve our courses to better support such learning. |
| Investigating the Use of Mobile Devices for Video Review to Improve Oral Communication Pauline Khan Engineering $6000.00 |
Investigating the Use of Mobile Devices for Video Review to Improve Oral Communication |
| Motivating Study Group Participation Tanya Rosenblat Information $8000.00 |
This study utilizes an information intervention to motivate attendance in study groups – a form of collaborative learning. The study groups are organized by an on-campus organization, the Science Learning Center (SLC). Our first goal is to test the direct effect of the advising messages on student attendance and learning experience. We do so by comparing the attendance rate of the informed students, who receive the treatment messages, to the control group students. Our secondary goal is to measure the indirect of the messages. That is, we ask if there is a spillover effect from the informed students to those uninformed group members, who do not receive the treatment messages. |
| Investigating student development of intercultural intelligence through diverse stakeholder engagement using prototyping during design Kathleen Sienko Engineering Shanna Daly Engineering $8000.00 |
Prototypes play an essential role in the product development process and enable designers to specify, meet and verify design and engineering challenges. Expert designers have long recognized the benefits of iteratively using prototypes throughout the design process. However, novice designers, such as students, often lack the background to use prototyping to effectively impact their project outcomes. Specifically, most novice designers limit their use of prototypes to one or two phases of the design process and don’t create and/or adapt prototypes based on the geographical and/or professional culture of the stakeholder group they are engaging. We propose to investigate how students participating in design experiences with culturally diverse stakeholders leverage prototypes throughout their design processes and how they adapt the use of prototypes according to the cultural background of the stakeholder. Ultimately, we aim to improve education to support students’ growth and development in prototype usage in design and intercultural maturity. |
| Dental Students Apply Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) to Clinical Scenarios: Developing, Enhancing, and Assessing Skills Hsun-Liang Chan Dentistry Rachel Sheridan Dentistry Tae-Ju Oh Dentistry $4000.00 |
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. Although EBP is required within dental education by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), currently, the exposure of dental students to EBP is limited. This skill is incorporated in a didactic course in the 1st dental year, before students start treating patients. When they start providing cares they are rarely asked to apply EBP skills and their learning is rarely systematically assessed. Therefore, this proposal is to apply two interventions to students who are currently providing care in the clinics: (1) a classroom based learning and (2) an active group learning. Three methods will be used to assess learning: (1) a questionnaire (2) a written exam and (3) a score sheet for group practice. Their learning efficiency will be investigated by comparing the pre- and post-intervention results of the three methods. This teaching module may be potentially applied to other schools, e.g. Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, etc. for students to facilitate the use EBP and for educators to assess EBP-learning, and will solidify the students' use of these skills in their future clinical practices. |
| OPENING THE CLASSROOM TO THE PROFESSION: ASSESSMENT OF WEB-BASED CLASS PROJECTS ON STUDENT LEARNING Dimitrios Zekkos Engineering $4000.00 |
Many classes in the course curriculum incorporate a "conventional" class project. The deliverable of this project is typically submitted by the student to the instructor for corrections and grading. The proposed research will prove the hypothesis that "incorporating a web-based class project that virtually engages professionals and research experts as readers and reviewers of student projects, instead of a ‘conventional' project, improves students' self-reported learning gains and commitment to the course." In the proposed research, students submit their project online. The project is disseminated to professionals who review the project and provide feedback. This type of "professional crowdsourcing" is enabled using a web-based platform that was developed by the PI in collaboration with Geoengineer.org, a center for information dissemination in geotechnical engineering. The project leverages earlier work by the PI that indicates that both students and professionals are eager to participate in this process. This proposal will collect assessment data on the impact of incorporating such a web-based class project on learning of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) students. The outcome of this study will (a) promote a novel application of technology in the classroom that can be used by other University of Michigan CEE faculty, (b) will provide scientific assessment data on student learning with the intent to lead to scientific publications, and (c) will lead to a user-friendly online platform that can be used by CEE Faculty nationwide in undergraduate and graduate courses. It is expected that lessons learned will be informative for classes beyond CEE. |
| Developing an Introductory Biology Preparation Assessment Tool Laura Olsen LSA - Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology $3000.00 |
Students who elect to enroll in Introductory Biology (171 and 172/174) have diverse biology backgrounds and prior coursework experience. This diversity in preparation is a challenge both for instructors and less-prepared students. Underprepared students often struggle in Introductory Biology, and many end up leaving biology. We need to find ways to correct this preparation deficit and increase success of these students in Introductory Biology if we hope to retain these students in STEM fields. We plan to develop a preparation assessment for students entering Introductory Biology; this assessment will allow us to identify the least prepared students so that we can prevent them from having an adverse outcome in Introductory Biology. The assessment will be developed based on the current Introductory Biology curriculum along with the Next Generation Science Standards for high school biology, and will be tested and validated before it used. Results of the assessment will be used to advise underprepared students into non-majors biology courses or other 100-level topics courses to help mitigate their preparation deficit prior to enrollment in Introductory Biology. The assessment will be used in the Comprehensive Studies Program sections of Introductory Biology at first, and may be expanded to the large sections in the future. |
| Towards a global virtual community of female engineering students and professionals Aline Cotel Engineering $4000.00 |
This August, approximately ten graduate and undergraduate members of the Society of Women Engineers at the University of Michigan (UM-SWE) will travel to Liberia, West Africa, to partner with the newly-formed Liberia Society of Women Engineers (L-SWE) student organization to carry out a leadership camp for up to 30 of the Liberian women in engineering peers from the University of Liberia. The goals of this leadership camp are two-fold (i) to empower the Liberian and US women engineers with the skills, support and inspiration necessary to becoming successful and well rounded engineering professionals; and (ii) to build a virtual community of female engineers resulting in an international network of female engineering professionals. The research questions we intend to pursue are the following: 1) How does the implementation of the international professional organization, the Society of Women Engineers, and the subsequent leadership camp influence the experience of US and Liberian women studying engineering and their future professional opportunities? 2) How does an international partnership of student organizations influence the experience and international perspective of U.S. and Liberian students? With the Psychological Sense of Community as the basis of our conceptual framework, we will carry out a rigorous qualitative research study to answer our research questions focusing on the rich descriptions of perspectives provided by students. We will stay in contact with both cohorts of students (US and Liberian) and keep track of any change/improvement to their academic performance as well as their ability to garner relevant internships and entry-level positions. |
| Investigating the Relationships of Student Engineering Team Size and Make-up with Project Success and Team Satisfaction Robin Fowler Engineering - Technical Communication $3000.00 |
This proposal requests assistance for a learning-analytics style investigation of team performance data from the researcher's sections of a team-based, project-based course (Engineering 100) going back to 2007. The goal of the study is to investigate relationships between team make-up and resulting team performance and team satisfaction. Using team performance and satisfaction information from a variety of naturally-occurring teams (about 1200 students on 240 teams, all assigned by instructor), I would like to see whether "best practices" for team formation (avoid stranding minority and female students/ make diverse teams/ etc) are supported in this sample of first-year engineering student teams working on semester-long projects. |
| Comparing oral and traditional assessments in math content courses for pre-service elementary teachers Nina White LSA - Mathematics $4000.00 |
A recent meta-analysis on oral assessments identifies several advantages of oral assessments, including that they: (1) develop communication skills, (2) are a more authentic assessment, (3) are more inclusive of different learning style and needs, and (4) are better at gauging understanding (Huxham, Campbell & Westood, 2012). In our math content course for pre-service elementary teachers, we think the first two advantages are self-evident. We find the third and fourth advantages compelling; however, we would like to know whether implantation of oral assessment in our class would realize these advantages. We further anticipate another advantage of oral exams over traditional exams: (5) they can be learning experiences themselves as students confront and reorganize their misconceptions in response to immediate instructor feedback. Our motivating question is: in a systematic application of both oral and traditional written assessments in our course, are the potential advantages (3), (4), and (5) empirically verified? Research questions: Q1: Does an oral assessment change our evaluation of students' achievement in the course? If so, can we qualitatively describe the differences between what oral and traditional assessments measure? Q2: How do students' perceived learning gains from an oral assessment compare to perceived learning gains from a written assessment?} We will investigate these questions using mixed methods: (A) systematically administering both oral and traditional written exams for quantitative score analysis, (B) using open coding to analyze video data of oral exams, and (C) surveying students about their perceived learning gains in each assessment format. We anticipate our results will have implications for assessment in a variety of STEM fields. |
| A Randomized Comparison between Team Based Learning and Standard Lecture Format on Learning Outcomes Barry Bleske Pharmacy $3000.00 |
The College of Pharmacy (COP) has recently revised the curriculum and adopted team-based learning (TBL) as a unifying pedagogy across a 5 semester core therapeutic problem-solving course sequence. Team-based learning was implemented since the pedagogy highly engages the student in active learning. However, there are limited data demonstrating improved learning outcomes as compared to standard lecture, especially within a rigorous scientific construct. The purpose of this investigation is to determine if learning outcomes are significantly different between two distinct pedagogies (TBL vs Lecture) in a prospective randomized crossover study. An elective course will be developed exploring therapeutic topics that are not covered in the curriculum during the spring/summer semester. Students will be randomized to either TBL or lecture for a 3 week period then crossed over to the competing pedagogy for another 3 week period. Short-term learning outcomes will be evaluated after each 3 week period. Long term learning outcomes will be evaluated by reassessing the students 6 months after their last assessment. Students will be assessed through evaluation of application and recall type questions, student reflections, and confidence ratings. The outcomes from this study will be extremely valuable as we begin to reflect on our revised curriculum and it will also significantly add to the TBL literature regarding student outcomes as compared to traditional lecture format. |
| Keep Psychiatry in Mind: Integrating Psychiatry into the General Medical Curriculum with Emails Mary Blazek Medical School $3000.00 |
Abstract: Background: There is growing consensus in medication education regarding the importance of integrating training across fields of medicine. Building on a prior project with an established collaboration, educators from University of Michigan, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and Rush Medical College will design a simple intervention using email to promote integration of psychiatry into medical school clinical curricula. Methods: We will develop a series of emails relating key psychiatric concepts to other medical fields, and distribute them during non-psychiatric clerkships to 150 third year medical students at the University of Michigan. Assessment will include a survey evaluating attitude and confidence regarding implementation of behavioral principles in medical practice and a knowledge retention tool. Results/Conclusion: Results will be analyzed at the conclusion of the academic year and will provide further insight into both the utility of emails in delivering educational material and the impact of integration of psychiatric concepts during other clerkships |
| Evaluating the Pre-Professional Engineer: Project Team and Individual Performance Brian Gilchrist Engineering $3000.00 |
This study proposes to investigate the impact of individualized performance appraisals (based on both quantitative and qualitative feedback) to motivate and facilitate student learning of necessary professional skills, particularly within the professional skills construct of teamwork, communication, project management, leadership and application of technical skills. We will also test the feasibility of efficiently delivering effective, individualized performance appraisals on a large scale. The performance appraisal feedback will be based on five sources of evaluation: • Quantitative student team peer evaluations via the CATME tool • Qualitative Student team peer evaluation comments for development (2 short responses) • Observational feedback from Faculty Mentors, Sponsor Mentors, and MDP Staff Impact of the appraisals will be evaluated based on the change in student performance feedback between the first and second test periods, measured by: (1) changes in CATME evaluations from peers; (2) evaluation comments from peers; (3) observations from faculty and sponsor mentors and MDP staff; as well as (4) evidence of student reflection/attribution of impact in ENGR 456: Leadership and Mentorship course milestone assignments. |
| ENgaging and Adapting Blended LEarning (ENABLE) Jack Miller LSA $4000.00 |
The ENgaging and Adaptive Blended LEarning (ENABLE) proposal seeks to provide students with options to attend Statistics 250 lectures that still allow them to fully participate in the lecture. Students will be allowed to choose on a daily basis whether they would like to attend class face-to-face or synchronously online. The ENABLE project is a HyFlex (hybrid-flexible) project that will combine live streaming, recording, polling, and a backchannel for student questions and comments. Prior work done with the HyFlex model shows promise for the model here at University of Michigan, both in terms of its reception and its potential to serve more students with the same resources. |
| Evaluating the effectiveness of “Engineering 290: Professional Skills for Engineers” on improving the technical communications proficiency, and overall self-efficacy, of first-term undergraduate engineering transfer students Frank Marsik Engineering $3000.00 |
Undergraduate transfer students often encounter difficulties with academic and social transitions, which can include significantly higher class loads compared to their previous institutions, challenges interacting with faculty/students in larger classroom settings, and developing a social comfort level with their peers in a new academic environment. Within the College of Engineering (CoE), a major separation between these transfer students and traditional four-year students is the technical communications experience that traditional students receive during their freshman year (Engineering 100). During Fall Terms of 2012 and 2013, the CoE offered a pilot course, Engineering 290: Professional Skills for Engineers, in an attempt to ease the transition of first-year transfer students. The new course sought to provide first-year transfer students with an informal support system and to improve their academic self-efficacy and technical communications proficiency using a seven-week short-course format, with a low student to faculty ratio (at most, 20:1). While limited assessments performed with the Fall Term 2012 class participants suggested that the course was able to meet some of its stated goals, these initial assessments did not investigate whether this increased confidence during the term was greater than that experienced by other first-term CoE transfer students who had not enrolled in the Engineering 290 course. As a result, this proposal seeks to use longitudinal, focus group and performance-based assessments to determine the success of Engineering 290 in achieving the stated goals for transfer students enrolled in the course, relative to peer transfer students not in the course. |
| Student Synthesis of Complex, Virtual Design Artifacts: What Factors Make a Difference? Matt Collette Engineering $3000.00 |
A key challenge in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering capstone design course (NA 475) is the need for students to synthesize a complex vessel design without recourse to a physical prototype for a classical design-build-test pedagogical approach. As a ship is too large and complex to be physically or even fully numerically modeled during this course, the student design teams need to build their own mental model of the vessel to assess the key design drivers and the constraints caused by the interaction of these drivers. This research aims to address two questions in sequential order: what factors result in groups developing a strong or early-forming synthesis model? and can specific teaching techniques improve student synthesis model formation for physically large and complex systems? The proposed research involves a series of focus groups to understand factors influencing synthesis model formation, revising the course structure to address these factors, and repeating the focus group assessment to quantify the impact of the changes. |
| Evaluating the impact of global clincal immersion strategies in undergraduate community health nursing education Norma Sarkar Nursing Judith Policicchio Nursing Nancy (Amby) Gallagher Medical School $3000.00 |
Evaluating the Impact of Global Clinical Immersion Strategies In Undergraduate Community Health Nursing Education The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has established standards for cultural competency in baccalaureate nursing education. The University of Michigan uses three clinical strategies in our senior-level community health nursing course: international immersion experiences in Ecuador and India, video-conferencing with schools of nursing in Haiti, Botswana and India, and "glocal" experiences with local vulnerable populations. While evidence supports the impact of cultural immersion on cultural care competencies, less is known about other approaches that do not require travel and therefore are more widely accessible to students, both here and at our partner institutions. The purpose of this project is to evaluate these models of global clinical immersion. A mixed-methods approach will be used to answer two research questions: How effective are each of the three global clinical immersion strategies in changing students' knowledge, skills and attitudes related to cultural care competencies? and, What is the impact of each of these three global clinical immersion strategies on developing students' knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors related to cultural care competencies? An existing cultural care competency survey will be used to measure changes in knowledge, skills, and attitudes at baseline and at the end of the course. Scripted focus groups, structured interviews, journal entries and blog postings will be analyzed for themes related to students' attitudes related to cultural care competency and preparation for providing patient care. The expertise and resources of CRLT will facilitate identification of a relevant survey, scripting/design of the focus groups and recommendations about quantitative and qualitative data analysis. |
| A Qualitative Study of Underrepresented Minority Students Pre-Med Education and Experiences Adrianne Haggins Medical School Helen Morgan Medical School Lynette Wynn LSA $3000.00 |
Minorities continue to be underrepresented in every healthcare field, despite national and institutional efforts to shift trends to reflect the evolution of the US population. Underrepresented minority (URM) undergraduate students are also more likely to lose interest in medical and science careers over time compared to their non-URM counterparts. Our study's objective is to examine the formal and informal learning environment at the University of Michigan to explore which factors increase and decrease persistence in pre-med career paths. We will conduct focus groups of URM undergraduate students and in-depth interviews of medical students. We anticipate this pilot work with be informative in designing tailored pre-med curricula and programs to improve URM student achievement, persistence in medical careers, and help reduce healthcare workforce disparities. |
| Smelling the Roses in ME211 Michael Thouless Engineering $3000.00 |
ME211 "Introduction to Solid Mechanics" is a core / required class in Mechanical Engineering and other departments, with about 400 students per year. The class is fast-paced, with a fundamental new concept being introduced every other lecture or so, and no time for reflection and absorption. A weak grasp of the concepts taught in ME211 is seen to be a significant cause of failure in a subsequent required class, ME382. It is proposed to teach ME211 over two semesters as two linked two-credit classes. The material will be covered at half the pace, and tested at half the pace, giving students time to absorb the information. The grade for both sections will be earned as an aggregate from all the homeworks, two mid-terms, and one cumulative final, just as in the regular one-semester format. The difference will be that students will have twice the time to interact with a topic before moving on to new topics, or being tested on it. The instructor will also teach a regular 4-credit version of ME211 in the second semester. BOTH CLASSES WILL TAKE THE SAME FINAL. A direct comparison will be made between the performance of both sets of students in this final exam (with the grades for the experimental section being scaled to match their performance against the regular class, where we have historical experience of expected outcomes). It is this direct comparison that will provide a metric with which to analyze the results of the experiment. |
