Semester-long Research Project Research Articles

Portraits of Change: Using Picture Books to Engage Students in Thematic Civic Education

This semester-long research project examined the use of social studies trade books to thematically teach about six individuals who served as change agents in the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Three of the individuals were African American men, Robert Smalls, Frederick Douglass, and John Roy Lynch, who took civic action to address racial discrimination faced by the Black community in the half century following the U.S. Civil War. The other three indivduals were women women, Ida B. Wells, Clara Lemlich, and Jane Addams, who challenged social inequities and injustices within their communities. Over the course of the semester-long research project, sixth-grade U.S. history students read selected trade books, examined primary sources, completed graphic organizers, and crafted writing assessments about each of the six individuals. Students demonstrated complex historical thinking, integrated economic and civic thinking, and communicated thematic ideas of systemic oppression of minorities, women, and the poor. They struggled to make connections between examples of historic oppression and contemporary examples of societal oppression.

Emotional labor: Advancing our public administration classroom

ABSTRACT Public administration courses often use the pillars of public administration (e.g., efficiency, effectiveness, equity, economy, accountability, responsiveness) as foundational concepts across our core curriculum. However, our public administration curriculum is alarmingly absent of conversations about emotional labor. Put simply, emotional labor is emotion management and life management combined, which is unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us happy (Rinfret et al., 2022). In this paper we detail a semester-long research project focused on emotional labor, and why it is necessary for how we work in a diverse and changing workforce. Our pilot study examines original data collected during the spring and summer 2022 to document the experiences of 36 students enrolled in a core public administration course. The findings illustrate that using the emotional labor project (ELP) provides opportunities for us to engage in conversation with our students to change the narrative in our discipline and practice.

Doing Sociology, Learning Objectives, and Developing Rubrics for Undergraduate Research Methods

The research project assignment can create meaningful opportunities for students to apply sociological concepts. For grading these projects, assessment rubrics are useful pedagogical tools to evaluate students’ abilities in achieving course learning objectives. In this study, I analyzed final research papers collected over multiple semesters in my undergraduate Methods of Social Research course. My goals are to (1) evaluate the grading rubric’s effectiveness in enabling students to meet course objectives and (2) identify improvements in students’ outcomes from revisions to the rubric over time. Findings indicate that rubrics can provide students the information needed to apply course concepts to their work and that rubric revisions are necessary to ensure validity, reliability, and equity across grading. In conclusion, I provide suggestions for implementing a semester-long research project assignment and initiating iterative revisions to rubric criteria.

Implementing Fabrication as a Pedagogical Tool in Vertebrate Anatomy Courses: Motivation, Inclusion, and Lessons.

SynopsisIncreasing course structure by incorporating active learning and multimodal pedagogical strategies benefits all learners. Students of vertebrate anatomy can especially benefit from practicing fabrication, or “making”, incorporating skills such as 3D digital modeling, 3D printing, and using familiar low-tech materials to construct informed replicas of animal anatomy. Student perceptions of active learning projects are shaped by motivation theories such as the expectancy-value theory and self-directed learning, both of which are briefly reviewed here. This paper offers inspiration and resources to instructors for establishing a makerspace in an anatomy lab and leveraging community partners to stimulate students to construct their own versions of nature's designs. Learning science in informal environments and specifically in makerspaces has been shown to promote equity and increase motivation to study science. Examples here emphasize accessibility for diverse learners, including strategies for instructors to ensure ease of student access to 3D technology. Scaffolding formative assessments builds student confidence and expertise, further closing opportunity gaps. Two specific cases are detailed where fabrication and the use of 3D digital models are used to augment student learning of vertebrate anatomy at a small liberal arts college. In a semester-long research project in an introductory biomechanics course, students investigate, write about, and build models of animal anatomy of their choice. They use simple materials, crafting supplies, household tools, and/or 3D printing to demonstrate structures of interest, enhancing understanding of the physical principles of animal form and function. Given increased availability of CT data online, students can download, analyze, and 3D print skeletal models of both common and endangered animals. Comparative anatomy students reported that they had increased motivation to study intricate skeletal anatomy simply by manipulating bones in a 3D software assignment. Students in both classes reported enjoying the use of fabrication in learning vertebrate anatomy and this may establish a pattern of lifelong learning.

Incorporating Research into an Undergraduate Animal Behavior Course using Zoos and Webcams.

In our nonmajors animal behavior class, we developed a semester-long research project assignment that incorporates project-based learning (PBL) and the opportunity for Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) that introduces, assesses, and applies the course concepts. This project can easily be adapted for nonmajors biology, majors biology, or other more general survey classes, including remote courses. This student-led project involves a field trip for data collection at our local zoo, additional data collection using webcams, and writing and presenting a scientific report. Students apply the scientific method to design their research project and formulate a hypothesis. Throughout the semester, students learn about different behavioral sampling methods and how to develop and use an ethogram in class using animal webcams from zoos. At the zoo, students conduct a comparative behavior project by collecting data from their main animal and two related animals using multiple trials, so students can observe differences in behavior. At the conclusion of the project, students write a report demonstrating their data analysis, graphing, explanation, and interpretation of their own scientific data. We discuss how others can design and implement PBL and CUREs in their classes and what we have learned from our experiences.

Semester-Long Course-Based Research Project in Second-Semester Organic Chemistry: Synthesizing Potential Lead Compounds for the Treatment of a Neglected Tropical Disease

A semester-long research project for second-semester organic chemistry lab sections was developed. Student projects were based on preliminary data from faculty research that suggested the natural p...

The Uses and Limits of Archives in Decolonial Curricula

The Uses and Limits of Archives in Decolonial Curricula Deanna P. Koretsky (bio) I am fortunate to teach at an institution that encourages students to read against the grain of the imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchal power structures that built, and that continue to inform, most Western academic disciplines.1 Spelman College, a historically Black college for women, emphasizes the critical study of what much of the Western academy still calls difference or otherness as an essential component of all students' education, regardless of personal background or intended course of study. In their first year at Spelman, all students take a two-semester course called African Diaspora and the World, which trains them to read their studies and their lives through the lenses of critical race theory, feminist theory, and African diaspora studies. By the time they step into my classroom, they have already been introduced to the critical vocabulary necessary for thinking about who and what is left out of a field like eighteenth-century British literature. My teaching invites students to think with me—with us—about the dis/function of disciplinary boundaries and why moving toward decolonial academic practices requires more than simply adding writers of color to our syllabi.2 Expanding our canons is crucial, but this can quickly amount to tokenism if we do not also create opportunities for students to understand [End Page 151] why—beyond empty neoliberal rhetorics of diversity and inclusion—these expansions matter. As Achille Mbembe has argued, decolonial efforts must reach beyond content knowledge, to the very notion of knowledge itself, because Western epistemic traditions are traditions that claim detachment of the known from the knower. … They are traditions in which the knowing subject is enclosed in itself and peeks out at a world of objects and produces supposedly objective knowledge of those objects. The knowing subject is thus able to know the world without being part of that world and he or she is by all accounts able to produce knowledge that is supposed to be universal and independent of context.3 A decolonial teaching practice requires us to acknowledge our necessarily subjective, always partial, inherently biased position in the world. Further, it necessitates laying bare the methods by which we arrive at certain types of knowledge. To that end, I ask students to engage with the raw materials that, in many Western educational contexts, continue to be regarded as foundational for understanding historical periods: I send them into archives. In my introductory survey of eighteenth-century British literature, students complete a semester-long research project in which they use physical or digital archives (such as Eighteenth Century Collections Online [ECCO] or the open-access Internet Archive) to curate their own online collections around topics of their choosing. Toward the end of the semester, they share their projects, and we spend the last few weeks of the course discussing whether and how their findings reframe the primary and secondary materials that we had been reading together all semester. What inevitably emerges is a conversation about how lack of representation at the scholarly level trickles down into broader cultural perceptions and value patterns. Producing these projects in the form of a website underscores the stakes of this type of inquiry: publishing their work online makes students active participants in framing how anyone with an Internet connection can potentially encounter a long-whitewashed literary past. The expectation is not that students will make some groundbreaking discovery, though many do begin their research hoping for such a find. Most hit the obvious road blocks and have to recalibrate. But instead of completely changing their plans, I ask them to sit with the obstacles and find new ways into their original research questions. And this is actually the lesson: at some point, almost all students find themselves grappling with the ideologies that underwrite cultural preservation and academic knowledge production. Ultimately, my goal is to encourage students to think about how [End Page 152] such seemingly neutral concepts as "knowledge" and "history" function as instruments of larger power structures that can be interrogated and transformed.4 I invite students to become aware of how historical knowledges are constructed by engaging and, if necessary, questioning...

Integrating the Four-Dimensional Education Framework Into an EFL Course Curriculum

A part of being in academia is moving from institution to institution. This paper will showcase the work of one educator as they adjusted to a new teaching context in 2018. With a desire to conduct practitioner research (Mann & Walsh, 2017), the instructor designed a course for their university EFL classes using the required grammar textbook and the Center for Curriculum Redesign’s Four-Dimensional Education Framework (Fadel, Bialik, & Trilling, 2015). Tasks and projects were designed to connect each grammar unit with activities designed to utilize the elements of the framework to motivate the students to take an active role in their learning. This paper will introduce the context, the Four-Dimensional Education framework, the course activities, and the results of a semester-long research project in hopes that other educators may be inspired to integrate the framework and similar learning initiatives in their own classrooms and teaching contexts.

Integrating Undergraduate Molecular Biology and Biochemistry: the Development of a Program Capstone Laboratory Based on Authentic Research

The Departments of Chemistry and Biology at Mercer University jointly oversee the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology degree. Recently, the program underwent a review and subsequent reorganization. As a part of these changes, a new capstone laboratory was developed to integrate techniques from traditional molecular biology and biochemistry labs into a single, semester‐long project that provides an authentic research experience for all majors. Students design primers for site‐directed mutatgenesis to introduce a single amino acid change for an enzyme of interest. Students gain experience with PCR, cloning, DNA purification, and sequence analysis. Following confirmation of their mutation, students express the wild‐type and mutated enzymes as a 6xHis‐tagged fusion proteins which they purify and characterize using a paranitrophenol‐linked substrate. Enzyme activity of the mutated protein is compared to that of the wild‐type enzyme. In addition to meeting the traditional objectives for a biochemistry laboratory, students receive the added benefit of exposure to a semester‐long research project with clear experimental connections between techniques.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Sociology and Social Work Undergraduates’ Experiences Participating in a Research Project on Campus Sexual Assault and Misconduct

In this article, we discuss the application of a collaborative, team-based, semester-long research project in undergraduate sociology and social work research methods courses at a midsize southeastern university. The goal of the endeavor was to engage undergraduates in research on students’ perceptions and knowledge about sexual assault and misconduct on their college campus. Surveys focusing on sexual assault and misconduct modeled after the Association of American Universities’ Campus Climate Survey and the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale were distributed to students in introductory classes on campus. The data from the surveys were then used in various assignments in the social work and sociology research methods courses to demonstrate to students the multitude of steps involved in the research process. The assignments culminated in a research paper and presentation at the end of the semester. We use data collected from end of the semester student evaluations to better understand students’ learning experiences by participating in this hands-on research project in the sociology and social work methods courses.

Metalloprotease Peptide Inhibitors: A Semester-Long Organic Synthetic Research Project for the Introductory Laboratory Course

A semester-long research project to synthesize unique compounds designed after published metalloprotease peptide inhibitors is presented. The research project encompasses a set of nine organic chemistry reactions traditionally taught in the second semester lab course, and the procedures are derived from scientific literature. The two principle goals of the course design are (1) to enhance student interest through the scientific applications of the research project and (2) to introduce students to a synthetic organic chemistry research experience to develop skills needed in this area. In addition to the exploratory synthesis of novel compounds, students read background review articles about metalloprotease inhibitors. The design of the project provides opportunity for collaboration over multiple years, between different courses within the university, and among different schools.

What's in a Title?

What's in a Title?

Maybe It’s Both of Us

This teaching note describes my multiyear experience with interventions designed to enhance student engagement and learning through various teaching techniques, most notably active and collaborative learning through local case studies. While other aspects of this course had been successful, I was disappointed in the level of engagement—the apparent level of study and practice and the excitement and interest in the project demonstrated during class meetings and through assignments—of previous students with the semester-long research project. Intervention yielded a clear increase in student engagement but did not seem to yield increased understanding, leading to a new set of questions and additional intervention. The note provides details about the specific teaching techniques centered on active and collaborative learning in local case studies and concludes with three recommendations for instructors pursuing excellence in teaching and learning.

Learning Paleontology Through Doing: Integrating an Authentic Research Project into an Invertebrate Paleontology Course

We implemented an authentic research experience as part of the invertebrate paleontology course at University of North Carolina Wilmington to promote student learning objectives related to understanding course content, critical thinking, problem solving, and oral and written communication. This semester-long research project, worth 20% of the course grade, is incorporated into the laboratory component of the course, and employs best practices of active and collaborative learning. Students work as teams to develop and test paleoecological and/or evolutionary hypotheses using field-collected or archived bulk samples. Following sample processing, specimen identification, and data collecting and analysis, students write a research paper using the format of a professional paper, with individually and team-written parts, and present their results orally. After completion, one or more abstracts based on the results are submitted to a professional meeting. Typically, several students attend the meeting and present the posters. This approach allows students to experience authentic research from conception to dissemination. Since 2003, the course has been offered seven times, resulting in 13 published and presented abstracts. Over half the students remained involved in paleontology following the course by presenting the work or taking additional courses or independent study, demonstrating that the experience was received positively. This approach provides a model for other instructors, as the research project can be adapted to a variety of geological settings and topics. Successes and challenges in implementing such a project are discussed.

Action Research as a Strategy for Teaching an Undergraduate Research Course

Action research is rarely, if ever, referred to in the textbooks used in undergraduate nursing programs. While redesigning a 2009-2010 research course for junior-level baccalaureate nursing students, the action research strategy was used to conduct a semester-long research project. After identifying a list of 15 health risks on campus, students prioritized and came to consensus on the health problem to be targeted. Each week, students followed the steps of the research process as the related topic was covered in class. At the end of the semester, students presented their findings at the annual on-campus Student Research Conference. Students have since completed a total of three campus-wide research projects. The results of these projects have been incorporated as a required assignment in the senior-level Community Health Nursing course and are now being used to create health promotion materials for the campus e-magazine.

Teaching Writing in Graduate School

Graduate students are typically expected to know how to write. Those who write poorly are occasionally penalized, but little in-class attention is given to help students continue to develop and refine their writing skills. More often than not, writing courses at the graduate level are remedial programs designed for international students and others with significant challenges to writing. In this article, we describe the ways in which we introduced writing into the curriculum of a master's-level qualitative methods course. We structured the course around a semester-long research project that called for students to work in a team with others to improve both their research and writing. We share the strategies we used to demystify the writing process and encourage improvement, both in the course and beyond.

The Moon Project: Student Research and Lesson Design in an Introductory Geoscience Course for Pre-service Teachers

I have developed a hands-on guided-discovery course for future teachers that includes a semester-long research project about the moon. This project, which is designed to give students the experience of conducting a long-term scientific investigation, requires students to make daily naked-eye observations of the moon and construct graphs of given data (such as moonrise/set times and dates of moon phases) in order to discover and demonstrate a variety of phenomena related to the moon.Once students have discovered, discussed, and visualized their way to an understanding of various concepts relating to the moon, they develop and teach a hands-on guided-discovery lesson on those concepts to their classmates. Finally, they write a teacher's guide that explains the concepts and could show other teachers how to replicate the lesson.Assessment of students' understanding of the moon and their self-reported evaluations of the moon project experience demonstrate that, although it is challenging and at times frustrating, it is a unique and valuable educational experience for the students.