Research instructional grants
Nearly $56,000 awarded to support course-based undergraduate research
10:38 a.m., April 2, 2012--Five academic programs on the University of Delaware campus have won instructional grants to promote a broad expansion of undergraduate research and scholarship via a course-based approach.
UD’s Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL), a programmatic collaboration between the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the Office of Educational Assessment (OEA), working in concert with the Undergraduate Research Program (URP), awarded the grants, which total nearly $56,000.
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The awards are designed to support the University’s continuing goal to provide “a diverse and stimulating undergraduate environment,” a major milestone in UD’s Path to Prominence.
The grant recipients and their programs include:
- James Atlas, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, “Big Ideas in Computer Science;”
- Nancy Getchell and Christopher Modlesky, Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, “Introduction to Research in Health Sciences;”
- David Wilson, Department of Political Science and International Relations, “Foundations of Research in Political Science and International Relations;”
- Jonathan Justice, Andrea Sarzynsky and Anthony Middlebrooks, School of Public Policy and Administration, “Public Policy Analysis;” and
- Jessica Schiffman and Jennifer Naccarelli, Department of Women’s Studies, “Theory and Methods in Feminism.”
The instructional grant projects will foster the development of course-based research experiences that center on the following student learning goals: students will understand how new knowledge is generated and disseminated through scholarship; students will articulate scholarly questions; or students will create an original scholarly or creative project.
“These course-based instructional grant awards build on and extend the strong one-on-one research experience of students working with faculty, and they will expose a greater number of students to research,” said Lynnette Overby, faculty director of URP. “Such projects will engage students in a high-impact educational practice that incorporates writing and analytical thinking and correlates with high levels of student performance.”
CTAL, in collaboration with URP, will support faculty by providing models of course-based undergraduate research and by developing rubrics to assess students’ learning outcomes.
In addition, the grants may provide a venue to examine students’ ability to “think critically to solve problems” by applying the UD modified Association of American Colleges and University’s VALUE rubric, according to Deborah Allen, faculty director, CTAL.