Developing Collaboration Skills in Team Undergraduate Research Experiences

Abstract

Interdisciplinary undergraduate research experiences often require students to work in teams with other students and researchers from different disciplines, creating a need for development of new skills in interdisciplinary collaboration. In this paper, we describe our unique efforts to mentor participants in developing these skills during our team-based research experience for undergraduates program. This effort was initiated in response to a perceived need to provide professional development in collaboration for our participants, who come from diverse backgrounds that span a range of disciplines, institutions, and cultures. We describe here the intervention used, which is a modified version of one successfully implemented in a classroom setting. Furthermore, we present our formative and summative program evaluation data regarding participants’ perceptions about what helps or hinders team science. The most-repeated themes in student evaluations, in order from most mentions to least, were: communication, goal setting, shared mental model, timing/scheduling, cooperation, non-participation, attitudes, and mentor guidance/support. Together these themes account for 82% of the student responses. Lastly, we present our observations of the positive effects of this intervention on our program. Our findings may be useful to those mentoring undergraduates in both team research and classroom group learning.     

Creating Robust Evaluation of ATE Projects

ABSTRACT

Funded grant projects all involve some form of evaluation, and Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants are no exception. Program evaluation serves as a critical component not only for evaluating if a project has met its intended and desired outcomes, but the evaluation process is also a central feature of the grant application itself. Funders want to assure that their funding dollars are effective, and creation and implementation of a robust evaluation plan helps assure that project claims are met. Critically, evaluation plans help identify key implications for the field and provide feedback to interventions or project activities during the duration of the grant.     

Parents and Children Learning Together A Study of the Effectiveness of Parental Involvement on Children's Problem Solving Skills

This study developed from the findings of a previous set of studies into parental involvement in pre-school education. Amongst some interesting results, significant were parents concerns, and uncertainties about their roles in facilitating the learning experiences of their children in the home environment.

Additionally, the findings revealed that when parents do spend time with their children, reading stories and playing board games were popular past-times. Research elsewhere reveals that the kinds of pre-school activities most effective in the development of thinking skills, involve construction, drawing and board games. Thus, an aim of this study, is to investigate the extent to which parents' understanding of the competencies involved in these activities, affects their involvement in them at home and the progress of their children in school.

This paper presents the findings of a pilot study of the role of the tutor in problem solving. It is an attempt to identify the kinds of knowledge and information about children that tutors, and subsequently parents, would need to have to be effective, and the kinds of activities which elicit developmentally appropriate strategies in children when presented with problem solving tasks. The results show that if parents are to be effective as collaborators in their children's learning, an understanding of qualitative differences in children, the kinds of activities and experiences provided, and methods of presentation, are vital factors for success.     

Toward a socio‐psychological definition of transitional persons

In this innovative study, state legislators' dependence on various mass media and interpersonal sources for information about their constituents is examined revealing a relatively stable use of mass communication sources and a somewhat surprising role for radio.     

Spatial awareness in seven to 11‐year‐old physically handicapped children in mainstream schools

ABSTRACT

Ten mainstream‐educated children with physical handicaps that restrict their independent mobility, aged between 7 and 11 years, were compared with matched classmates on measures of spatial awareness and cognitive mapping skills. Compared with their classmates, the handicapped children were significantly worse at drawing plan maps of their classrooms, placing missing objects on accurate classroom maps, and pointing in the direction of distant landmarks on the school campus. All motorically impaired children were deficient on one or more measures (whether brain damaged or not). Awareness of spatial relations is likely to be important for the development of several intellectual skills, and since physically handicapped children may be disadvantaged in this area, it is worthy of special attention from teachers and support staff.     

How novice physics students deal with explanations

An extensive study was conducted of students’ explanations written in response to ‘what if...?’ questions in elementary mechanics. The study showed that the structure of students’ explanations yields roughly the same ranking of students as do problem‐solving tests, but in addition provides a wealth of insights into (1) context dependence and categorization in students’ use of concepts, (2) the effect of misconceptions on context dependence, and (3) the types of explanations that students tend to produce. A follow‐up study, in which students were presented with pairs of pre‐written explanations to ‘what if...?’ questions and asked to indicate a preference, showed that students do not necessarily prefer the types of explanations they write, and have greater difficulty assessing the correctness of explanations that are counter to preference type. Evidence is presented that, for many students, the links between physics thinking and real‐world thinking are all too tenuous.     

Implementing an Online Writing Assessment Strategy for Gerontology

Assessment of student learning is a growing concern for programs in gerontology. This report focuses on the conception, design, funding, and implementation of an innovative online workshop to assess and improve writing skills of students enrolled in distance-learning gerontology classes. The approach is multidisciplinary and involves a collaboration of faculty, adjunct instructors, alumni, graduate students, the student government association, and the local chapter of Sigma Phi Omega.