Vanderbilt Graduate Students Present Research on Teaching Tools and Approaches in the Classroom

Posted by Rhett Mcdaniel on Thursday, May 26, 2016 in Events, News.

The BOLD, TAR, VIDL, and SoTL Fellows presented on Wednesday, May 18, 2016 in the Library Community Room in the Central Library. The event included 19 projects, including four short oral presentations and a poster session. Most of the projects investigated how technology could be used to promote student learning in undergraduate classrooms, while others focused on student learning in Coursera-based Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) or in collaborative faculty-and-graduate-student “journal clubs.”

The graduate students did their work under the guidance of one of four programs at Vanderbilt: the BOLD Fellows program, sponsored by the Center for Teaching and CIRTL, which focuses on creating and assessing online instructional approaches for use in a Vanderbilt course; the TAR Fellows program, a flagship CIRTL program; the VIDL Fellows program, which focuses on exploring digital pedagogies for use outside as well as inside formal course structures; and the SoTL Scholars Program, sponsored by the Center for Teaching, which focused on exploring the fundamental principles and practices within the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This year was the first time the four programs presented jointly.

Cynthia Brame, who facilitated the BOLD Fellows Program at the Center for Teaching, reflected on the project presentations: “These groups are creating a great sense of teaching community for graduate students here at Vanderbilt. It’s wonderful that we are able to provide spaces for these thoughtful and hardworking graduate students to talk about their work investigating various ways to engage their students and help them learn.”

BOLD Fellows teaching assistant, Danielle Picard added, “Each of these projects asked two important questions: first, how might a particular intervention promote student learning, and second, and perhaps most importantly, what are the best ways to measure gains in student learning? To see these questions being asked by researchers from across the disciplines is incredible. We have a Chemistry graduate student asking questions about how traditional laboratory experiments limit deeper scientific understanding presenting next to an Engineering graduate student who wanted to promote students’ ability to connect in-class concepts to their lived experience by having them take photos of engineering principles they see in their everyday lives. And next to that project, there are two English graduate students investigating how joint class blogs can create more authentic audiences to produce better and more effective argumentation skills in writing intensive courses.”

To learn more about each of the programs, visit their websites at:

Blended & Online Learning Design (BOLD)

Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning (VIDL)

CIRTL Network’s Teaching as Research (TAR) Program at Vanderbilt

Oral presentations
	Noah Green, Biological Sciences					BOLD Fellow
	Using online active learning techniques to convey time compensated sun compass orientation in the Eastern North American Monarch Faculty mentor: Doug McMahon
	Andrea Gardiner, Civil and Environmental Engineering						TAR Fellow
	Linking the classroom to the world through photographic assignments Faculty mentor: Mike Myers
	Ryan Bowen, Chemistry						BOLD Fellow
	Implementing an inquiry-based approach into a forensic analytical chemistry laboratory Faculty mentor: Susan Verberne-Sutton
	Zhi (Jenny) Zheng, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science						BOLD Fellow
	Study on whether computer visualizations and educational videos are helpful for students to learn rigidbody rotation Faculty mentor: Nilanjan Sarkar
Laptop and poster presentations
			Max Baumkel and Kylie Korsnack, both English		VIDL Fellows
			Poster presentation: Pedagogical implications of a joint class blog in writing-intensive courses Faculty mentor: Ole Molvig
	Alex Cheng, Biomedical Informatics Poster presentation: Online module for qualitative methods in biomedical informatics Faculty mentor: Kim Unertl							BOLD Fellow
	Kristin Droege, Chemistry Poster presentation: Does online homework format impact student learning and self-assessment in biochemistry? Faculty mentors: Cynthia Brame, Brandt Eichman, Lauren Jackson, and Bubba Singleton								BOLD Fellow
	Kelly Gilmore, Chemistry Poster presentation: Establishing a foundation of acid-base concepts in general chemistry using an interactive online module Faculty mentor: Tara Todd								BOLD Fellow

	Qiliang He, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience		VIDL Fellow
	Poster presentation: Comparing paid and non-paid users’ grade and forum activity in massive open online courses Faculty mentors: Doug Fisher, Ole Molvig and Gayathri Narasimham
	Stacey Houston, II, Sociology			VIDL Fellow
	Laptop presentation: Pass the idea please: The relationship between network embeddedness and MOOC course performance
	Hannah Krimm, Hearing and Speech Sciences				BOLD Fellow
	Poster presentation: Effect of an online learning module for transcription and phonological awareness Faculty mentor: Melanie Schuele
		Jena McDaniel and Laurel Teller, both Hearing and Speech Sciences			BOLD Fellows
		Poster presentation: Effect of an online training module on graduate students’ observational skills of communication in young children Faculty mentor: Melanie Schuele
	Allison Norlander, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Karissa Tilbury, Biomedical Engineering				TAR Fellows
	Poster presentation: Dispelling conceptual misconceptions of the central dogma: a flipped classroom approach Faculty mentor: Kathy Friedman
	Kendra Oliver, Pharmacology				BOLD Fellow
	Poster presentation: Probing the use of blogs to promote student ownership Faculty mentor: John Wikswo
	Derek Smith, Biostatistics					SoTL Scholar
	Poster presentation: The introduction of a case-based approach to biostatistics education
	Thomas Struble, Chemistry					BOLD Fellow
	Poster presentation: Bridging acidity concepts between lab and lecture Faculty mentor: Jeff Johnston
	Samantha Tramontano, Earth and Environmental Sciences					BOLD Fellow
	Poster presentation: Developing and incorporating instructional videos and quizzes as an online learning component in an undergraduate optical microscopy curriculum Faculty mentors: Lily Claiborne and Guil Gualda
	Mike Walker, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science					BOLD Fellow
	Laptop presentation: Impact of standardized rubric use on student learning and peer assessment in MOOCs with programming assignments Faculty mentor: Doug Schmidt
	Nicholas Ward, Neuroscience					TAR Fellow
	Poster presentation: Enhancing STEM pedagogy discussions by engaging practitioners and technique experts Collaborator: Tyler Perfitt, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics

Tags: bold fellows, MOOCs, scholarship of teaching and learning, SoTL Scholars Program, STEM teaching, VIDL