October 12, 2007

North Carolina State University

Raleigh, NC

• Agenda

• Meeting Details

• Logistics

• Registration

• Biographies of Presenters

• Student Presenters

• Minutes

Host: George T. Barthalmus, Director

Office of Undergraduate Research

Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs

202 Ricks Hall, Box 7576

NC State University

Raleigh, NC 27695-7576

919-513-4187

The Southeast Regional Meeting

Agenda

Locations: G-20 Kamphoefner Hall (auditorium)

Two Sessions Are Planned:

1. Assessment of Undergraduate Research Outcomes at Research Universities

Dr. Allen DuPont and Dr. Pamela Steinke, NC State University: This presentation will begin with an overview of how the “research culture” prevalent at Doctoral/Research Extensive Universities impacts the culture for assessment and accountability at these institutions. The presenters will then outline an approach for assessment that not only acknowledges but embraces the research culture, and will present strategies to utilize that approach to satisfy calls for public accountability. The presenters will then proceed to specific methods for assessing undergraduate research experiences, will present specific findings from such assessment at NC State, and will explore areas for further work.

Announcement of a National Undergraduate Research Assessment Initiative: 

Dr. Mary Crowe, Representing Sigma Xi’s National Office, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina: The Scientific Research Society, Sigma Xi, has undertaken a major initiative to conduct a comprehensive survey of undergraduate research occurring on campuses across the nation. Paired with the development, distribution, analysis of data, and the reporting of the outcomes of the survey is the creation of an awards program that recognizes the top undergraduate researchers in the nation. This activity involves the Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research and Awards Initiative Taskforce that is seeking corporate support for the recognition awards as well as grants to support the extensive survey that will be conducted.

2. Interactive Learning Technologies at Research Extensive Universities

This session will consider different ways in which technology is being used to enhance undergraduate education. To spark discussion, several presenters have been invited to present their work. The first two presentations will demonstrate successful innovations in teaching, both in large enrollment courses and in distant education settings. The third presentation will help the group consider how new graduate programs can prepare future professors to utilize and study the effectiveness of technology. A final presentation will showcase the work of undergraduates who have been involved in an innovative project using virtual modeling technology.

John S. Risley, Department of Physics, North Carolina State University  and President of WebAssign, Raleigh, NC: “The Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP): Teaching with technology in an interactive classroom.” How do you keep a classroom of 100 undergraduates actively learning? Can students practice communication and teamwork skills in a large class? How do you boost the performance of underrepresented groups? The Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) Project has addressed these concerns. Educational research indicates that students should collaborate on interesting tasks and be deeply involved with the material they are studying. We promote active learning in a redesigned classroom for 100 students or more. (Of course, smaller classes can also benefit.) Class time is spent primarily on “tangibles” and “ponderables”—hands-on activities, simulations, labs, and interesting questions. Frequent tasks are assigned with students answers recorded instantly using WebAssign, a world-wide, online homework assessment system. Nine students sit in three teams at round tables. Instructors circulate and engage in Socratic dialogues. The setting looks  like a banquet hall, with lively interactions nearly all the time. The technology, room design and pedagogy are being adopted at leading institutions across the country. Hundreds of hours of classroom video and audio recordings, transcripts of numerous interviews and focus groups, data from conceptual learning assessments (using widely- recognized instruments in a pretest/posttest protocol), and collected portfolios of student work are part of our rigorous assessment effort. Research findings (based on data from over 16,000 students collected over five years) can be summarized as the following:

·  Female failure rate is 1/5 of previous levels, even though more is demanded of students.

·  Minority failure rate is 1/4 that seen in traditionally taught courses.

·  At-risk students are more successful in later engineering courses.

·  Top students gain the most, although students at all levels benefit.

·  Conceptual learning and problem solving are improved, with same content coverage

In this talk Dr. Risley will briefly discuss the classroom environment, some of the activities, and discuss how technology makes this possible. This project has been generously supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s FIPSE program and the National Science Foundation’s CCLI program.

Kay Sandberg, Department of Chemistry, North Carolina State University: “Almost as good as being there!” A combination of technology and creativity results in a distance education course that is as effective, interactive and challenging as that experienced in the traditional lecture setting. The presentations combined with lecture assignments (containing randomized questions), homework assignments (also containing randomized questions), and the course discussion board (enabling cooperative learning) make for an effective course even at a distance. Key to the effectiveness of this course is the electronically delivered lecture work and homework components that give students immediate feedback. In addition to the traditional fill in the blank, multiple choice and matching question types, organic skeletal structures can be submitted for grading along with mechanism arrow drawings and questions requiring the manipulation of the 3-D jmol structures. Animated lecture notes with audio make this course presentation interactive and allow for means of verbally animating the animations. These presentations contain among other things animatedly detailed proposed mechanistic pathways while calling forth responses from students that are graded for accuracy via the electronic assessment tool, WebAssign. Not only are the animated lecture presentations used in the distance education course, but they are made available to Dr. Sandberg’s tradition lecture students. Good students will listen to the lectures again and again. They can pause her, rewind her, and even mute her. Because lecture questions are given during lecture (requiring responses that are graded), attendance is relatively high. Dr. Sandberg will present her talk from afar using a web-based, real time camera feed from a western North Carolina location.

Carolyn R. Miller, SAS Institute Distinguished Professor of English, North Carolina State University: Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty for the Digital World. The College of Humanities and Social Science at NC State offers a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (CRDM). Built on the premise that new developments in communication media and information technologies require a dramatic shift in instruction and research, this program integrates the study of oral, written, and visual modes of communication to focus on the human dimensions of information and communication technologies. Students in this program work with a diverse and accomplished faculty from the departments of Communication and English, use the resources of a high-tech campus, and build relationships with Research Triangle organizations. A highlight of the program is its emphasis on professional preparation, including a course in digital pedagogy and a colloquium devoted to professional issues and practices. Students will be able to create programs of study in areas such as these:

·  Computer-mediated communication

·  Visual rhetoric

·  Digital culture

·  Electronic communication across the curriculum

·  Media and technology policy

·  Textual mediation

·  Digital literacy

·  Online information design

Graduates will help meet the increasing national demand for faculty with technology specializations to teach and lead programs in areas such as writing and speaking across the curriculum, organizational communication, technical communication, and media studies. Industry and government also need professionals to conduct research, manage development, and analyze policy in the uses and applications of new communication technologies.

An Undergraduate Student Team will present its project for Google's North American "Build Your Campus in 3D" competition. Working collaboratively, this inter-disciplinary team managed to make virtual models of nearly all of North Carolina State’s campus buildings using the Google Sketchup modeling program. Their work has opened the door for other initiatives including online recruiting, virtual campus tours and more. Student presenters include: David Tredwell, a senior in Computer Science; Steven Valenziano, a sophomore in Industrial Design; A. J. Klingenmaier, a senior in Art and Design; Dana Hartweg, a senior in Art and Design focusing on digital media; Ben Huckaby, a senior in Art and Design and a graduate of Computer Science; and, Sari Nasir, a sophomore majoring in Art and Design and Computer Science.

Google Earth is already a widely popular and powerful global map viewing application, but once it was integrated with Google’s 3D modeling and rapid design program, SketchUp, it took maps to a whole new level. Buildings and landmarks began appearing in their corresponding size and position throughout the world, created both by Google staff and by user-generated content. In January 2007, DELTA (Distance Education & Digital Learning Applications) assembled a student team to enter the Google hosted Build Your Campus in 3D Competition, and with only one month of core development time managed to create the entirety of  the NCSU Main Campus. DELTA built its team by assembling a diverse set of students from a variety of campus departments, including Communication, Design, Engineering, and Industrial Design who were at various points in their college careers. These students worked against a tight deadline with one of the largest campuses in the competition and learned to effectively communicate and provide feedback to one another. By sharing good practices and supporting each other's efforts, the team was able to build 107 N.C. State buildings in under 50 days, while also managing important responsibilities such as classes and jobs. In addition to providing a global visual reference for NCSU, this project has opened the door for many other N.C. State endeavors, such as online recruiting, virtual campus tours, pre-visualizing construction projects, and online event planning. We will present our production process, demonstrate Google SketchUp and the final product in Google Earth.

Logistics:

Hotel Accommodations: Holiday Inn Brownstone Hotel, 1707 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27605. 800-311-7919. Indicate “NCSU-Reinvention Center Conference,” October 12, 2007. Directions to the hotel: http://www.brownstonehotel.com/

Directions from Raleigh Durham International Airport (RDU) to the Brownstone Inn:  See:  http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=brownstone+inn&near=Raleigh,+NC&ll=35.784980,-78.659679&iwstate1=dir:to&iwloc=A&f=d&daddr=1707+Hillsborough+St,+Raleigh,+NC+27605

Parking for the meeting:

You may park your car at the lot immediately to the left of the North Residence Hall (map number 21) that is located along the north side of Hillsborough Street (see campus map and number 21: http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/north.htm.  It is a short walk to the meeting site at the northeast side of campus; use the same map link: http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/north.htm and locate map number 11A, the G-20 Burns Auditorium of Kamphoefner Hall of the College of Design, where registration, a light breakfast and the morning sessions will be held.  The afternoon breakout sessions will be at map number 18, Leazar Hall; we will use rooms 310, 312, and 316 for the Leazar Hall breakout sessions and serve lunch here.

Walking from the Parking Lot to Kamphoefner Hall: After parking your car, walk left heading east on Hillsborough Street. Go to the first light and cross Hillsborough Street (to the right) and head into campus on Watauga Club Drive. Walk straight ahead and across parking lots and administrative buildings located to your right and left. The large street you will come to is Stinson Drive; walk to your right and Kamphoefner Hall is directly to the left of the information booth ahead of you; use the map to guide your way: http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/north.htm Look for RC Meeting signs from the parking lot and at key turns along your way. 

*To REGISTER for our upcoming meetings, please send an email to reinvention@miami.edu  indicating which of the meetings you will be attending. Include your name, title and institutional affiliation. If you are bringing colleagues with you, please provide their names and contact information as well.

Biographies of Featured Presenters:

Allen Dupont is Director of the Office of Assessment in the Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Economics at North Carolina State University.  He joined NC State in 2004 as Assistant Director. Dr. Dupont focuses on assisting faculty members with academic program assessment, general education assessment, and directly oversees the NC State Undergraduate Assessment Symposium each April. Now in its sixth year, the Symposium brings together approximately 400 faculty members and administrators from around the nation and beyond to share experiences and to learn about new developments in undergraduate academic assessment. Prior to joining NC State, Dr. Dupont served for 11 years at Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia, as the W. O. Duvall Professor of Business and from 2001 as the Director of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment.  He holds the BA in Economics from Rice University and the MS and PhD in Economics from Louisiana State University.

Pamela Steinke serves as Assistant Director of Assessment in the Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs at North Carolina State University. In this position, she works closely with Dr. Allen Dupont to facilitate undergraduate assessment in the Division of Academic Programs, the General Education program, and undergraduate program review. Prior to joining NC State, Dr. Steinke was the Assessment Coordinator at Lincoln Land Community College in Illinois and prior to that was a tenured psychology faculty member at Central College in Iowa. While at Central she served as administrator of a Teagle Foundation grant to develop and direct the Program for Learning About Cultures in Experiential Settings (PLACES) and was awarded the Outstanding Performance Award for Institution Service at Central for this work.  She was also Principle Investigator on a research grant from the Iowa College Foundation.  She received the award for student engagement at Central for her introductory research course, which she taught as a service-learning course, and while at Central she regularly presented and published with undergraduate students. Dr. Steinke has been nominated for Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers three times, has published several articles on academic outcomes of service-learning, and has presented at numerous regional and national conferences. Dr. Steinke holds the A.B. in Psychology and Political Science from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from University of California, Davis.

Mary Crowe is the Director, Office of Undergraduate Research at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a position she has held since spring semester 2006. Previously, she was the Director of Xavier University of Louisiana’s Center for Undergraduate Research from June 2004 to January 2006. From 1994 to 2004 she was a tenured faculty member in the Department of Biology at Coastal Carolina University (CCU). While at CCU she mentored the research projects of 30 students and more than one-third of her undergraduate students have gone on to obtain their M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Crowe currently is a co-PI on a NSF funded study that examines student intellectual growth as a result of undergraduate research. In this study, both students and faculty members will use established rubrics to “grade” pre and post research experience materials, focusing on critical thinking, communication and integration of knowledge skills. She is a member of the Board of Governors for the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and an F21 member of Project Kaleidoscope. She is a councilor for the Council of Undergraduate Research (CUR) and was named their 2005 and 2006 volunteer of the year. She is a member of CUR’s assessment team for the Carnegie Foundation’s CASTL project and was instrumental in developing CUR’s Initiating and Sustaining Undergraduate Research Programs Institute.

John S. Risley graduated in 1965 from the University of Washington with a BS degree in physics. He received his MS degree in 1966 and PhD in 1973, also from the University of Washington. His thesis research was on electron detachment of negative H atoms in collisions with atomic and molecular targets. After a half year as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Nebraska, he joined the physics faculty at North Carolina State University in 1976 advancing to professor of physics in 1984. Professor Risley conducts research on the utilization and effectiveness of computer technology to teach physics. These activities are now being carried out in the new SCALE-UP classroom at NCSU. External efforts include publishing peer-reviews physics educational software, as editor of Physics Academic Software in cooperation with the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. In addition, his group is involved with disseminating in formation about new materials in the physics journals, conducting teacher workshops, and collaborating at professional meetings.  Dr. Risley is the president of WebAssign, an online homework, quizzing, and testing assessment system that delivers, collects, and grades and records student’s assignments located on NC State's Centennial campus. This wide-reaching service incorporates textbook problems, many different answer types and classroom management tools. It represents a new way of accessing student performance and helps student learn basic physics concepts.

Kay Sandberg is an Associate Teaching Professor at NC State University. She began teaching General Chemistry in 1998 for a few years, but now her teaching assignment alternates between Organic Chemistry I and II. She received a BS in Secondary Education (proficiency in General Science) from Tennessee Temple University and taught high school science for 10 years before pursuing a graduate degree. Dr. Sandberg earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from NC State University. Her scholarly activities within the department include creation of WebAssign questions to accompany Organic chemistry lectures and the creation and administration of Organic I and II distance education courses.  She recently received a grant from NC State’s Distance Education & Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) department for the creation of Organic chemistry electronic reaction wheels, flash cards and mechanism animations. Dr. Sandberg has been honored with teaching awards including membership in the NC State Academy of Outstanding Teachers (2001) LeRoy and Elva Martin Award for Teaching Excellence (Spring 2005), and the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor for 2006-2008.

Carolyn R. Miller is SAS Institute Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication at North Carolina State University, where she has taught since 1973. She is founding director of the Ph.D. program in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media, established in 2004 and was founding director of the M.S. in Technical Communication, established in 1988. She is a member of the university’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers and in 1999 was named Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor. Dr. Miller received her Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her research interests are in digital rhetoric, rhetorical theory, and the rhetoric of science and technology. She has published in these areas, as well as in the area of curriculum design. In 2001–2003, she served as co-PI on an NSF-funded project to test the feasibility of citizen deliberation on technology policy via the internet by comparison with face-to-face deliberation. Dr. Miller recently returned from teaching and lecturing in Brazil on the subject of on emerging genres of communication.

Biographies of Student presenters:

David Tredwell is a senior in the Computer Science Department at N.C. State University. Throughout college, he has participated in projects focused in creating 3D virtual environments and in the use of game engines in education. After obtaining a minor in Art and Design and graduating, he plans to continue working in the 3D realm of computers, for both entertainment and educational purposes.

Steven Valenziano is a sophomore Industrial Design student at N.C. State. He hopes to work in product design with a focus on creating user-oriented, environmentally friendly products.

A.J. Klingenmaier is a senior in Art and Design. When he's not making ridiculously detailed 3D models of campus buildings, he likes to write, travel, draw cartoons and spend time with his girlfriend. He is creative, ambitious, funny and reserved. When A.J. graduates, he plans to pursue a career in animation or illustration.

Dana Hartweg, current senior in Art & Design, with a focus in digital media. Currently working for the College of Textiles, using digital techniques and animation to enhance distance education and classroom learning, Dana’s hometown is Greensboro, NC.

Ben Huckaby is a senior in Art and Design and a graduate of Computer Science at NC State. He is currently working as a Multimedia Specialist for Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) at NC State with a focus on developing games, interactive content, and virtual environments for educational use.

Sari Nasir is a sophomore at NC State University, double majoring in Art and Design and Computer Science. He has a strong background in digital media and animation, as well as computer programming. This is his first project with DELTA, and he hopes to find similar opportunities in the future.

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