BUSH PROJECTS 2008

UMM received funding from the Archibald Bush Foundation to continue with projects during Spring and Fall Semester 2008. The purpose of this Bush Grant work is to replicate successful project components into other courses on the UMM campus.

Participants will continue with the work on the following projects.

• Jon Anderson (Mathematics)
  The primary focus of the project is provide instructional material to enhance learning activities during and outside of the scheduled class meeting. The within-class enhancements will primarily consist of compelling case studies and related-data activities like scientific research articles and data derived from these studies. The other class component will be to alter our traditional order of topics to facilitate the move to a better text for the students. The outside of class component will consist of online-learning modules, or short self-assessment modules. This will help students perform constructive outside of class learning.
  
  
• Karen Cusey, Pam Gades
  The “Innovative Teaching with Technology: Implementing the Seven Principles” course is a self-paced modular non-credit online resource that associates each of the “Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” with suggested technologies for online and classroom use that support each principle. The course framework for “Innovative Teaching with Technology” combines findings from literature, examples of the Seven Principles in action, and supporting educational theory to develop communication strategies, a course structure and methods of assessment for an online asynchronous learning environment. In addition, considerations for online learning, adult education, and self-paced / self-directed activities have been integrated into the course. “Innovative Teaching with Technology” is in its third year of development with a plan to solicit volunteer participants to pilot the first two course modules in summer 2008.

• Jong Min-Kim will create GenEd online Course for STAT 2611 – Mathematical Statistics, will develop the fundamental concepts of probability and statistics for students.

• Carol Marxen, EL ED 3111: Practicum 1: Field Experience in the Elementary Classroom. This project has three goals:
1. To use Moodle as another mode of communication for the students in her practicum class.
2. To make the in-class dialogue richer. Moodle will make it possible for students in different classrooms and school districts to compare and contrast their experiences with their classmates.
3. To investigate the wasys in which Moodle might address students' learning styles.

• Ted Pappenfus, Chem 3811: Macromolecules
  His objective is to create a course management site that facilitates student learning in the field of polymer chemistry. The site is intended to complement the tradidtional text required for students taking the course.

• Pam Solvie,Elementary Education 3102 will create an interactive tool that allows students to investigate/identify learning style preference characteristics needed for successful completion of course assignments.
  

• Engin Sungur (Statistics)