We found 54 results that contain "stem"

What is Labster? 
Labster is a simulation library that provides over 150 virtual science labs. Instructors can choose specific simulations to download and install within their D2L course free of charge. Simulations consist of an interactive lab activity in which students learn and apply their understanding of important STEM topics within the context of a virtual lab. Quiz questions are interspersed throughout many of the simulations to help students link their understanding of theory to the lab activity they are performing. 
 
Who might consider using Labster? 
If you are a STEM instructor, Labster could be a useful tool to enhance teaching and learning within your science course. These virtual labs can be used as standalone units, or they can be used as supplemental activities to reinforce important concepts or lab techniques. The Labster simulation catalog includes lab experiences for 21 course packages such as Chemistry, Physics, Food Science and nutrition, Engineering, Biology, Safety, Biotechnology, and others. If you would like to try out Labster, please contact the MSU IT Service Desk at ithelp@msu.edu to get access to the Labster simulations.  
 
Why use Labster? 
Well-designed lab experiences are a key part of student learning within STEM fields. While virtual labs can never replicate real-world lab experiences, simulation-based labs can enhance student learning because they provide students important opportunities for them to put their knowledge to use and engage in important scientific practices (e.g. developing models, constructing explanations, and arguing using data and evidence). For example, simulation-based learning environments have been shown to improve student learning, motivation and, self-efficacy within medical education (Makransky et. al., 2016).  
 
How to use Labster? 
Simulations are uploaded onto D2L and students can access virtual labs directly through the simulation link within D2L. Instructors can impersonate the Demo Student within their D2L course and complete the simulation to get the same experience that their students would have when engaging in the virtual lab. To promote student exploration and engagement with the simulation (as opposed to students focusing their attention on the correctness of their answers to quiz questions), we recommend using the simulation quizzes as a low-stakes formative assessment. 
 
Where to find out more information on Labster? 
If you would like to find out more information about Labster, please see the links below: 

General information about Labster
List of available Labster simulations 
Labster resources page 
Labster help page 

Stories/Feedback 
We would love to hear from you about your experiences with Labster. How was the installation process? How are you using the Labster quizzes in your class? What are your students’ perceptions of Labster and their experiences with the simulations? If you would like to share some of your Labster stories (frustrations, joys, surprises) or need more information about Labster, contact the MSU IT Service Desk at ithelp@msu.edu. 
 
References 
Makransky, G., Bonde, M.T., Wulff, J.S. et al. Simulation based virtual learning environment in medical genetics counseling: an example of bridging the gap between theory and practice in medical education. BMC Med Educ 16, 98 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0620-6 

3DL4US Podcast

Join us as we explore the experiences and insights of the people working to improve the outcomes of their students as they make the transition to college, using three-dimensional learning for undergraduate science (3DL4US) as a language and framework to transform individual assessment items, the broader culture of STEM higher ed, and everything in between.

Michigan State's own Ryan Sweeder joins the fray, to discuss metaphorical mountain climbing, literal mushroom foraging, and hypothetical Jeopardy! appearances. Paul sheepishly asks the hard questions that have gone unanswered so far about  3DL's role in improving student experiences and outcomes. Ryan takes it all in stride and pretends not to notice when Becky starts speaking in "blah blah blah".

According to his bio with Lyman Briggs College, "Ryan Sweeder is a chemist in Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University specializing in chemistry education research. He studies methods for increasing the learning in undergraduate general chemistry classes using out-of-class activities. He also runs the SPRING Scholars program, a program that helps students explore science career options and develop a professional network. Within his general chemistry classes, he brings his research to bear by providing students with lots of opportunities to engage with course content, apply it to real world scenarios, and gain frequent feedback on their level of understanding. Through these processes he shares his passion about understanding how molecular level interactions can be used to explain our everyday observations of materials, their properties, and how they interact."

Topic Area: DEI
Presented by: Melanie Cooper, Cori Fata-Hartley
Abstract:
Over the last 7 years, the STEM Teaching and Learning Fellowship at MSU has provided 4 cohorts of faculty with exposure to Three-Dimensional Learning (3DL), a new framework for teaching and learning, along with regular meetings to develop assessments and instructional materials, discuss education research, and become part of a growing interdisciplinary community of faculty committed to improving STEM education. While these activities were intended to lay a foundation, instructors’ personal attitudes, priorities, and behaviors in the context of their classes clearly play an important role in determining their students’ potential to benefit from research-based instructional strategies. In this panel discussion, alumni from the Fellowship will share personal stories as they describe their work to efficiently build assessments and instruction around the three dimensions of 3DL: Scientific Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts. Supports and barriers to implementing 3DL will be considered, along with implications for future cohorts and specific recommendations for successful course transformation.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.-Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride 
Although that is not the line for which Mandy Patinkin's Inigo is best known, my observations of students in my introductory pathology and molecular diagnostics courses certainly was bringing it to mind more and more often. They were hearing and repeating the right words, but the precise meaning, so important in medicine, was somehow never quite grasped. For reasons I didn't completely understand, what had worked for years wasn't working in my classroom anymore, so I set out to find a practical solution. My first step was discovering reasons for the change. The extended version of that "why" I discovered is material for another whole article. Emphasis on context-based strategies for learning vocabulary in K-12 education, multi-tasking while studying, the effects of reading from screens, not reading at all, decreasing attention spans, and the collective effects of education during the COVID-19 pandemic were all likely contributors to students' "light" understanding of the necessary vocabulary. I was pretty discouraged when I realized that I couldn't change any of those things! However, I wasn't ready to give up, so I started looking in the literature for strategies and solutions. As you might imagine, not a lot has been published about teaching vocabulary to college students, but I did find some ideas when I read about teaching vocabulary to bilingual students and students with learning differences.When you are learning a new language (or struggling with various aspects of accessing your own), you may be missing or misunderstanding the meaning of new words even in context. My students were learning a new language, kind of, as they built their medical vocabulary, weren't they? With that hypothesis in mind, one deceptively simple activity stood out from this research, something known as a "Does it Make Sense" or DIMS activity.  Few resources were needed and little prep time. It didn't take a lot of class time to accomplish. It seemed like a low risk place to start.I created my version of a DIMS activity this way. I found about 25 3 x 5 cards moldering in the back of my desk drawer. On them, in bold black marker, I printed short statements about the current unit in pathology. I was teaching immunology, seredipitously the lessons in which learning precise language is most important in the course. The statements I wrote each had an error, a word or two that needed to be changed for the statement to be correct. At the end of a lecture with about 20 minutes of class time left, I pulled out the cards and asked the students to form groups of 4-5. Once the groups were formed, I gave these brief instructions:

Choose one person to read the statement on the card aloud. You may need to read it more than once. 
Discuss the statement. Each statement has an error. Determine the error in the statement in your group.
Then decide how to change the statement to make it correct. 
When you have your correction ready, raise a hand and I will come and hear your answer. If you get stuck, raise your hand and I will come over and help. 

I handed a card to each group, and let the discussions begin. When a group finished and they gave me a correct answer, I gave them another card. Some groups flew through card after card. Others took their time and needed a hint or two to decode their statement. All of the groups had great discussions, and they seemed to stay on task the whole time. In fact, no one, including me, noticed that the activity continued through the end of class and beyond. We had stayed an extra ten minutes when I finally noticed and sent them home! I had one of the best days in the classroom that I had had in a long time. From what I could see as I ran around the room from group to group, most of the students had that "aha" moment that we want for them, the moment they understand and learn something new. What did they learn? Did they learn proper use of every word in the vocabulary of immunology that day? Not at all, but that wasn't the point. The objective was to show them the importance of precise language in medicine and to encourage them to work harder on their own to master the new words in a new context. Based on my observations in class that day and casual student feedback, I think I can say mission accomplished! I plan to expand my use of this type of activity and other low tech approaches in the next few semesters. I want to collect more formal outcomes data and do some actual analysis beyond casual observation. My gut is telling me that I'm on to something. Watch this space for more, and if you are interested, feel free to contact me about collaboration!References:How Grades 4 to 8 Teachers Can Deliver Intensive Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Interventions to Students With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum DisorderDanielle A. Cravalho, Zaira Jimenez, Aya Shhub, and Michael SolisBeyond Behavior 2020 29:1, 31-41 

Stephen Thomas
Title: Drawing to Teach: Visualizing our Curriculum for Reflection and CommunityLocation: Room 2130College courses and programs of study are comprised of a complex arrangement of structures and processes that can make them difficult to conceptualize or communicate to others. When describing a course to others, we often fall back on simplistic narratives of the topic without referencing the pedagogy, assessment, learning environment, resources, student engagement, or a myriad of other impactful features. In this presentation we will look at what it might mean to use visual tools and formats to more formatively represent our curriculum to allow reflection on your teaching, receive feedback from colleagues, and foster community around our teaching efforts.
Dr. Stephen Thomas is the Assistant Dean for STEM Education Teaching and Learning, the Associate Director for the Center for Integrative Studies in General Science at and the Digital Curriculum Coordinator for the College of Natural Science at MSU.  For his bachelor’s degree from Denison University, Stephen majored in Biology and minored in Art.  This interest in the science/art intersection continued into graduate school as he freelanced as a biological illustrator while earning his masters and Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in Organismal and Evolutionary Biology and Entomology.   Since coming to MSU, Stephen’s focus has shifted from virulence of fungal pathogens of Lymantria dispar to visual communication of science in formal and informal settings and the use of technology in teaching.    Stephen has worked on projects such as the use of comics to reduce subject anxiety in non-major science courses, the development of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to teach general science, and augmented reality and kiosk games to engage visitors in science museums.  In more recent projects, Stephen has worked on curriculum for Drawing to Learn Biology where students explore science practices of observation and visual model-based reasoning through nature journaling.  In his professional development work, Stephen collaborates with Dr. Julie Libarkin on building communities of practice in STEM teaching, STEM education research, and interdisciplinary experiences in art, science, and culture. You can learn more about this work at the STEMed@State website. 

This week, we are featuring Dr. Stephen Thomas who wears many hats here at MSU. He is the Digital Curriculum Coordinator in the College of Natural Science, the Assistant Dean for STEM Education, Teaching and Learning, and he is also the Associate Director for the Center for Integrative Studies in General Science. Stephen was recognized via iteach.msu.edu's Thank and Educator Initiative! We encourage MSU community members to nominate high-impact Spartan educators (via our Thank an Educator initiative) regularly!
I’m Dave Goodrich and I help design engaging learning experiences with educators like Stephen here at MSU. I’ve had the privilege of getting to work and learn from Stephen over the years and was glad to get to be able to interview him for this series. This is a longer conversation than typical educator stories, but we could have talked even longer, I’m sure. In fact, from this conversation, I’d love to have follow-up conversations with Stephen on some of the things that came up here, but for now, read more about Stephen's perspectives and experiences below:
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Dave  
I thought we could begin our conversation by having you give a glimpse into how you became an educator and your path to becoming an educator. We also usually start this with a challenging question: In one word, what does being an educator mean to you?
Stephen  
I would say I am really focused on connection. So usually I'm dealing with populations who are studying things that are unfamiliar to them. So usually I'm teaching non-majors or done some work and informal science education, and, you know, some work with majors. But I feel like in general, I'm usually talking to a naive or inexperienced population, and I'm trying to help them to see themselves in the content that they're studying. And then I think over time, I've realized that there's a large piece of having a connection with the individual in order to help them then make a connection with the content. And so you know, and sometimes it's even like, how are you connecting them to each other, in order to help support them, like peers and their fellow students? I think there's a lot of that element in how I go about probably in the educational endeavor. So it's a lot of like, how do we engage people and get them to see themselves in the content that they're working with?
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. So I love talking to educators, like you, who inspire me. It's educators like you who helped me decide to go into education, because of how they kind of poured themselves into it and really cared for their students like how you're describing. I'm curious, I don't know if I've ever, ever asked you before, was there a moment in your life where you were like, yes, this is what I want to do. How did you enter the world of education?
Stephen  
So I come from a long line of educators and lawyers. I was never going to choose law. I find it fascinating, but it just wasn't for me. And it just seemed like a very natural fit. So I think what's interesting, though, is that the piece that I've really resonated with is not necessarily the teacher part, it's actually the curriculum part. To go to the law piece, you have trial lawyers, and then you have the lawyers who are like, in the background, like, you know, getting everything together. I really like the background piece. I like thinking about what you are trying to do and how does it play out? And what kind of challenges might you face? And what kind of background materials can you prepare someone with? And so I think over time, I've realized, it's not the actual performance piece that I enjoy, although sometimes that can be really nice. I actually just really enjoy the preparation and the thought exercise that's involved in it. Sometimes the production of curriculum, like I sometimes dip my toe into, like the artistic side of the world. I feel like curriculum development is like artwork where you produce something and it's like, here's the tangible evidence of my labor, as opposed to the kind of experiential part that goes on in the classroom.
Dave  
Oh, man, you're speaking my language now. That's interesting to hear, because, I mean, I see you as being one of the most interesting educators in that regard. You really seem to be excellent at the delivery, the performance, and the curriculum design also. If your experience is like mine, it can be a challenge to work both those hats at the same time.
Stephen  
Honestly, I find the performance piece difficult. So for me, it took a long time to resolve being like a gay man in front of a class. That identity piece was really hard, and I didn't want it involved at all in my teaching. There was a lot of mental effort about how I just portray myself as an individual that people would connect with, but also that they wouldn't necessarily have difficulty with me being gay. So, I feel like there was a lot of performance in that it made it an extra cognitive piece of how am I portraying myself. Simultaneously, I'm trying to make sure that they're learning, you know, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, and it's just like, there's a lot going on in those two things that made it just not as pleasurable as some people find it. After like a decade of that tension is part of why I didn't necessarily go towards the performance piece of teaching as much.
Dave  
That's fascinating. I'd love to talk to you more about that. That's interesting, like how identity I mean, shapes, obviously, who we are as an educator, but how different identities intersect with the role of an educator. 
Stephen  
Right, like, women and minorities. I feel like with mine, it could be like a hidden component, but we hear lots of studies looking at women and minorities in front of a classroom and the extra difficulties they face. I feel like that's just this unfortunate overlap with the fact that they have to deal with his added difficulties. At the same time, they're trying to manage student learning. We also talk about the benefit of having diverse audiences in front of students. I think those are, you know, some things that are kind of woven into the situation of having diverse faculty teaching or instructors teaching.
Dave  
Yeah, you mentioned “connection” as this key keyword for you in your teaching. Could you share what connection looks like for you in your practice?
Stephen  
So one of the things in teaching science to non-scientists, I feel like one of the things I tackled earlier on was this idea of subject anxiety. And so I was getting a lot of feedback from students about when they were coming into the class that they were scared. They wouldn't say scared, they would say that they were anxious. Like, ‘science isn't my forte or that ‘I've never really done well in science courses.’ And so I feel like there's a potential barrier between the instructor and the students because they're anxious about how they're going to perform and whether or not they're capable of succeeding. That has been shown to impact their ability to succeed. I've always been asking how to reduce that kind of subject anxiety. I’ve looked at things like how do you incorporate comics as a way of softening the subject matter so that people are more engaged by it? I did a whole video series of me in weird places where it was all green screen. The idea is if your instructor is willing to do that, then surely it's not difficult to ask them questions, right? There's no barrier to them in that, ‘Oh, he's a scientist, and I'm going to look stupid in front of him.’ Instead, he's looking stupid in front of me. So like, I don't have to worry about it being something that I can't do. Right. So I've always tried to figure out, like, how do you make connections with people. It facilitates the ability to ask for help. And to take risks in trying to convey what you understand, right? 
Because I feel that part of participating in the conversation is how you help grow as an intellectual, I would say, maybe that's one of my tendencies. Personally, when I'm learning something, I like to talk about it, get corrected, and then have a discussion and dialogue. And if you're afraid of showing your ignorance, then it's really difficult because it still remains hidden, right? And so to me, it is about how do you create an environment where they do feel connected, where they can feel connected with each other? When you confront that misconception, that's really where some significant learning can occur.
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. It almost sounds like you're talking a bit about modeling vulnerability as a posture toward learning itself.
Stephen  
Right. I would say that I definitely did not have that terminology or that thought process at the time. But I feel like some of the conversations that have gone on with authors like Brene Brown, and, you know, thinking about allowing yourself to be vulnerable and connect to students has helped me to think about it maybe in similar terms.
Dave  
Yeah. Vulnerability is probably not generally a scientist’s favorite word?
Stephen  
Well, we have thought about having some workshops on that. But I think we sometimes talk about it with regards to how you have difficult conversations in the classroom, right? But it really does boil down to some of that being about vulnerability. That's also around kind of the intellectual components of being able to be wrong, and how you grow from that. So there are concepts of failing forward or failing fast or growth mindsets, right? And how do you help people to realize that it's not a condition of being either good in math or not good in math or good in science or not good at science? It's how do you grow what you have to be better? 
Dave  
Yeah, oh, that would be an interesting conversation to have around the scientific process itself. Some might argue this is based around an intellectual humility, of understanding that we don't understand and know that we don't know and constantly trying to engage the unknowing with things that we do know, to try, to build on that with solid evidence.
Stephen  
There's an article that is basically on stupidity in science. It's a one-page description of regrets of a professional who was talking about his experience in grad school and realized that the ability to handle your own ignorance allows you to be successful in science. So it was talking about why some people make it and some people don't. And this was one of the aspects of the ability to be okay with realizing that you don't know the answer. Being willing to push that boundary is what allows you to be successful. So it's just, I think, an interesting take for students to realize that successful scientists recognize that they don't know and be okay with it.
Dave  
How have your ideas about these things changed over time?
Stephen  
Well, like what the identity piece, I feel like, there's definitely a component of feeling like it was just information, but they didn't really need to know me and to know aspects about who I am. And I feel like that's, you know, more especially in an online environment. I feel like there was a time when I wondered how you most interestingly convey this content, and you can totally do it divorced from identity and the connection piece is the part that helps to bridge those who are not already passionate about the topic. That's what's going to get them to connect with it. And so just figuring out how we humanize the digital experience is, that's been one progression, I would say.
One of the other ones I would say is my thinking about educator development because a lot of my work is working with faculty about how to improve their practice. I feel like that progression has been one of being rooted in a kind of best practice, or being very prescriptive, to actually having conversations with faculty about what it is that they value, and then figuring out how that ties into the primary literature or into and to various literature's, in general. There are times when you want to know just like, what are some of the things that people have learned that are best that have been shown in the literature with regards to having discussions in class. But it's really different. When thinking about life as an individual, I'm interested in having discussions with students, and identifying that as actually a pedagogical approach that you want to expand because that's what you're actually rooted in. That's what you're going to put the time in. That's what's going to define your actual classroom experience. So instead of someone coming in and being like, actually, you need to use whiteboards more. Yes, whiteboards can be effective, but you actually have to figure out what your identity is as an instructor, and then go from there. I just feel like that's so much more powerful. 
Dave  
That's really quite profound because they do seem to have eager tentativeness to “best practices.” It reminds me of one of my favorite authors, Parker Palmer, he has a book called “The Courage to Teach.” And he talks a lot about how a lot of and how we as educators, essentially, teach from who we are, as you're talking about that very thing, starting with the heart of the individual educator first and what their goals are and then building technological support.
Stephen  
I totally remember having conversations with other educators, then pushing back on the best practices. And, like, I feel like this comes from a place of being in the sciences for, you know, so long of like, what, like, you measure things and we find out what is more effective. That's how we improve. And just disregarding this aspect of what would nurture a faculty member. I mean, like when we think about, like, how much time faculty spend on improving their teaching like they're balancing out research and service and all of these other components. And so like, in order for them to really grow, it has to be the thing that you're super passionate about. This is how I actually connect with people. And so I feel like the discussions or arguments we had about best practices and whether or not that's a valuable framework to go from is actually just moving in a different direction from this conversation of like, why would you just not focus on the thing that people are passionate about? Right? So it's not that it's incorrect, it's just not really looking at it from the same perspective. And so, it is, you know, sometimes a little painful to be like, oh, yeah, I think I said something like that. You know, like, a few years ago, and yeah, so it has been interesting.
Dave  
Yeah, absolutely. And I certainly then, early on, in my work in instructional design, I was a strong proponent of best practices. I’m critical of that, lately, myself also. So, could you tell us a little bit more about your settings? I think when you were at first MSU, you were primarily teaching and an instructor and now you do a lot of educator development. I guess we could say, and you also do a lot of design and curricular work, and also some teaching, I believe, or
Stephen  
…up until this last summer,
Dave  
okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay. So could you tell us a little bit about your, your setting in which you're in, and then these different hats that you're wearing now?
Stephen  
Part of my role is in the Center for Integrative Studies in general science. So that's the Gen Ed Science course for non-scientists. And a lot of my work in the last few years has been focused on curriculum reform. And I have to say, that's probably some of the most rewarding work that I've done. Because it's, I just love it. The idea of so thinking about, if you have a three-class sequence, like how do students progress between those classes? And then like, how do you resolve to have different faculty and their identity and their topic? And so it's just been, I feel fascinating about like, how do you first off physically map the curriculum? How do you get faculty buy-in for various curricular reforms? How do you build a community around curriculum, like, I'm interested in those, those ideas, and so that work has been really, really rewarding? And then I'd say in college, that setting is looking at how technology is a filter or a lever for impacting student learning. And so I get a lot of help from faculty to think about technology tools that they could use in order to facilitate things like discussions online. But a lot of that work has also been focused on accessibility. 
I feel like that has been an incredible lens that also had a lot of unique challenges about how you get people to buy into doing extra labor for, for accessibility, for widening their impact on their curriculum. And so like, we had gone through many different lenses of like, oh, well, accessibility is about compliance, and then looking at how that impacted faculty buy-in. And, you know, how it was limiting their participation, because as a concept, it's not very engaging, and then, you know, shifting over to more of a social justice piece, or going even into an equity viability piece, I feel has really allowed people to, to think about that, and see how that is actually aligned with their beliefs, and how that type of work is important. 
I feel like there's, you know so that accessibility work was like, how do we make sure that all the digital pieces that we're making are accessible to, so there ADA, so Americans with Disabilities Act, so it responds to that? But also, you know, what we've found is that those accommodations helped all students. And so, you know, it kind of broadened to this idea of going from an idea of compliance to really how do we impact a larger number of students. So that's kind of that work. And then my new role, as the assistant dean, it's focused on STEM teaching and learning. It's really focused on the STEM building, and then figuring out how a single location can bring faculty and disciplines from across the STEM disciplines and even outside of STEM, to talk with each other and to learn from each other, and to better use the physical spaces in their pedagogical approach. 
So, you know, when you have small groups of people, how do you foster discussion in that and then build ways of reporting out to a larger community is the, you know, is what we're working on. And so the STEM building has lots of innovative approaches to their classroom design. And so figuring out how do we train faculty to do that is, you know, is, again, you can see a hopefully the parallel between what's going on in the center for, you know, building a community around curriculum, and then in the college about how do we as a community, figure out what are the standards for the curriculum that we're creating? And then the STEM building is how do we have conversations in typically siloed communities that can help us to improve our practice. So there's a lot about communication. And probably a parallel, you know, connection. Right? 
How do we have connections between faculty members from diverse groups? 
How do we connect it to the technologies that we use? 
And how do we make better impacts with the students that we're serving?
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Don't forget to celebrate individuals you see making a difference in teaching, learning, or student success at MSU with #iteachmsu's Thank an Educator initiative. 

This PowerPoint file contains all slides used in the videos and practices below. You are encouraged to work through the videos and practices in order.
Dos & Don'ts of Question Writing
A comparison table
 










DO
DON'T




Ask a question
Leave a blank


Use short stems
Write an epic paragraph stem


Use "student" language
Use sesquipedalian


Use student ideas
Make stuff up


Use 3-5 response options
Give a list of 22 options


Use simple format
Use a,b,c,1,2,3,i,ii,iii


Simple and possible
Always, never, or (always and never)


Write visually similar response options
Write 3-word, 12-word, no-word responses


Make responses the same length

Make the correct response longer
Make only one incorrect response match the correct response



Check for typos and grammar mismatches

Spend lots of time on correct answers only



Use similar levels of technicality

Make sure a word in the stem matches a word in the correct response
Make sure correct response is super technical







 

MSU's Enhanced Digital Learning Initiative (EDLI) has received a National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education grant to support research aiming to improve student learning outcomes and equity in blended online and in-person courses. As part of the study, we are seeking instructors interested in or already implementing blended undergraduate courses to participate for one or more semesters between Spring 2024 - Fall 2025.
What counts as “blended”?
Courses where the contact hours incorporate a mix of in-person and online (synchronous or asynchronous) instruction will likely qualify, including those where the course is offered fully in person but students are able to attend via Zoom. Fully online courses or in–person courses with online assignments (that are not part of the credit contact hours) will not qualify. 
We ask that instructors:

Participate in professional development with other blended course instructors, including:

Kick-off meeting/workshop with one-on-one consultations
Online learning community throughout the semester

Facilitate data collection, including: 

A course observation
A one-hour instructor interview 
Dissemination of two student surveys and consent/recruitment materials 
Tracking student attendance and the modality of student attendance


Instructors will receive:

Technical and pedagogical assistance through the professional development and learning community
$1000 overload stipend per semester (up to 4 semesters from Spring 2024 - Fall 2025)
Potential funding for undergraduate learning assistants

Priority given to STEM courses that feature in-person class sessions with synchronous Zoom sessions for online students


To learn more or participate:
Email Dr. Caitlin Kirby, kirbycai@msu.edu; or follow this link to our recruitment survey.