Teaching through student research

Getting students engaged in research is one of the ways we can make their learning experiences more tangible and more profound. In today’s episode, Dr. Bethany Usher joins us to talk about what happens when we turn students into scholars.

Podcast notes

Guest: Dr. Bethany M. Usher

• Bethany’s TEDx talk: Preparing Students for the World Through Undergraduate Research
• Bethany on Twitter
• Students as Scholars at George Mason
• Assessment resources from Students as Scholars
• Students as Scholars blog with each student writing about his or her research

Challenges of getting student research to work

• Recognizing that research can happen in any discipline
• Getting faculty to recognize that students can make a contribution
• Helping students see that research is something they can do
• Setting expectations for students

Examples of this kind of research

Rebecca Nelson (now a grad student at University of Connecticut) textile exhibit; band of knitted heads

• Discovered a new knotting technique and how the piece had been repaired along the way
• Currently living in Guatemala, studying textile production
• Rebecca’s blog

Student did research on a skeleton population and was the winner of the student researcher award at Mason

Authentic research

When the faculty member and the student don’t know the answer when they begin

Other guidance

• Determine where to place the research in the curriculum
• Continuum between classroom-based research and individual research
• Both challenges and benefits to getting classroom-based research to occur
• Changwoo Ahn’s Wetlands Ecology class
• Council on Undergraduate Research – national organization that publishes a quarterly journal with lots of resources of what works in different environments
• Set out a protocol for what you expect a student to be able to do
• Rubric on their website on research expectations

Recommendations

• 7 Tips to Beautiful PowerPoint: Visual Slide Show to inspire us to simplify our presentations (Bonni)
• National Conference on Undergraduate Research; have your students attend and present at it (Bethany)
• Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean (Bethany)

Closing credits

• Subscribe to the weekly update and get the EdTech Essentials Guide
• Give feedback on guests or topics for the 2015 episodes of Teaching in Higher Ed