Active Learning Grants

• 2016

  Erik Willis, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
  S425 Spanish Phonetics
  Willis will use his grant to address challenges in his Spanish Phonetics course, S425. Specifically, students in this course face a lack of immediate feedback on pronunciation mistakes, as well as authentic native Spanish listening practice that is communicatively meaningful. Willis plans to address these challenges by developing peer-to-peer video-call activities between IU students and native Spanish speaking students in the Dominican Republic and possibly in Mexico. He conducted a pilot of this activity using “video-pronunciation pals” from the Dominican Republic, and found that it was in general a great success. To enhance this activity, Willis will develop specific exercises for the IU students and their video-pronunciation pals to engage in, improve their Spanish language skills through authentic listening and speaking.

  Kelly Benham French and Joseph Coleman, Professors of Practice, the Media School
  MSCH-C 225
  French and Coleman will split an award to work on redesigning the foundational reporting and writing course in the Media School, MSCH-C 225. They will update this large course, which is required for journalism and public relations tracks in the Media School, with modern newsroom practices and more time for active learning. The revised course will include a single large lecture each week (with lectures on basic content, guest speakers, classroom assessment techniques, and team-based learning), as well as lab time in which students can do hands-on writing and reporting exercises under the supervision of their instructors.

  Gretchen Horlacher, Professor of Music Theory, Jacobs School of Music
  MUS-T 351 Music Theory and Literature V
  Horlacher teaches MUS-T 351 Music Theory and Literature V, the last in a series of music theory courses required for all music majors. The challenge she will address with her Active Learning Grant concerns the music students are required to listen to for the course, which consists of long, highly individual pieces that are usually unfamiliar to students and often not well liked. To help students focus on the important aspects of each piece as they prepare for each class session, Horlacher will create “just-in-time” activities to encourage students to listen carefully and to prepare them for more complex analysis in class. Students will do these exercises online, on a Canvas platform, and will also be able to express their opinions of particular pieces and to respond to others’ opinions.

  Brandon Howell, Lecturer, School of Public Health
  T302 Management of Food and Beverage Operations
  Howell will be designing a new course, T302 Management of Food and Beverage Operations, for majors in the department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Studies in the School of Public Health. Because of the specialized content of this course, students need to take a hands-on, active approach as much as possible. To enable this for his students, Howell will adopt a service-learning approach in which students in his course will be assigned to individual restaurant establishments on the IUB campus, in collaboration with Residential Programs and Services. By observing and helping to solve operational issues in these locations, the students will gain valuable practitioner-based skills in a “lab” environment.

• 2015

  Cody Kirkpatrick, Lecturer, Geological Sciences
  GEOL-G144 Extreme Weather and Its Impacts
  Kirkpatrick will use his grant to revise his GEOL-G144 Extreme Weather and Its Impacts course, a staple of the new atmospheric science degree track that is also being considered as part of the General Education curriculum. Kirkpatrick plans to refine and formalize some informal, in-class “mini-lab” activities and to develop better explanations of how the activities relate to the course’s other assessments (homework and exams). The in-class student activities he will work on include using an online “tornado warning simulator” program; using weather maps to identify regions of wildfire danger; predicting where tornados will develop on a major severe weather day; inferring hurricane strength from weather satellite imagery; and forecasting the type of winter precipitation. Through these exercises, students will be able to experience science as science is practiced—as a collaborative, interactive process of analyzing information and data about current and recent events. 

  Peter Nemes, Lecturer, International Studies
  INTL-I100 Introduction to International Studies
  This course is taught in the Collaborative Learning Studio (SB 015) in the Student Building, which lends itself to group work and collaborative projects. Nemes will take advantage of the classroom by developing learning units in which an overarching issue relating to international studies (language, identity, religion, conflict, human rights, health, development) is explored in detail through the use of regional case studies. The success of these case studies depends on clear instructions, a strong connection to previous material, and good time management. Through these case studies, students will have an opportunity to engage in and think about the central issues of this discipline while developing critical thinking skills that will aid them not only in other International Studies courses but in other disciplines, as well. 

  Jo Anna Shimek, Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
  SPH-V351 Foundations of Environmental Health
  Shimek will use her grant to develop a new course, which will be required for students seeking a degree in the School of Public Health. The challenge in this course is to help students understand environmental health issues as they relate to the broader field of public health. To accomplish this goal, students will be introduced to a framework of core concepts in environmental health, which they will then apply to a series of scenarios and case students on specific environmental health issues. Case studies may focus on real-world issues such as the release of a chemical that contaminated the water supply of Charleston, West Virginia in 2014, as well as other topics such as indoor air pollution, lead exposure and children’s IQs, industrial pollution and asthma, and radiation exposure and melanoma. Through these activities, students will master a framework and acquire a process for analyzing other environmental health problems they might encounter. 

  Rebecca Dirksen, Assistant Professor, Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
  FOLK F253 Music and Disaster
  Dirksen will use her grant to adapt a course she taught at MIT to work for a larger class size when taught at IU for the first time. The course revolves around three disaster events—9/11, Katrina, and the Haiti earthquake—and addresses how music has been used for survival, hope, and healing. Music-related humanitarian efforts will also be considered, as well as how music has been used for "re-memorying" lost locations and (re)defining cultural spaces. Up to 40 students will enroll in the course, and to make sure all are actively learning, Dirksen will employ guided critical reading, class discussions and debates, individual research and analysis, peer review, and the collaborative creation of a digital humanities platform, such as a blog or website. Team-based activities will be integrated into the course, and clicker polling will also allow for increased feedback and interaction in class. All of these components will promote critical thinking and engagement by building a high degree of interactivity between students into the course plan.

• 2014

  Jared Allsop, Lecturer, School of Public Health
  Y378 Recreational Therapy Assessment and Planning
  This project will focus on bringing two forms of active learning into SPH-Y 378 (Recreational Therapy Assessment and Planning), case method teaching and the flipped classroom. By bringing in these active learning techniques it will allow us to heighten the educational experience of our Recreational Therapy students. It will do so by allowing them the opportunity to apply their book smarts in real life experiences and examples; as well as allow for more direct practice and targeted feedback. All of which are vitally important to help our students learn the proper techniques and procedures to thoroughly and accurate conduct assessments and plan intentional treatments.

  Carol Hostetter, Associate Professor, Social Work
  S322 Small Group Theory and Practice
  Undergraduate students will work to develop the skill of metacognitive monitoring, that is, the ability to review the critical features of a problem and create a mental map that connects knowledge from one source to another.  Students will interview each other after learning social work group theory and skills, and will write case notes.  The interviews and notes will be used to help students connect their thoughts and feelings to course content.  

  Judy Steiner-Williams, Senior Lecturer, Kelley School of Business
  C204 Business Communication
  My C204, business communication course, will be re-structured to provide six class periods for  me to work with students individually and for students to work with their peers on three practice business documents and then on three graded documents. Rather than my spending class time lecturing about communication theory, students will be assigned readings from Strategic Business Writing etext and lynda.com business communication courses; and their understanding of the concepts will be checked.  Making students responsible for the "lecture material" will allow me to spend class time guiding students in applying the theory and providing specific feedback on drafts for routine, good news, and negative news documents.  Carry-over of learning from individual and team practice documents to graded documents in each category will be analyzed.  

  Katy Strand, Associate Professor, Music
  MUS E232 Inclusive Participatory Music Practices
  The MUS E232 course, Inclusive Participatory Music Practices, will focus on the social nature of musical engagement. Three essential questions will guide our work in this class: (1) “Why and how do people seek out musical learning opportunities in twenty-first century societies?” (2) “How do complex social and cultural forces shape community interactions through music?” and (3) “How do we foster, facilitate, and lead inclusive, participatory music practices?” Through active inquiry we will engage in social forms of music making, reflecting on the learning process and outcomes, and we will explore various avenues for leading inclusive participatory music in the community and the classroom.

• 2013

  John Gibson, Assistant Professor, Music
  Z361 Introduction to MIDI and Computer Music
  The focus of Z361 is on individual creative exploration using a synthesizer keyboard and software to record, edit, and design sound. In an ideal situation students would learn while working at their own pace and have time in class to focus on the creative work of students by listening to and discussing assignments in group setting. To this end, Dr. Gibson will use the Active Learning Grant to include a series of interactive software modules that allow students to work through the material formerly covered in lectures with the aid of real-time sonic and visual feedback and to visually record software demonstrations so that students can view these at their individual stations. 

  Ashley Hasty, Lecturer, Apparel Merchandising
  R319 Professional Techniques in the Retail Industry
  The use of play to tap into intrinsic student motivations is shown to increase intellectual curiosity and motivation. Dr. Hasty plans to design a game that makes course material an active practice of the skills learned throughout the course, rather than passive “understanding” of the skills, which will encourage the student to practice speaking using the subject vocabulary with accuracy and clarity, to draw conclusions about the course material and test those conclusions, and ultimately reconstruct their beliefs on the subject as they gain more experience using the skills and course content learned in class. The Active Learning Grant will be used to develop this game and to hire a graphic designer to create the necessary visual aspects.

  David L. Smiley, Lecturer, Public Health/Dept. of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Studies
  R353 Festival and Event Tourism Management
  Currently there exists no fund-raising activity specifically to raise scholarship money for students enrolled in the Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies program. To rectify this situation and also to give students the experience needed to conduct events in the field, Dr. Smiley proposes to modify R353 to focus on the development of an event or festival by students. R353 will change to a sequential, two semester course so students can work on an actual festival from start to finish. This experiential learning project serves to provide practice, improve communication skills, and increase self-efficacy through mastery of these tasks. The Active Learning Grant will be used to purchase a current version of event planning software and marketing expenses for the event designed and implemented by students.

  Amy Wonder, Assistant Professor, Nursing
  H355 Data Analysis in Clinical Practice and Health Care Research 
  Dr. Wonder seeks to solidify the link between basic concepts of statistics and real world applications in client care for preclinical nursing students. The use of evidence-based practice to develop two active learning exercises has helped to engage students in statistics to understand concepts, interpret findings, and recognize implications for practice. Dr. Wonder will use the Active Learning Grant to fully develop and design specific objectives for these active learning experiences and to collaborate with various clinical partners to develop links between abstract statistics and real world examples.

• 2012

  Michael Evans, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Associate Professor of Journalism
  Sarah Estes, Instructor of Journalism
  J460 American Student Radio
  By creating American Student Radio, Dr. Evans and Prof. Estes are creating an opportunity for students to gain national radio experience by producing and airing stories for college-age students coast to coast. The online student-oriented radio station broadcasts a wide range of programming, including news shows, current-event programs, and entertainment. The active learning grant will be used to retool “Audio Storytelling II” so that students in that course might work more closely and regularly with ASR in getting material ready to air. Students will have formal roles at the station including creation of content, management of projects, production of packages, and the evaluation of submissions sent to the station from around the country.

  Jane Goodman, Professor, Communication & Culture
  C417 Power and Violence: Political Systems in Ethnographic Perspective
  Dr. Goodman seeks to revitalize the assignment structure of the course “Power and violence: political systems in ethnographic perspective” by re-introducing a hands-on ethnographic project that will enable students to conduct primary research in the community. This project will serve as a capstone project for the course, building on the work students accomplish through take-home essays and concept journals. Dr. Goodman will develop the project as she visits community organizations that might serve as project sites, creates modules for ethnographic training, revises and expands the course unit on neoliberalism, and develops an assessment tool in collaboration with consultants at CITL.

  Mark Hood, Assistant Professor, Recording Arts
  A101 Introduction to Audio Technology
  Introduction to audio technology is a ground-level course for new majors in Indiana University’s highly-selective program in audio. While many students in this course are equipped with backgrounds and experience that predict success in the degree program, nearly all lack in-depth knowledge of the technologies they will be working with throughout the semester, thereby limiting their ability to use departmental hardware and software effectively. Prof. Hood will use the ALG to revise the course, developing and introducing dynamic and practical labs that emphasize collaborative hands-on activities that teach basic concepts while allowing students the freedom to be creative.

  Fabio Rojas, Associate Professor, Sociology
  S450 Social Networks: Teaching the Science of Social Connections
  Indiana University is rapidly becoming a scientific and intellectual leader in the study of social networks. In response to the growing interest in these networks, the Department of Sociology now offers a new course on social networks. Although network analysis is an exciting topic, it presents a pedagogical challenge as the technical expertise (particularly in mathematics or computer science) needed for successful analysis is beyond the abilities of most undergraduates. Prof. Rojas plans to develop a series of hands-on exercises that are accessible to a wide-range of undergraduates which will help them learn the basics of network science while providing a tool for developing their quantitative skills. In addition to the development of this series of in-class learning exercises, Prof. Rojas will also design a group project that requires students to work together in collecting real world network data.

• 2011

  Jill Robinson, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry
  Project Based Learning in Analytical Chemistry Laboratory
  This active learning grant is intended to improve student learning in the course A316: Bioanalytical Chemistry Laboratory. The course asks students to work with instrumentation and methods for qualitative and quantitative chemical characterization of a given sample. Robinson plans to use project based learning in order to help students achieve accurate lab results while encouraging them to clearly communicate experimental theory, procedures by working with clients. The projects teams will solve real world problems working with Baxter BioPharma and Upland Brewery.

  Karen M. Inouye, Assistant Professor, American Studies
  Active and Critical Engagement: Collaboration Between Professor and Discussion Leaders
  In the past, “What is America?” (AMST 100) was taught in multiple sections of 35 students. Starting this fall, this gateway course will be taught as a large lecture course (160 students), with professors lecturing for 50 minutes twice each week and Associate Instructors leading discussion sections once each week. Inouye will use this grant to develop active-learning strategies for the large lecture hall, but will do so by collaborating with AIs, who will provide input and help shape the active learning students engage with in the lectures. This will provide AI’s with valuable training in developing active learning strategies and also insure that the time students spend in lecture aligns with takes place during the discussion sessions.

  Keiko Kuriyama, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
  Business Japanese: Enhancing Communicative Abilities through Simulation and Critical Engagement
  Students in “Business Japanese” (J313) will have the opportunity to use content-based instruction in combination with interactive e-learning software to how to speak Japanese. The software simulates real life situations in the Japanese business world will be integrated with content based instruction, an approach that uses newspaper and magazine articles, short literary works, art work and films to help students develop sophisticated communicative abilities, and to practice using the language in sophisticated, creative and challenging ways.