Center for Educational Innovation awards seed grants

Proposals to bring the benefits of “learning together” back into the classroom and a digital tutorial to increase students’ readiness for the general chemistry course are among five ideas for promoting pedagogical innovation selected for funding by UB’s Center for Educational Innovation.

The five grants were chosen for their potential to receive external grants to improve education including student assessment, online learning, applications of instructional technologies and development of innovative learning techniques in a variety of academic areas.

“Our center is pleased to offer this seed grant program,” says Xiufeng Liu, director of the Center for Educational Innovation and professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction, Graduate School of Education.

“One signature and priority recommendation of Realizing UB 2020 is pedagogical excellence and innovation, and this seed grant program is one effort toward that goal.”

The five funded proposals were chosen from among 11 proposals from 34 faculty members representing eight schools and 15 departments throughout UB, according to Liu.

“Based on the review and recommendation of a panel and the availability of funds, we have decided to fund these five projects,” he says.

The Center for Educational Innovation is committed to supporting Realizing UB 2020 through integrated services, education, research and development related to university teaching, learning and assessment.

Created in July 2014 based on recommendations from the Realizing UB 2020 Curriculum and Assessment Task Force, the Center for Educational Innovation is the result of a merger of the Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) and the Office of Assessment.

The center serves as a nexus for campus-wide efforts to further elevate the scholarship of teaching and learning at the university. It also aims to enhance UB’s capacity to attract grants to support educational innovation.

Scott Weber, senior vice provost for academic affairs, endorsed these first-ever center seed grants as a fulfillment of the original intent for the center as described in the Realizing UB 2020 Curriculum and Assessment Task Force Report submitted in 2013.

“These projects are excellent examples of providing basic support for improving pedagogy,” Weber says. ‘They would then serve and support faculty members when they have an innovative, pedagogical idea and seek to see it developed and suitably disseminated for greater impact.”

These innovations ideally would spread across the university and motivate others to further new ideas, Weber adds.

“In the future, we anticipate this work would lead to innovative, cross-disciplinary work,” he says. “It would be a ‘bottom-up’ effort to support innovation. We hope these will serve as models for future proposals across the campus.”

The five projects selected for funding — each proposal receives up to $10,000 — are:

• “Assessment of Student Learning: Process Not Artifact.” Carl Alphonce, principal investigator, Department of Computer Science & Engineering. The proposal will develop a model for computer programming and design assessment methods aligned to the programming process and not just the end product. This method will better support students with different learning styles, as well as customize formative feedback based on learning styles.
• “Pilot of Digital Tutorials to Increase Incoming Student Readiness for General Chemistry.” Valerie A. Frerichs, principal investigator, Department of Chemistry. This proposal will develop a digital primer course to increase readiness for incoming students taking general chemistry. The overall goal of this work is to increase success in first-semester chemistry and contribute to promoting increased retention in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), a recognized national need.
• “Does Innovative Use of the KWLA+R© and a Flipped Classroom Influence Achievement of Program Outcomes and ‘Think like a nurse’ in a Baccalaureate Nursing Education Program?” Susan Grinslade, principal investigator, School of Nursing. The goal of this study is to explore if the innovative strategies to increase critical thinking skills and performance on process and outcome measures among traditional and accelerated BS nursing students.
• “Developing a Pathway Toward Effective Gamification Strategies and Faculty Implementation.” Deborah Moore-Russo, principle investigator, Department of Learning and Instruction. This project will use the experience of an interdisciplinary project team to study “gamification.” It will research the use of game-based elements in online, graduate-level coursework. Project objectives will be to determine, document and study the process used by a faculty member to “gamify” an online course, most effective strategies for integrating achievements (e.g., levels, badges) in an online course, and the role game-based elements play in students’ understanding and personal reflection on their development and learning.
• “Crowd-Learning: Research Agenda and Supporting Evidence Collection.”    Alexander Nikolaev, principal investigator, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Over the past decades, concerns for equity and student privacy have led the modern educational system toward offering students individual-focused learning experiences. These educational experiences can inhibit or prohibit public performance comparisons among peers, both in K-12 and higher education settings. This project explores crowd-learning — a teaching/learning paradigm aimed at bringing the benefits of “learning together” back into today’s physical and virtual classrooms, without compromising students’ rights for equity and privacy.