Hanan Mogawer, Shahla Yekta, & George Dombi, Department of Chemistry:

The Effect of Guided Problem Solving Sessions on Performance of Underrepresented Students on Introductory Chemistry Assessments

In this project Mogawer, Yekta, and Dombi experiment with a new and creative approach to engage students into their learning experience while solidifying their chemistry understanding by combining two proven pedagogies that support students needs: Group-problem solving and Scaffolding. Mogawer has created and designed guided worksheets for every chapter of the course textbook to be used during group problem solving sessions in class and in hopes to help raise the scores of the corresponding exams/experimenters. The team will focus on supporting underrepresented students to understand chemistry concepts with ease and score better on chemistry assessments. This study will allow students to master chemistry concepts step by step until they feel confident to manage on their own.

Judy Van Wyk & Penny Carroll, Department of Sociology and Anthropology:

What’s the Research Say?

Van Wyk and Carroll will create a survey and methods to collect data from into and pre-requisite sociology classes to assess one of the three learning outcomes of the program.

Learning Outcomes include students’ ability to explain the sociological perspective, broadly defined, use sociological theory to explain social problems and issues, make theoretically-informed recommendations to address current social problems, and demonstrate the utility of the sociological perspective for their lives.

The study not only assesses one of three outcomes, but it may also provide valuable information to our faculty about effective teaching strategies and is part of a larger project that aims to create learning/teaching strategies for understanding scientific information in STEM studies.

Stephanie West-Puckett & Genoa Shepley, Department of Writing and Rhetoric:

Composing Justice: A Mixed-methods Assessment of Historically Marginalized Student
Experiences in First Year Writing at the University of Rhode Island

This study will investigate historically marginalized student experiences in our recently redesigned Writing 104 course (West-Puckett and Shepley, 2020). Specifically, we are interested in how the changes we’ve made to the course curriculum and classroom assessment methods are impacting Talent Development (TD) students and whether those changes are prompting positive educational outcomes for vulnerable populations. This research will help to revise the program’s learning outcomes with a JEDI focus as informed by marginalized student experiences, perspectives, and end results.