Overview
This page serves as a summary of all ongoing projects involving Teaching and Learning Centers and classroom interventions. Information regarding each project can be found below.
Important Contact Information
Maggie Safronova
Research Coordinator: Access to Practice
m_safronova@ucsb.edu
Jesse Lewis
Research Coordinator: Office Hours
lewi0922@umn.edu
Access to Practice
Background
- Access to Practice uses peer reviewed writing assignments to increase students’ metacognitive skills, conceptual understanding, and subsequent student success. This intervention involves integrating highly-structured, low-stakes writing assignments and peer review prompts in introductory STEM courses. The process is facilitated via an online platform, which enables instructors to upload prompts and peer review questions and distribute to students via URLs inserted into LMS course pages. Participants are asked to do 2-3 assignments and to use an online platform that can assign peer review tasks to students.
Data Collection
- The project analyzes student participation in peer review assignments, as well analyzes the type of feedback students provide to each other.
- Beginning and end of course survey distributed through Qualtrics.
Analysis and Sharing of Results
- Final analysis integrates survey responses, coded peer review tasks, and institutional data. All analysis is done after the course is completed.
- Publications and presentations at national conferences are encouraged.
Office Hours
Background
- The office hours project looks at the experiences of students that attend office hours. The hope is that by exploring these experiences and interactions we’ll be able to identify practices and interventions that will improve the office hours experience for students.
Data Collection
- Some data is collected using a weekly track through an in-house developed app or Qualtrics survey depending on institutional limitations.
- You would simply share a link to the app or survey after you meet with your students and the rest is handled from there.
- There’s also an end-of-term survey for students, as well as one for faculty to get a sense of everyone’s perspective about office hours from that semester.
Analysis and Sharing of Results
- After, the data is analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively for open-ended questions.
- We try to give people an opportunity to present at related National Conferences (SABER, SABER West, AAC&U, etc.)
- We aim to have a couple of publications (2 this summer/fall and 2 next summer/ fall)