Thinking About Design: A Multiplicity of Options

Cathryn A. ManducaSERC, Carleton College

With help from the Keck Geology Consortium

The Importance of Design What are your goals? What are your resources? What are your constraints?

Program success depends on designing activities that meet your goals, taking advantage of resources, and working around constraints. There are many possible goals and successful designs.

Possible Goals For Students

Applying classroom learning to a research problem

Testing interest in geoscience careers

Exploring what it is like to do science

Job skills: technical, communication, collaboration

Self-confidence

For Faculty Explore a new research area Publishable research Collaboration with students,

community or scientists For Institution

Connections to community High visibility program Faculty professional

development

What are your resources? Who are your students? What are their

strengths? Goals? What research facilities or field sites are

available? Who are your natural collaborators? What funding is available or obtainable?

Critical Elements of a Project Defining the

Problem Developing the

Research Plan Collecting and

Interpreting the Data Communicating the

Results

Defining the ProblemWhat are the issues? Student ownership of problem Meaningful well-defined problem Doable within time, equipment, logistical

and funding constraints Aligned with lab priorities and research

plan Student preparation and knowledge

level

Possible strategies Mentor student through literature and

guide them in developing project Introduce to a problem and choose from

a list of possible projects Whole group collaborates to pick

projects Students are given a project

Developing the Research Plan— What are the issues?

Will it answer the question? Is it doable with reasonable time,

equipment, personnel costs? Can the student learn the techniques?

Interpret the results? Does the plan address learning goals? Does the plan maximize the experience

for all of the students?

Possible Strategies Proposal writing and review cycle Student develops plan using specified

techniques Standard protocols for data collection

Collecting and Interpreting Data—What are the Issues?

Teaching techniques Catching bad data early Technical glitches/lab schedules Managing time and interdependencies Support vs. independence Meeting responsibilities to funders and

project

Possible Strategies One-on-one mentoring Peer mentoring/research teams Structured reporting/check points

Communicating ResultsWhat are the issues?

Successful quality presentation Meaningful venue Review and debate

Possible Strategies In-class research group presentations On-campus or national research fairs Professional society meetings Community presentations Internet discussion groups Papers reviewed by students or

scientists

How to decide? Goals Opportunities Constraints

Time Number of Students Preparation of

Students Finances Lab/field set-up

Evaluation shows there are many pathways to success

Pictures of different kinds of projects

References Council on Undergraduate Research (www.cur.org) Keck Geology Consortium (keck.carleton.edu) Broadly Defined Goals for Undergraduate Research Projects: A Basis

for Program Evaluation, CUR Quarterly, December 1997, 64-68 Learning Science Through Research: The Keck Geology Consortium

Undergraduate Research Program, Geotimes, October 1997, 27-30 The Value of Undergraduate Research Experiences: Reflections from

Keck Geology Consortium Alumni, CUR Quarterly, March 1996, 176-178

Project Kaleidoscope, Research Rich Environment, www.pkal.org