Leveraging Student Educational Diversity: Graduate/ Undergraduate Student Mentoring in Proposal Development Projects Elizabeth L. Hedberg-Dirk Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering University of New Mexico Keywords: interdisciplinary, peer mentoring, elective, vertically integrated learning, research proposal development
Why? What problem are you solving? Teaching application skills in an elective course with students from multiple disciplines and education levels What are your educational objectives? In the framework of an elective on tissue engineering: prepare students to work in multi-disciplinary, multi-skill level groups similar to those they will encounter in industry or academia increase critical thinking and creativity through collaborative discussions develop student networks connecting graduate and undergraduate students
When? What is the development of the innovation? I wanted to include a writing component that allowed students to synthesize foundational material on a topic of interest to the students Spring students 6 undergraduate 6 graduate Each grp 1 G: 1 UG All grads 2 nd yr PhDs Each tissue can be studied by only 1 group Spring students 15 undergraduate 12 graduate One group of three UG Most 1 st yr Masters Multiple groups did same tissue
Where? Have you tried this in other institutions? No Is this developed for a single class, a full course, or a curriculum? A single class, elective in tissue engineering Education Levels: upper division undergraduate and graduate students Education Backgrounds: chemical, mechanical, materials engineering, biology, and the School of Medicine
What? What activities and materials have you developed? Lectures and readings focus on foundational concepts Mentor:mentee guidelines How to make the most of this relationship 5 group homeworks: develop proposal idea Identify tissue of interest, paper (background), short answer (cells of your tissue), short essay (materials used for tissue), specific aims Proposal writing and reviewing guidelines What has worked really well? Different length proposals with different focuses Grad: NIH Kierchstein; Undergrad: NSF GRFP Graduate oral presentations to undergraduate review panel Grads leave the room for the panel discussion
Prognosis? How are you documenting impact? Student feedback on course, pairing experience, and proposal process at the end of the semester Implementing feedback from students after 1 year How do you plan to scale-up? Not sure What challenges are you currently facing? Mentor variability and accountability Scheduling differences of team members Writing skills What advice would you like from others at FOEE? Overcoming resistance to assigned work partners Teaching multi-disciplinary subject to multi-disciplinary students How to keep students interested in class