Artifact #6: Teaching-as-Research Project/Delta Internship
I participated in the Delta internship to gain experience using the teaching-as-research model in order to progress as an instructor. The internship allowed me to test pedagogy found in the literature in a classroom setting, as well as collaborate and learn from a group also exploring their own best teaching practices through the scientific method.
I partnered with faculty in WISCIENCE to explore the benefits of having peer mentors in the Exploring Biology course. I wanted to investigate peer mentoring because I find it a wonderful, easy tool to incorporate in the classroom with little work on the instructor. Peer mentors have been shown to have many benefits on undergraduates, including higher GPA, retention rates and increased feelings of belonging. However, the question still remaining for me was what it is peer mentors are actually doing to lead to these improvements in the students. Below is my summative report on my portion of the project examining peer mentoring under the lens of Exploring Biology and evaluation of the program used to train the peer leaders, IMPaCT.
I partnered with faculty in WISCIENCE to explore the benefits of having peer mentors in the Exploring Biology course. I wanted to investigate peer mentoring because I find it a wonderful, easy tool to incorporate in the classroom with little work on the instructor. Peer mentors have been shown to have many benefits on undergraduates, including higher GPA, retention rates and increased feelings of belonging. However, the question still remaining for me was what it is peer mentors are actually doing to lead to these improvements in the students. Below is my summative report on my portion of the project examining peer mentoring under the lens of Exploring Biology and evaluation of the program used to train the peer leaders, IMPaCT.
Reflection
The Delta internship through the lens of Teaching-as-Research: My teaching-as-research question focused on the incorporation of peer mentors (or further outlined as “peer leaders”) in a freshman STEM seminar, and examining the benefits freshman students receive from this resource. The goals for this work describe how the peer leaders were valuable in the classroom, reflect on that valuable skills they provided the students, and describe the strengths of having peer leaders in the class. We also wanted the peer leaders to reflect on any changes they would make in their training. We assessed if these goals were met through our surveys administered throughout the semester, in addition to focus groups we would hold in early spring semester. I do think our methods of using surveys and focus groups are most appropriate, although I think it could have been interesting to include a question about peer leaders in the reflections we had students complete. Knowing what I know now, I would have possibly adjusted the surveys a little now that I am able to look at the answers. I found that enough people seemed confused about who is an instructor vs a peer leader, so I would have added a drop-down menu of choices of peer leaders rather than having them write their names. This also led to some confusion whether or not their answers were discussing peer leaders or instructors. Although I have yet to reflect on how the focus group went, I believe I will adjust the questions given the short answers students gave. This opportunity in Delta has encouraged me to test new ideas in the classroom while giving me the tools to appropriately evaluate my questions of interest.
The Delta internship fostering a Learning Community: Our central question is focused on developing learning communities or networking with others. Research had shown that by providing students with upperclassmen peers as mentors had many benefits for the students. We tried to encourage conversation between students and mentors during break time with mini-breakout sessions or having them sit with students at their tables. Peer leaders would also hold office hours and send weekly emails to students. If I were to change anything, I think I would have encouraged peer leaders to make it clear they knew all of the student’s names. I also would want to make sure ALL peer leaders were there every class, instead of having one leave early.
As for our own learning community, I did enjoy learning about other people’s projects and approaches. It allowed us to see beyond our own projects and learn about the various applications we can implement TAR projects in our own classrooms. One project even inspired me to incorporate something similar for my own unit in Exploring Biology, in which both my internship member and I both benefited from. What would have made the situation better would be that people were prepared for the seminar and participated weekly. I felt sometimes people were not always on top of everything and that hurt our experience in the seminar. Working with a faculty partner was definitely useful in my experience, although I know it isn’t for everyone. Dr. Whitmore had a weekly meeting with us where we would discuss any business we had. Jerry also provided a new perspective for us because he has an educational research background with a focus in leadership while we obviously come from a more scientific background. Dr. Whitmore was able to guide us when we weren’t sure about how to proceed since this field is new for us. It also has been great that we are able to keep in touch with Dr. Trimby, our former Teaching Fellows program coordinator, as well and continue working on a project he helped inspire.
The Delta internship exploring the idea of Learning-through-Diversity: Since the focus of our study was to encourage mentoring freshman students, the peer leaders had to have adequate training in how to be leaders in the classroom. This includes being trained in how to deal with diversity issues in the classroom, including how to approach students of different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Peer leaders were trained through the IMPaCT program over the course of the semester where they touched on issues like this. This was helpful because we did see many first-generation students in our classroom who seemed overwhelmed or lost to how to approach some issues they encountered on campus. As to enhance the value of diversity in the course, we encouraged students at their tables to get to know each other as well as interact with their peer leaders.
The Delta internship fostering a Learning Community: Our central question is focused on developing learning communities or networking with others. Research had shown that by providing students with upperclassmen peers as mentors had many benefits for the students. We tried to encourage conversation between students and mentors during break time with mini-breakout sessions or having them sit with students at their tables. Peer leaders would also hold office hours and send weekly emails to students. If I were to change anything, I think I would have encouraged peer leaders to make it clear they knew all of the student’s names. I also would want to make sure ALL peer leaders were there every class, instead of having one leave early.
As for our own learning community, I did enjoy learning about other people’s projects and approaches. It allowed us to see beyond our own projects and learn about the various applications we can implement TAR projects in our own classrooms. One project even inspired me to incorporate something similar for my own unit in Exploring Biology, in which both my internship member and I both benefited from. What would have made the situation better would be that people were prepared for the seminar and participated weekly. I felt sometimes people were not always on top of everything and that hurt our experience in the seminar. Working with a faculty partner was definitely useful in my experience, although I know it isn’t for everyone. Dr. Whitmore had a weekly meeting with us where we would discuss any business we had. Jerry also provided a new perspective for us because he has an educational research background with a focus in leadership while we obviously come from a more scientific background. Dr. Whitmore was able to guide us when we weren’t sure about how to proceed since this field is new for us. It also has been great that we are able to keep in touch with Dr. Trimby, our former Teaching Fellows program coordinator, as well and continue working on a project he helped inspire.
The Delta internship exploring the idea of Learning-through-Diversity: Since the focus of our study was to encourage mentoring freshman students, the peer leaders had to have adequate training in how to be leaders in the classroom. This includes being trained in how to deal with diversity issues in the classroom, including how to approach students of different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Peer leaders were trained through the IMPaCT program over the course of the semester where they touched on issues like this. This was helpful because we did see many first-generation students in our classroom who seemed overwhelmed or lost to how to approach some issues they encountered on campus. As to enhance the value of diversity in the course, we encouraged students at their tables to get to know each other as well as interact with their peer leaders.