Stories of Impact- Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities

Thursday, January 5, 2023
11:40 AM - 12:30 PM
Zoom

Presentor: Patrick Tebbe, Ph.D., Undergraduate Research Center

Undergraduate research is often described as a high impact practice. It has been widely found to promote student engagement, retention, and future success. However, little time is spent discussing the specific mechanisms or outcomes that justify the high impact practice label. Implementing effective undergraduate research can also be difficult and will often involve many different structures and forms. The primary purpose of this presentation would be to provide several examples of undergraduate research and the impact on students. This will be done in a unique manner, by using storytelling.

Storytelling is a unique pedagogical tool that can be used in the classroom and as part of research. To bring more application into this presentation, it will be structured as a series of micro-stories that focus on student’s research experiences, faculty mentor approaches, and the impacts that have resulted.

The secondary purpose of this presentation would be to share information and lessons learned on different approaches toward undergraduate research, scholarly, and creative activities. During the last two years, the Undergraduate Research Center (URC) has piloted several new programs that aim at supporting and encouraging students’ research efforts (e.g. the Research Apprenticeship Program). Our experiences with these have demonstrated both positive and negative results that we can learn from. Conclusions from new alumni surveys concerning students’ research experiences and their long range impact will round out the information provided.