Latest grants from the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 11:35:50 -0400

UMBC is proud to announce the projects selected to receive grants in the 2018-2019 rounds of the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition.

IMPLEMENTATION & RESEARCH AWARDS (Spring 2019)

Ethical considerations in data science curricula — A multidisciplinary team led by Vandana Janeja (Information Systems) will develop a pedagogical module to infuse ethics into data science and related curricula. The team will work with faculty partners across campus to design lectures (in person and online) to discuss ethical considerations in data science, particularly focused on decision making throughout the data life cycle. The modules will be evaluated by pre- and post-surveys, including scenarios of decision making during the development of a data science project. Colleagues from other academic units involved in ethical reasoning and data science education will be invited to participate throughout the round-tables and utilize the module for their own classes. This project will provide leadership opportunities to engage with partners across the country in future opportunities.

Understanding, Assessing and Improving Student Teamwork — A multidisciplinary team led by Simon Stacey (Honors College) aims to understand, assess and improve student teamwork skills and behaviors. The team will focus primarily on the textual interactions of students collaborating through online platforms and will also transcribe a limited set of face-to-face interactions in the later stages of the project. The interactions will be analyzed by 1) generating statistical data focusing on the form of the interactions and 2) exploring the content of the interactions by identifying the characteristics and behaviors of successful interactions using qualitative content analysis and machine learning techniques. The ultimate goal will be to use the qualitatively coded interactions to train a neural network to perform qualitative coding. The team will provide information to instructors, teams, and team members in real time to allow for changes in behavior, adaptations, support and interventions.

SEED AWARD (Spring 2019)

Text + Code = Better Machine Learning Education — Tim Oates (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) will write the first several chapters of a Machine Learning textbook in a format that allows free intermingling of code, data, interactive visualizations, and professional quality typesetting. The tools used to write and represent the book are based on the default technology stack for modern machine learning, which enables active experimentation with live examples. Students can read about a concept or algorithm and then text their understanding interactively inside the textbook. Tim will use surveys to evaluate the utility of the proposed format by measuring differences in engagement and understanding between the proposed format and a standard print textbook.

SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING & LEARNING AWARDS (Spring 2019)

The Influence of the “Seeing White” Podcast Course on Racial Knowledge, Attitudes, and Skills among Undergraduate Students — A team led by M. Nicole Belfiore (Social Work) will evaluate the effect of a semester long course based on the “Seeing White” podcast on undergraduate students’ racial attitudes, knowledge, and skills. The course requires listening to podcast episodes, attending integrative seminars, reflective journaling, and completing a self-evaluation analysis paper. The team is interested in the innovative use of a podcast for content delivery, as well as the effect on student growth and commitment to social justice around race issues. The team ultimately hopes to develop coursework on race, discrimination, and oppression issues for undergraduate students guided by this study for integration into the curriculum.

Effectiveness of Disciplinary-Decoupled Mathematical Reasoning — A team led by Kathleen Hoffman (Mathematics and Statistics) will decouple the foundational proof-writing skills from the disciplinary course of real analysis, Math 301, and develop a new course in Mathematical Reasoning that will focus on fundamental skill development in the area of proofs in order to increase success in Math 301 and upper level mathematics courses. Much of the material taught in the lower level mathematics courses is “calculational” in nature and does not prepare students for the theorem-proof based classes at the upper level. As a result, in the “bridge” class to the upper level courses, Math 301, students are required to learn the foundational skills of proof writing at the same time they master the disciplinary topic of real analysis. The team will collaborate with an active researcher in mathematics education to study course effectiveness with an approach that includes active learning and contemporary pedagogical techniques.

IMPLEMENTATION & RESEARCH AWARD (Fall 2018)

Development and evaluation of a supplemental hands-on social statistics training materials using the open source application – R Commander — A multidisciplinary team led by Takashi Yamashita (Sociology, Anthropology, and Health Administration and Policy) will develop ready-to-use supplemental social statistics training materials with the open source statistics application, R Commander. Students’ lack of statistical analytical/reasoning skills, often referred to as the “quantitative gap,” has been a serious concern in social science programs. This project combines two known strategies for improving learning outcomes as well as students’ attitudes toward statistics: development of teaching materials focusing on concepts rather than the mathematics and increasing opportunities for students to practice statistical analysis.

SEED AWARD (Fall 2018)

Competitive active learning games for inclusive computer science classrooms— Benjamin Johnson (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) will create competitive active learning exercises as hands-on games to allow students to practice abstract skills. While many of the abstract concepts covered in high level computer science classes are easy to grasp from an explanation, they require a great deal of practice before they can be intuitively understood by students. The variety of games will be designed with consideration of scoring methods that evaluate whether the students benefit from the exercise, accessibility, inclusivity, and generalizability of the creation in other fields of study.

Proposals for the next round of Innovation Fund grants are due by October 25, 2019. For more information and to apply, visit UMBC's Faculty Development Center.

The Hrabowski Fund for Innovation exemplifies UMBC's commitment to investing in faculty initiatives that fuel creativity and enterprise and also create opportunities for student engagement.