Welcoming Remarks
Matt Kinservik, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Program Overview
Tony Middlebrooks, Organizational and Community Leadership

Introducing Engaging Education
Mark Serva, Accounting & MIS

Project, studio, and design-based learning represent a long history of inquiry-based approaches to learning. This session gives participants a brief overview of the broad range of inquiry and experiential based pedagogies, highlighting problem-based learning, and including unique characteristics, the advantages to student learning, and why they are an important part of the future of higher education.

Three Types of Active Learning

Project-Based Learning
Tony Middlebrooks, Organizational and Community Leadership

Design-Based Learning
Jenni Buckley, Mechanical Engineering
Dustyn Roberts, Mechanical Engineering

Studio-Based Learning
Jules Bruck, Landscape Design
Jon Cox, Art

The Question Formulation Technique as an Entry Point into Project-Based Learning
John Pelesko, Mathematical Sciences

One challenging aspect of using Project Based Learning in the classroom is the difficulty students often have in organizing their thinking and focusing their attention on what is truly interesting or important about a particular problem. Comments such as “I don’t even know where to begin” or “But what am I supposed to do?” are frequently heard. In many ways, this can be traced back to students having lost the habit of asking good questions. In this session, we introduce the “QFT” or “Question Formulation Technique” as a tool for helping students relearn the habit of asking good questions. While the QFT is widely applicable, here we focus on its use as an entry-point into project based activities.

Collaborative Learning
Adebanjo Oriade, Interdisciplinary Science Learning Labs
Renate Wuersig, Interdisciplinary Science Learning Labs

As a result of this activity participants should be able to:

1. Recognize different group formation techniques and decide on a group creation method.
2. Design group activity for experimental (wet lab) and for problem (dry lab) based learning.
3. Measure and evaluate group performance
   1. from peer evaluation using peer evaluation tools, and
   2. from the quality of the products (video, picture, graph, presentation) of group activity.
      

Collaborative Learning Activity Sheet (PDF file)

A Perfect Perch (as in Bench, not Fish!)
Jules Bruck, Landscape Design

Students will be able to apply their knowledge of scale to draw a model of a personalized bench based on a theme of their choice. They will be able to choose an appropriate scale for the project.
A Perfect Perch: Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Off the Wall
Jon Cox, Art

Students will be able to apply their understanding of image resolution, color profiles and composition to digitally output their ideas as a large-scale wallpaper piece and critique similar work created by their peers and professional artists.
Off the Wall: Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Everyone’s a Designer: Applying the Design Process in the Classroom & Beyond
Jenni Buckley, Mechanical Engineering
Allan Carlsen, Theatre
Amy Cowperthwait, Nursing
Dustyn Roberts, Mechanical Engineering

We tend to think of designers as super humans who magically spin out the next iProduct while running multiple start-ups in Silicon Valley. While these people do indeed exist, we are all innately designers, and there is a simple process for helping ourselves and our students turn our design ideas into real solutions. It’s called the Engineering Design Process, and this workshop will present an overview of that process through multiple student-based case studies.

Humanities Lab
Matt Kinservik, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Humanities scholarship has traditionally been a solitary affair. Research tends to be done by a single investigator, and books and articles are written by single authors. Collaborative research is not unheard of, but it is the exception, not the norm and this has implications for teaching. The assignments that humanities professors give their students tend to replicate this single-investigator model and group work can often be a forced exercise, not a method that makes inherent sense in terms of the learning outcomes of a given course. But there is no reason why humanistic research can’t be done in a collaborative way, modeled on a laboratory approach with multiple student investigators (graduate and undergraduate) working on a common problem or question. This session will offer examples of successful Humanities Labs and describe the trial-and-error approach that helped them to be successful.

Humanities Lab Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Software Product Development using SCRUM
James Atlas, Computer & Information Sciences

The general SCRUM process consists of a repeated, timed cycles. In our course we use a 2 week SCRUM cycle. Each class period during the cycle begins with a SCRUM meeting which is a 15 minute stand-up group meeting where each member answers 3 questions: What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? Do you have any road blocks? Each cycle also includes assignment of SCRUM master role (we used 2 SCRUM masters, 1 for each week of the cycle), assignment of tasks from the product backlog, and a pre and post report filled out by the SCRUM masters. Because SCRUM emphasizes working prototypes, each cycle includes a software product release artifact.

Feedback for team members occurred at the end of each cycle using different systems. Early in the course the feedback essentially asked each team member to suggest ways that each other team member could improve their contributions to the group. This feedback was given to each team member and parsed by the professor to assign deficit points. Over the course of the semester the feedback gradually shifted to an identification of each team member’s main contributions and a rating system. Students who ended the semester with accrued deficit points lost proportionate amounts from the team artifact grades.
SCRUM Development Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Quantitative Reasoning, Multidimensional Visualization: Big Data, Small Projects
Jim Casey, English, The Colored Conventions Project
Asia Dowtin, Geography, Colored Conventioned Project
John Jungck, Interdisciplinary Science Learning Labs
Mia Papas, Behavioral Health & Nutrition
Sarah Patterson, English, The Colored Conventions Project
Karen Rosenberg, Anthropology

We will briefly introduce participants to our three courses, some projects that students have already pursued, and tools that we have used in different courses. Two of the courses are associated with ongoing websites: The Colored Convention Project and the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium’s BIRDD Project (Beagle Investigation Returns with Darwinian Data).

Then we will ask teams of participants to choose a data set, a tool, and identify a question to explore. Staff from the three courses will interact with groups while they work for an hour. At the end of the session, we will ask groups to share their expectations for project-based learning based upon this brief engagement in a project.
Big Data, Small Projects Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Student-Based Critique
Martha Carothers, Art

The studio process is ongoing from project introduction to final solution. Collaboration and feedback among students in the studio advance creativity. In addition, engaging students in critique and rubric discussion promotes critical thinking along with greater understanding of project parameters. Students develop an informed sense of trial and error from one critique to the next. This workshop actively involves participants to demonstrate how a visual critique wall enhances student interaction and studio-based learning.

Student-Based Critique Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Nest Project: Material Sketches
Kelly Cobb, Fashion & Apparel Studies

Design innovations often have humble beginnings. The architect Frank Gehry starts his prototyping with tape and cardboard. Quick, loose studies can lead to distinctive and unexpected results. Fashion designers often build with humble materials on a form to get dimension or silhouette correct. Textile designers create a unit, then a series of units, then construct a textile surface. The designers at Nike look at objects in their immediate life for inspiration; a waffle, fabric trimmed like spaghetti, toothpicks bound with tape. Paper, twine, tape combined with a compelling concept might lead to unexpected and outstanding developments. In this project, students

1. demonstrate creative thinking from concept to product in this studio activity;
2. interpret inspiration through intuitive fabrication to build a series of material sketches;
3. synthesize visual research and sources of inspiration into a design product;
4. capture/frame individualized creative processes (3d sketching, tumblr, pinterest, reflective writing);
5. articulate concepts/ideas and value constructive criticism.

Nest Project Activity Sheet (PDF file)

Everyone’s a Designer: Applying the Design Process in the Classroom & Beyond
Jenni Buckley, Mechanical Engineering
Allan Carlsen, Theatre
Amy Cowperthwait, Nursing
Dustyn Roberts, Mechanical Engineering

We tend to think of designers as super humans who magically spin out the next iProduct while running multiple start-ups in Silicon Valley. While these people do indeed exist, we are all innately designers, and there is a simple process for helping ourselves and our students turn our design ideas into real solutions. It’s called the Engineering Design Process, and this workshop will present an overview of that process through multiple student-based case studies.

Introduction
John Jungck, Interdisciplinary Science Learning Labs

Engage! Designing for connected futures
Ann Hill Duin, University of Minnesota

Throughout her career as scholar, educator, and university administrator, Professor Duin has followed–and been part of designing the infrastructure in support of–the trends and transformations in connected learning. During this keynote, Ann will engage us in active exploration of connectivism, personal learning networks (PLNs), and shared leadership, encouraging us to re-imagine and re-create ourselves, our courses, and our curricula for an engaging and sustainable future.

Team formation
Tony Middlebrooks, Organizational and Community Leadership

After the team formation, teams will select among the skill-based sessions below and distribute their team members.

Kevin R. Guidry, Center for Teaching and Asssessment of Learning
Cheryl Richardson, Center for Teaching and Asssessment of Learning

This session will focus on two challenges commonly faced in active learning: How do we assess groupwork and how do we assess creativity? In the first part of this session attendees will (a) explicitly describe the value of students working cooperatively, (b) explore strategies for organizing groups and groupwork to enhance their value, and (c) learn methods of assessing groupwork.

In the second part of this session, attendees will (a) define creativity and enumerate characteristics of creative works, (b) use that definition and those characteristics to create a rubric, and (c) practice applying that rubric to example student works.

Jon Cox, Art
Nico Carver, Student Multimedia Design Center

The phoneography skill session will start with a brief intro to phoneography and then participants will focus on capturing 4 different types of light to change the meaning and appearance of a given subject. Participants will edit images on their phone using Photoshop Express, upload their best image to Instagram with an appropriate hashtag and caption, and finally comment on another participant’s image.

Hannah Lee, Student Multimedia Design Center

Both faculty-produced and student-produced videos can be used to encourage active learning and stage classroom activities. In this session, we’ll go beyond the basic use of recorded lectures and discuss the creation of thought-provoking videos that stimulate learning moments in the active learning classroom.

Shooting a successful video requires planning and an understanding of a few basics of film production. This workshop will introduce participants to techniques that will improve the way that footage looks and sounds. The workshop will demonstrate equipment that is available to be borrowed from the Student Multimedia Design Center in order to successfully: frame it (using cameras and tripods), mic it(using booms or lavaliers), and light it (using 3-point lighting techniques and more).

Ben Mearns, IT Client Support & Services
John Stevenson, Student Multimedia Design Center

Visualizing the geographic component of data sets reveals unexpected patterns, useful for demonstration and exploration.

This session will focus on the use of geospatial visualizations and data for project-based learning. Participants will receive a brief introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) and be introduced to UD’s newest geospatial resource, PolicyMap, a cloud based data and mapping platform.

Participants will: explore geographic relationships; examine geographic units, data sources, and legend options; import CSV files to geocode addresses; create three-layer maps; create and use custom regions; and create tables and reports and download map images.

This session will provide a brief overview of 3-D printing and programmable micro-processors (Arduino).

Jenni Buckley, Mechanical Engineering
Dustyn Roberts, Mechanical Engineering

Don’t think you can sketch? You can! Don’t see why it is necessary? Field sketching is a skill that enhances the ability to see the world differently, and thus is a capacity that can be used by all educators. In this studio-based session participants work at their own pace and level to enhance their personal sketching skills and reflect on how it can be used in their own classroom.

Jules Bruck, Landscape Design

ISE Lab, Room 110 and 215

Faculty Commons, 116 Pearson Hall

D Studio, Spencer Lab

Guided project work

Several facilitators will be circulating the the locations listed at left.

Teams of participants will work on their project preparation and completion.

Project Showcase:
Each team of participants will present a one-minute lightning round.

Poster Session:
Each team of participants will present a poster session.
Any format is acceptable, including paper, slide show, video, etc.

Final thoughts / debrief / reflection

Steve Bernhardt, English
Tony Middlebrooks, Organizational and Community Leadership