Enriching the Culture of Undergraduate Research in Canadian Chemistry

1. Enriching the Culture of Undergraduate Research in Canadian Chemistry Peter Mahaffy The King’s University College Edmonton, AB peter.mahaffy@kingsu.ca

2. Undergraduate Research: The Pedagogy for the 21st Century? We believe that undergraduate research is the pedagogy for the 21st century.  As an increasing body of evidence makes clear, inquiry-based learning, scholarship, and creative accomplishments can and do foster effective, high levels of student learning at a variety of public and private postsecondary locations, including doctoral and research institutions, comprehensive universities, and liberal arts colleges.  Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Joint Statement of Principles, 2005

3. Council on Undergraduate ResearchAdvocate a pedagogy and academic outlook that: • Combines teaching and research, two historic poles of a professional dichotomy, into one integrated pedagogy and system of performance.  In undergraduate research, teaching and scholarship become parts of one simultaneous, overlapping, shared process.  • Replaces traditional archetypes of teacher and student with a collaborative investigative model, one using research done with a mentor or done jointly by students and teachers--a new vision portending a major shift in how scholarship in the academy is practiced in a broad range of disciplines.  • Replaces competitive modes of inquiry with ones more focused on collective and collaborative work, offering an enlivening and exciting new heuristic. CUR Joint Statement of Principles, 2005

4. Council on Undergraduate ResearchAdvocate a pedagogy and academic outlook that: • Motivates students to learn by doing.  With faculty mentors, students engage directly in practicing the work of their discipline while they avoid passively acquiring knowledge that that discipline has produced. • Promotes both new research and a student’s analytical and communicative skills from the student’s first days within the college/university experience.  • Creates internal networks to support these collaborative learning efforts.  Any campus that motivates its students to learn through individual and collaborative research--and can find ways to support these intellectual journeys with the necessary human and material resources--provides its students with a first-rate education. CUR Joint Statement of Principles, 2005

5. Undergraduate Research • Is undergraduate research on the map in Canada? • If so, who advocates for its importance in university, provincial, federal government, and granting council agendas? • How can we enrich the culture of undergraduate research as Canada moves further as a ‘country of discovers and learners’ (S. Fortier, NSERC)? What’s the role for undergraduate research in growing our own graduate students?

6. Enriching Culture for Undergraduate Research in Canada 3 Steps Forward King’s Experience Who Benefits? New modes of Scholarship

7. Creating a Rich Learning Environment for Science at King’s • Create a Community of Active Learners • Commit to Excellent Teaching, Scholarship and Mentoring • Teach From and Not Just About Nature • Show Students That Specialization is Not Enough: Science as a Human Enterprise

8. Creating a Rich Learning Environment Helpful Resources • Project Kaleidoscope • Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) • Beyond Bio 101 (Howard Hughes Foundation) • Shelia Tobias – Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don’t • AUCC “Research Capacity Building” • NSERC HQP Workshops Final Report (2002)

9. Building an Active Learning Community • Teaching Partnerships • 3rd & 4th Year Seminars • Collaborative Scholarship • Building Bridges Outside King's • Peer Support • Student Networking • Facilities and Equipment

10. Scholarship of Discovery @ King’s • First Year investigative team projects • Investigative approach to senior laboratories • Environmental chemistry external collaborations • Required senior thesis • Summer research opportunities • Two annual research conferences – April and September • Professional conferences

11. Scholarship of Discovery and Teaching/Learning @ King’s The King’s Centre for Molecular Structure RESEARCH SOLUTIONS COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES • Essential to focus efforts, work across disciplines, nurture external collaborations, build critical infrastructure, provide continuity of support

12. CRYSTAL Alberta – King’s University Visualization Projects • Informed by NSF supported GRC – Visualization • Visualizing the unseen in research and education • Modeling West Nile Virus vectors • Visualizations to address documented misconceptions about atmospheric chemistry and global climate change • Modeling charged particles in 3D electric and magnetic fields. • 3D Flash Molecular Viewer for Geowall • Grade 5 particulate level models

13. Acknowledments

14. Outcomes • Graduate and professional schools • Success with CGS • Qualities reported by employers • Participation and presentation at WCUCC • Presentation at other conferences • CSC • Banff Organic Symposium • IUPAC Congress • Teacher’s Conventions • Co-publication

15. Undergraduate Research:Who Benefits? • Undergraduate students • Faculty mentors • Graduate and professional schools • Employers • Canadian research and innovation!

16. Student Perspective • Problem solving • Communication skills • Experience of interfaces • Teamwork • Confidence!

17. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • 76 students at 4 US liberal arts colleges with undergraduate research programs. • Overwhelmingly positive, 91% indicate gains: • Personal/Professional • Working and thinking like a scientist • Gains in various skills • Clarification/confirmation of career plans, incl graduate school • Shift in attitude toward learning and working as researcher • Other benefits Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

18. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • Personal/Professional gains • Increased confidence • Establishing relationship with a faculty mentor • Developing professional collegiality with peers Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

19. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • Thinking and working like a scientist • Application and knowledge of skills • Knowledge and understanding of science and research Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

20. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • Gains in skills • Communication skills! • Time management • Record keeping • Computer skills • Ability to find, analyze and critique literature Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

21. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • Clarification/refinement of career/education paths • No evidence of causal effect on graduate school enrollment • Population under study is already interested in graduate school before research experience • Clarify choices between disciplinary interests • Clarify whether engaged by research or other areas of work Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

22. Benefits of Undergrad Research in Sciences • Enhanced career/graduate school preparation • Professional socialization – it’s ok to contact a colleague for information/advice • Changes in attitudes toward learning and working as a researcher • Pleasure in working independently • Confidence in decision making and communication Seymour, et. al. Science Education, 2004

23. 2001 USRA Survey (3,364 respondents) • Satisfaction is high with the USRA work experience • Students report learning practical techniques and methods and gain critical management skills • Students report that the supervision and instruction they received was excellent • Students’ interest in research increased at a critical period in their career-choice • USRA work experiences had a significant impact on students’ interest in careers in industry • Students overwhelmingly believe their USRA job experience will improve their permanent job prospects • A significant number of students plan to stay in university longer as a result of their USRA job experience

24. Faculty Perspective • Staying current • Understanding why we believe what we believe about science we teach • Work at interfaces with other disciplines • The best teaching and learning happens one-on-one • “It keeps me alive and passionate about science”

25. Faculty Challenges (esp. at PUIs) • Resources - human, operational funding, and infrastructure • Continuity in research programs • Teaching and administrative responsibilities • Sustaining productivity throughout a faculty career

26. Graduate School and Employer Perspective • Communication skills • Problem solving • Interdisciplinary experience • Experience with depending on others in teams • Conversant with ICT • Confidence!

27. Three Steps Forward • Put Canadian undergraduate research and the role of PUIs on the map • Support symbiosis between the scholarships of discovery and teaching/learning • Research solutions come in all shapes and sizes. So should (at least some) support mechanisms for • Undergraduate and graduate research • PUIs and research intensive universities

28. Three Steps Forward1. Put Canadian Undergraduate Research on the Map • New map of the role, successes, and best practices in Canadian undergraduate research. What’s the scope of undergraduate research – where, how much, by whom? • Changing roles of post-secondary institutions • Impact of undergraduate research on students, faculty, graduate and professional schools, and employers. (HQP) • Mechanisms for map-making? • AUCC • NSERC • CUR (Canadian Affinity Group – Kathy Darvesh)

29. Three Steps Forward 2. Symbiotic Scholarship: Discovery/Teaching • Vocabulary and profile around scholarship of teaching and learning • Discovery research groups – parallel teaching and learning groups? • Collaborations among scientists, educators, students, external partners – CRYSTAL example • New interdisciplinary research communities, science education, visualization

30. Three Steps Forward3. Research Solutions Come in all Shapes and Sizes – So Should Support Mechanisms • Undergraduate and graduate research are different. • Research intensive universities and PUIs are different. • Research in these different contexts is not better nor worse, but different measures of success. • Why should funding mechanisms be the same? • NSF examples - researchers, infrastructure @ PUIs • Continuity in research support needed • Continuity along faculty career path for excellent work is needed

31. Three Steps Forward3. Research Solutions Come in all Shapes and Sizes – So Should Support Mechanisms • Modest suggestions to NSERC and granting agencies • Review USRA scope and supervision criteria. Research solutions come in all shapes and sizes… • Intl review of DG – include question: Are we internationally competitive in supporting undergraduate science learning environments to grow our HQP? • Review of CGS committees – new interdisciplinary interfaces between research in science & education • One time or pilot initiatives are great, but… RCD, CRC chairs, CFI, CRYSTAL?)

32. Three Steps ForwardNSERC HQP Workshops – Final Report, 2002 • Participants also emphasized the importance of better promoting the NSE at the undergraduate level. A large focus was on increasing funding to undergraduate students for research and applied study. Suggestions included expanding the Undergraduate Student Research Awards program (USRA’s) and offering new funding to support undergraduate cooperative education and internship programs. Participants also encouraged NSERC to consider making funding available to develop and support infrastructure to ensure sufficient lab space to develop interest and capacity at the undergraduate level.

33. Acknowledgments • King’s undergraduate collaborators! • USRA and CRYSTAL programs for support • Brian Martin, co-director King’s CRYSTAL Centre for Visualization • Hank Bestman, NSERC faculty representative • Kathy Darvesh, CUR Canadian Affinity Group

35. ChallengesCelebrate and Reward Differences Professors in small universities may be just as qualified to do research as those in the bigger ones, but they face special challenges. If their university specializes in undergraduate education, they can't call on graduate students to join their research teams. If their university is far from Canada's major urban centres, there may be few businesses with whom to forge partnerships. And small universities, no matter how excellent, simply can't provide the full range of research infrastructure the big universities do. One-time NSERC - RCD competition. 7/34 successful

36. Research Capacity Building (AUCC) • Research capacity assistance should be used to provide start-up funding for research services, seed funding for research activities, to develop collaborative links and partnerships, to further integrate education and research, and to develop mechanisms to better transfer knowledge and technology into their communities. • Small universities should continue to identify research niches, often multidisciplinary in nature, to encourage contributions from as many scholars as possible, thus building depth in a number of key areas and thereby enhancing their sustainable research capacity. • Smaller universities should also continue to assist their researchers to improve their participation and success rate in national competitions by evaluating past results; by sharing best practices for grant application support; and by continuing to submit themselves to the same standards of accountability as larger, research intensive institutions.

37. Building an Active Learning Community “Often, the best laboratory experience is one in which students pursue their own research under faculty guidance…. Instead of just showing students what it is like to do science, why not confront them with real problems and ask them to come up with their own solutions? Students presented with such a challenge must develop traits such as curiosity, creativity, and perseverance—the very attributes essential in science. They also hone skills, such as problem solving and using computers to manipulate equipment, that may get short shrift elsewhere in the curriculum. Most important, they are more engaged than in “cookbook” laboratories, enhancing not only their knowledge of biology but also their confidence in themselves." Beyond Bio 101

38. Fractionating Knowledge Complexity requires specialization in the pursuit of discovery as we deepen our understanding of the modern world and create the knowledge needed to resolve current dilemmas and improve the quality of life. In this process, we continually fractionate knowledge, analyzing the pieces in greater and greater depth. We have trained our 20th century professional quite well in this task— it’s a global strength we must sustain— but what additional skill will be demanded of 21st century leaders? Joseph Bordogna in PKAL, What Works, Vol. I