Glennan Fellows to present their projects at this week’s UCITE session

The University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) will host this year’s Glennan Fellows Program on Thursday, April 9, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Herrick Room of the Allen Memorial Medical Library Building. At this session, the five faculty members who were selected in 2013 for their promise of exceptional careers balancing scholarship and teaching will describe their award projects. This event is an opportunity to hear about the innovative ideas of five of the university’s most promising junior faculty and to honor them. Rohan Akolkar, associate professor of chemical engineering; John Duncan, the Theodore M. Focke Professorial Fellow and assistant professor of mathematics; Gregory Jonas, associate professor of accountancy; Amy Przeworski, assistant professor of psychological sciences; and Matthew Willard, associate professor of materials science and engineering, will present at the session. Lunch will be provided at this session. RSVP to ucite@case.edu. Descriptions of the Glennan Fellows’ projects are available below:

Rohan Akolkar

“Experiential Learning Applied To Chemical Engineering Education” Experiential learning was introduced in a sophomore-level undergraduate chemical engineering course as an effective means of teaching material and energy balance concepts. The experiential learning cycle of “observation–reflection–conceptualization–experimentation” was introduced to students using in-class demonstration of a fully operational copper electroplating reactor. Students observed how input variables such as voltage or current affect reactor performance metrics such as efficiency, energy consumption as well as process economics.

John Duncan

“Opening the Door to Research in Mathematics” How does one become a mathematician? The traditional text-based, lecture-driven format for courses in pure mathematics all too often obscures core features of the life mathematical, including the essential creative aspects of experimentation, invention and play. Even worse, by emphasizing skills that are not central to the practice of mathematics, the traditional format can obstruct a student from continuing in math, even when their core skills are strong. Duncan will describe his plans for a new kind of course, which will offer students a more direct pathway to research in mathematics.

Gregory A. Jonas

“An Interactive Instructional Case Study for MBA Accounting Core Courses” Graduate business education often uses a case study approach to expose students to complex problems similar to those students will encounter after graduation. Recent movement toward more learner-driven and distance-learning instruction is at odds with the face-to-face, interactive nature of case study instruction. This project will design and create an interactive case study with built in decision-branching and feedback, such that it can be delivered remotely and used as a self-study tool for students. Recent software developments provide the ability to provide case-study-quality instruction that is learner driven and can be delivered remotely.

Amy Przeworski

“An Experiential Learning Approach Integrating Gaming and Psychotherapy” Experiential learning provides hands-on learning opportunities for students and encourages active learning. When teaching undergraduate students about psychological disorders, it is difficult to include an active experiential learning component due to issues of confidentiality and ethics. One means of providing students with an experiential learning opportunity is to create a virtual means of conducting therapy. Technology-based therapies relying on therapeutic websites, apps and virtual reality have been successful; however, an even more engaging medium may be to use video games. In the current project, students from a psychology course and a computer science course worked together to create therapeutic video games.

Matthew A. Willard

“Transitioning Ideas to Reality: Discovering Application of Materials Science” A Glennan Fellowship supported the development of a course for first-year engineering students with an interest in materials science (EMSE120). In this class, students work in teams and as individuals within processing laboratories working with an array of "real materials" to explore the potential of casting, machining and deformation processes to produce real parts and/or components. During this term, students made mini-Oscars in their own likeness, made of the same materials as the real Academy Awards. The process included experiences in computer design, 3-D printing, metals casting and electrochemistry. The learning aspects of the project and their impact on students will be discussed.