Below you will find the abstracts for the 2025 Winter Nord Grant projects.
The goal of this project is to enhance interdisciplinary participation in robotics education by integrating NAO robots into my Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) course at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). This initiative aims to make robotics accessible to students from diverse academic backgrounds, particularly those outside engineering, by reducing the technical barriers traditionally associated with programming and robotics. This project will foster interdisciplinary collaboration and open the door for underrepresented students in robotics. Nord grant funding is being requested to purchase a second NAO robot, enabling a dedicated teaching resource.
Through this project, students will engage in experiential learning by designing, implementing, and evaluating human-robot interaction studies using the intuitive Choreographe programming platform. The hands-on interaction with NAO robots will foster collaborative problem-solving and provide students with valuable experience in interdisciplinary teamwork. Additionally, this platform allows students to simulate the robot’s behavior remotely, enabling them to work from home or another location and only come into the lab when they are ready to test their designs on the physical robot. This flexibility supports students who have disabilities or remote learning needs by offering them a more accessible learning experience.
The proposed project advances innovations in antiracism pedagogy. A new Mandel School course, Operationalizing Antiracism for Everyday Impact, was first piloted in Spring 2024 and is currently being offered for the second time in Fall 2024. Students are equipped for a career disrupting racism in all its forms and manifestations at the internalized/intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional and system levels. This includes tactics for advancing personal effectiveness discussing issues of race, identifying leverage points to promote antiracism within personal spheres of influence, strategies to reduce implicit bias and othering, approaches to promote racial healing and restitution, and ways to shift and share positional and personal power. The class introduces an Everyday Antiracism framework that includes four components of Racial Equity: Curiosity, Structure, Perception, Belonging and four components of Racial Justice: Truth, Healing, Restitution and Power. The course is taught in a hybrid/hyflex format, enabling access to class participants to take it as an in-person or online course, and to switch between the two. Support from a Nord grant will enable a systematic assessment of the course experience and impact on the class participants. The grant will be used for a doctoral student stipend, and survey and focus group incentives. The project study will focus on the course offering in Spring 2025 and will also include data collection from students from the previous two offerings of the class. The main project goals are to enhance student learning about antiracism and advance skill-building in antiracism practice.
In an effort to elevate academic excellence and prepare students for the evolving demands of the modern workforce, this project aims to integrate Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools, such as ChatGPT, NotebookLM, and CWRU’s AI platform, into multiple courses offered in Spring 2025 at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. By incorporating these advanced technologies, students will engage in hands-on activities that utilize GenAI for various tasks, including summarizing articles, personalized tutoring, brainstorming ideas, developing impactful presentations, practicing course materials through AI-generated quizzes, and improving coding efficiency and debugging skills.
The primary goal of this initiative is to improve student learning by enhancing their engagement with course materials and boosting their performance on assessments. By leveraging GenAI tools, students are expected to develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and experience enhanced efficiency in learning new topics and creating powerful presentations. The Nord Grant funding will be used to support faculty time dedicated to this project. This includes designing GenAI-integrated assignments, developing course materials, and analyzing student performance data to assess the impact of GenAI tools on learning outcomes.
Extended Reality has emerged as a powerful technology showing immense potential to enhance learning outcomes in dental education. The main advantage of this modality is the ability to provide an immersive learning experience allowing students to interact with virtual models to become familiar with complex systems and procedures from dental anatomy to restorative and surgical procedures early in their careers. In addition, ER technology will provide collaborative learning opportunities, increase accessibility, and standardize assessment methodology.
Digital simulation in extended reality allows students to practice dental procedures in a controlled, risk-free and repeatable environment. These experiences feature a high level of interactivity, enabling students to engage in hands-on learning and develop procedural skills with greater confidence and proficiency.
This project will build on the success of "Jaws in Motion" on the HoloLens platform and develop guidelines for utilizing Meta Quest augmented reality headsets for instructors to use during their daily demonstration lectures.
This project aims to advance holographic teaching by integrating two-dimensional (2D) projections into three-dimensional (3D) learning environments through a 3D symmetry app developed by the Principal Investigator (PI). Integrating 2D projections into holograms helps students visualize the relationship between 2D and 3D symmetry representations in real time, deepening their understanding. This approach also offers insights into how students interact with both 3D holograms and 2D projections, creating new ways to track learning outcomes through metrics like eye movement and problem-solving time. Ultimately, this initiative contributes to developing an evaluation framework for a pedagogical tool with limited previous assessments.
Originally designed for crystallography instruction, this app has evolved to help students more effectively grasp complex 3D concepts. Currently used in CWRU’s MSE 328/428 course, it leverages HoloLens technology to enhance comprehension of 3D symmetry while addressing limitations of traditional 2D teaching media. Through collaboration with cognitive scientists, the PI has identified the broader cognitive importance of symmetry in human learning.
The project also explores the impact of collaborative learning in holographic environments. Beyond individual learning, it offers a scalable platform for studies across diverse student groups, from high school to advanced undergraduates. The ultimate objective is to establish a validated, Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved evaluation study to assess the efficacy of holographic teaching in enhancing learning and social interaction. The Nord Grant will fund an undergraduate student to develop the necessary code, generating valuable insights for future research and funding applications.
This project explores how generative AI can enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills in STEM management education. As AI becomes more integrated into the classroom, the challenge lies in ensuring that it fosters deep learning rather than passive consumption of information. By leveraging the AI4EDU platform—a highly adaptable AI system specifically built for educational settings and designed to support rigorous pedagogical research—this project aims to investigate how AI can be programmed and utilized to foster active student engagement, analytical reasoning, and creative thinking.
The purpose of this project is to improve student learning by using AI to guide students through complex problem-solving tasks, especially in economics, finance, and accounting courses where critical thinking and data analysis are essential. We will conduct controlled experiments to compare different types of AI configurations (e.g., interactive vs. static, personalized vs. standardized, specific vs. generic) to determine which configurations best support students in achieving deeper cognitive skills in different types of learning tasks.
Use of Nord Grant Funding: the Nord Grant will support the AI4EDU project across three key areas:
- Material Equipment: Covers AI model usage for student interactions, model training and fine-tuning based on classroom data, and cloud infrastructure to ensure reliable platform performance.
- Student Stipend: Funds allocated for a part-time research assistant to provide essential research support, including data management and technical assistance during experimental sessions.
- Dissemination: Supports travel and conference participation to present project findings and promote the educational impact of AI4EDU.
Generative AI (Gen AI) is becoming increasingly popular among students, educators, and researchers. While it is a powerful tool, Gen AI can produce incorrect responses and flawed explanations that may appear logical and persuasive to novices. This project explores the reliability and validity of Gen AI tools, including CWRU AI, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini, for environmental engineering education, and develops innovative teaching and learning strategies to incorporate Gen AI into both undergraduate and graduate courses. To assess the impact of AI-embedded strategies on teaching and learning, academic data - including homework and exam questions, along with student responses, lab reports, and project reports - will be analyzed by both Gen AI and course instructors. This evaluation aims to determine Gen AI's reliability in solving environmental problems, enhancing students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and assisting with TA grading. Results of this project will be shared with the academic community through publications, conference presentations, seminars, and workshops to benefit more educators and students. Nord Grant funding will support this project by: (1) providing stipends for TAs engaged in the intensive work of Gen AI evaluation; and (2) securing High-Performance Computing (HPC) access to handle intensive AI tasks.