Center for Teaching and Learning

2024-2025 Provost’s Teaching, Improvement, Experimentation, and Research (TIER) Grants

Please congratulate your colleagues, recipients of the 2023-24 TIER grants!

Traditional TIER grant recipients

Abstracts

Constantine Lignos
This project seeks to create a chatbot-like system that uses generative AI methods to mimic the experience of getting instant coding assignment feedback from an instructor or TA. We will develop a system that can provide feedback on assignments and deploy it in COSI 114a (Fundamentals of Natural Language Processing I). By deploying this system, we hope to reduce the load on course staff, reduce student stress by allowing them to get feedback 24/7, and reduce the temptation to use ChatGPT and similar systems to help complete assignments when it is not allowed.

Amber Spry
This project addresses a need in the university to provide courses that equip undergraduate students with quantitative reasoning skills, and provides a model for training student researchers as teaching assistants for future courses. This project engages the Brandeis Framework for the Future by providing a model that builds the research capacity of faculty, graduate assistants, and undergraduates, invests in data science by providing an infrastructure for the collection of large scale and longitudinal public opinion data that will be made available to the university community, and integrates experiences inside and outside the classroom. By teaching students through a firsthand workshop-based course how to design and conduct inclusive research, I hope to encourage a sense of inclusion and belonging among all students, especially those who may be encountering quantitative research for the first time, or seeing their communities reflected in the outcomes of such research in meaningful ways.

Charlie Goudge
Teaching a discipline like archaeology requires innovative pedagogical methods to enhance student learning, experience, and provide a deeper understanding of the field’s practical elements. ANTH 124 Maritime Archaeology: The Salty Relationship Between Society and The Sea exemplifies these aims by allowing students to engage not only with the practical skills required by archaeologists in the field but also to develop research and reasoning skills that will aid them in their future endeavors. By creating ‘Micro-sites,’ which contain mini-sites comprising scale replicas of historically accurate shipwrecks, this class allows students to participate in excavations designed to build their understanding of fundamental archaeological and digital approaches to build their critical research and thinking skills.

Elissa Jacobs
Writing Intensive (WI) faculty face many challenges specific to the teaching of writing, ranging from integrating writing into a content-based class to time management in giving meaningful feedback. These challenges can be exacerbated by the fact that many teachers of writing don't have specific training in the pedagogy of writing instruction. The Faculty Learning Community for Writing Intensive Instructors (FLC-WI) will provide an opportunity for instructors of writing to meet throughout the semester to discuss challenges and share ideas. By bringing together WI instructors from across the curriculum, we can provide mutual support, develop innovative and literature-based pedagogy, and ultimately better serve our students.

Emily Tiberi
Many physics lab courses are designed to reinforce physics concepts from lecture, as well as to develop basic data analysis skills. It may, therefore, come as a surprise that the latest physics education research indicates that lab classes have little to no impact on a student’s understanding of specific concepts. Though at first glance this may seem like a failure of the course, evidence shows that labs can have a significant impact on more practical skills. Lab courses, therefore, become the natural environment to develop both data analysis skills and, more broadly, methods of thinking that are central to the practice of physics and can lay the foundation for a deeper conceptual understanding of the field. This project aims to implement a new model for a physics lab that places critical thinking, problem solving and data analysis at the centre of the curriculum design. It addresses two central questions: 1) What are the models of thinking most relevant to a future career in healthcare? 2) How then can we use introductory physics concepts in mechanics, waves, electricity and magnetism as a vehicle towards achieving these skills or models of thinking? In other words, how can we leverage backwards design to reinforce particular skills by crafting experimental challenges in physics?

Becci Torrey and Keith Merrill
Several years ago, we switched to an Outcomes-Based Learning pedagogical model in our Calculus and Precalculus classes.  This model starts with a comprehensive list of Learning Outcomes for the course, so students know exactly what we expect them to learn.  We utilize high-frequency/low-stakes testing, with questions tied directly to Learning Outcomes.  Student work is graded credit/no-credit, where the distinction is whether students have demonstrated mastery of that Learning Outcome.  If they do not earn credit, they will have repeated opportunities to demonstrate mastery on subsequent tests.  We find that this model aligns *much* more closely with our pedagogical ideals than a traditional high-stakes/low-frequency structure.

But it’s time for an upgrade.  We plan to spend time over the summer on several improvements to the structure of the course and the technology used to administer it.  As part of these changes, we will switch from every week testing to every other week and use the non-testing days to work closely with students on reviewing and revising their work.  We will also build out an app to better facilitate sharing of learning progress with students.  These changes will significantly enhance the experience of the students in the course, as well as saving valuable time for the instructors.

GenAI TIER grant recipients