My current research interests include how the way that course grades are assigned and feedback is given affects the student experience in a course. I want to learn more about the impact that this has on how students feel about grades, how much they learn from the course, and how much of that they retain for future courses. Along with that, I am also interested in implementation methods for these alternative grading schemes in larger and different class environments. A second major interest is the training of graduate students for teaching and improving pedagogical practices across all instructors. To this end, I am focused on implementation methods for active learning in large classes, methods of teaching active learning practices to novice instructors, and best practices for introducing new instructors to teaching techniques.
Over the last few years, I have developed and improved a standards-based grading scheme for my Differential Equations course. My research interest in this direction is how this affects all aspects of the student experience, including their feelings about the course, performance on exams, and what they remember from the class in future semesters. Having run a class in this way, I see the distinct benefits in how students interact with the course and want to help other instructors experience this for themselves.
While the particular system used for this class is standards-based grading, there are many other ways of assigning course letter grades that fall into the “Alternative Grading” camp, and I am very interested in all of the different things that instructors are doing and fitting this into their courses. The choice of a grading system is very personal, and it depends a lot on the individual instructor and the specific course and audience. I am always interested in learning more about different approaches so that I can potentially implement them in my own courses, if I think they will fit.
Course coordination is essential for improving the experience of students in large, multi-section courses. Generally, the goal of course coordination is to ensure that every student has a relatively equivalent experience in the class, no matter which section they are taking. This can happen via a common syllabus, common exam structure, or common homework, among other alignment methods. My current interest in this area centers around looking at best practices for course coordination and the relation between coordinator autonomy, instructor autonomy, and instructor/coordinator/student satisfaction with the course. There has been some research to this point indicating that coordination is important and some ways to do it, but less about best practices for improving the process. That is where my current focus lies.
I am also interested in the process for developing new instructors, particularly at the graduate student level. Unlike most primary and secondary education teachers, most PhD graduates receive minimal to no teaching training before they are dropped in the classroom and expected to teach. It is important for both graduate programs and the institutions that will hire these PhDs in the future that they have some amount of pedagogical training before they are on their own to teach. I have been running the Teaching Assistant Training Program for the last several years and am continually looking at new and better ways to prepare these novice instructors for the world that awaits them in the classroom.
My thesis research was analyzing the conductivity problem in the case of thin inhomogeneities. In particular, I was looking at the case of a thin inhomogeneity with an open mid-curve and looked at the singularities that could develop around the endpoints of this curve. It turns out that these play a role in the analysis of the problem, but similar results to the case of a closed mid-curve can still be shown.
For several years, I did research with Prof. Aihua Wood at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) on through-the-wall imaging and radar analysis for Maxwell’s Equations. This research involved creating a numerical algorithm for the 2-dimensional system and implementing a reconstruction algorithm for this system.
After the transition to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of STEM classes attempted to move their active learning group work activities into this new environment. Along with many other faculty across a variety of STEM disciplines, I am looking into the many ways in which faculty tried to implement these changes, investigating how they went from both the faculty and student perspective, and determine what lessons there are to be learned that could be utilized in future semesters.