Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

One example of an enduring outcome from the Engagement in Undergraduate Research Annual Symposium is the creation of the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), which is an annual event open to all undergraduate students in the state of Florida to present their research in a poster format. In this session, we will present FURC outcomes and survey data. Recently, the planning committee has initiated the process to form a non-profit corporation to oversee FURC and facilitate other statewide initiatives to support undergraduate research. Opportunities for involvement in this new organization, called the Florida Undergraduate Research Consortium, will be presented.

Valuing Creativity, Research and Scholarship in All Disciplines
Majestic Palm A
Mary Crowe and Sara Fletcher-Harding (Florida Southern College)

A Culture of Mentorship through VCoP
Majestic Palm B
Kadie Hayward Mullins (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University)

Scaffolding Inquiry Across the Curriculum at the University of Tampa: Progress and Lessons Learned
Sago Palm
Eric Freundt and Richard RiCharde (The University of Tampa)

CRISPR in the Undergraduate Classroom
Majestic Palm A
Heather Evans Anderson (Stetson University)

Expanding Tiny Earth Research at FAU
Majestic Palm B
Diane Baronas-Lowell (Florida Atlantic University)

Research Courses for Guppies: How to Guide Freshman and Sophomores to Conduct Novel Research
Sago Palm
Ashley Spring (Eastern Florida State College)

Book Reviews in Student Journals: An Untapped Academic Niche
Sago Palm
Hagai Gringarten (St. Thomas University) and Raul Fernandez-Calienes

Scaffolding the Honors thesis research process: Ensuring success through intellectual, technical and social support
Sago Palm
Padmini Coopamah Waldron (University of Central Florida)

Before coming to FAU, I developed the undergraduate media arts curriculum at USCB, where I assigned research posters to art students as part of their final project presentations. In this talk, I will describe my approach to integrating practice-based research practices into multimedia courses, and how framing creative work as research can benefit student learning. This STEAM (Art+STEM) approach to multimedia pedagogy tries to balance intuitive exploration of creative expression with critical enquiry into the artistic process. Students begin to understand that artists have always been technical and learn to better articulate what motivated their creative work.

Students majoring in education are underrepresented in undergraduate scholarship. To enable teacher candidates to develop and demonstrate their skills in scholarly activities and products, we implemented a well-orchestrated infusion of problem-solving, critical thinking, oral and written communication, collaboration into courses.

In this presentation, we will describe this systematic course-based infusion of scholarly endeavors with examples from courses. In addition, during the past three years, annually we assessed teacher candidates’ scholarly products for critical thinking, informational literacy and writing. Here we will share what we learned from the data, and how we used it to strengthen undergraduate scholarship for future teachers.