Archive: Fall 2023 Learning Assistant Projects

Alexis Richard
Colleen Wallace

Poster Letter: A

Presentation Round: 1

CAS BI105 is an introductory biology course for Health Science students at Boston University. As Learning Assistants in this course, we have observed that a large number of our students in BI105 are not familiar with basic lab materials and skills. This includes materials such as air stones, stir plates, and different flasks and beakers, as well as using repetitive skills like micropipetting, analyzing slides under a microscope, and disposing of aqueous substances under the fume hood. We are going to make a materials reference guide that will be cited in the lab instructions and prelab documents of each week’s lab to address students’ lack of familiarity with specific materials and skills. This reference guide will be one document that lives on Tophat which students can download and use for BI105 and similar classes. This materials reference guide will increase the general knowledge of lab materials, safety, and skills via pictures of materials, brief descriptions of what they are and how they work, and linked videos to explain how to use them. Additionally, having the guide listed and referenced in each prelab will prepare students for the lab so they know how to distinguish the expected materials and use them correctly. This resource will help students save time troubleshooting when it comes time to run experiments.

Alex Giakouminakis
Kai Miyaki
Kimhun Tuntikawinwong
Aya Yousif

Poster Letter: B

Presentation Round: 1

During the lab lecture, Learning assistants (LAs) traditionally take a passive role that underutilizes their prior experience in the course. We’ve identified that the phylogenetic tree lab is the most conceptually challenging aspect of the course, especially for students with limited biology backgrounds as it requires critical thinking, hypothesis testing, and problem-solving skills. Thus, we propose an LA-directed class discussion to demonstrate the phylogenetic tree construction process, aiming to provide students with a concise and practical guide to understanding the lab’s instructions, techniques, and objectives. This LA-directed demonstration will encourage open dialogue, helping the students to clarify the confusion and reassure their confidence in constructing a phylogenetic tree themselves. This approach promotes more student-LA interactions and helps students feel more comfortable vocalizing their questions. Designed to mimic the lab activity, the demonstration, which should take about 15-20 minutes, will walk students through identifying characteristics, polarizing the characteristics into binary states, constructing a data matrix, the character matrix, and finally the strategic construction of the phylogenetic tree. To accommodate this extended demonstration, we also propose a shift in the lab lecture’s focus. Instead of revisiting what a phylogenetic tree is (as this is covered in regular lectures), we aim to emphasize the methodology and critical thinking required to build one. This approach ensures that students are better prepared for the lab’s practical challenges while promoting more meaningful interactions between students and LAs. This demonstration will serve as a model for more engaging and student-focused activities in the future.

Michael Brody
Raven Coffer
Meghna Patel
Esther Rosenblum

Poster Letter: C

Presentation Round: 1

The first component of our proposed change to the course is in the first lecture. This year, the professors showed a video made by past TFs, which aimed to give students confidence. However, the effect was the opposite; students were intimidated and worried by the video. Instead, the LAs and TFs in that lecture will be given a proper introduction at the front of the classroom. This will include short messages about their hobbies and academics, to be seen as peers and mentors, and encourage students to seek us out for help during clicker questions and office hours.

Second, we would like to introduce a study session that could take place on the Sunday before, either in person or on zoom. It will be an optional review session, led by the LAs, in the weeks before the quiz. There will be 3-4 LAs at each review session, and the LAs will rotate responsibilities so that each LA leads a few sessions per semester. This will expose students to different LAs which can encourage attendance to different LA’s Office Hours. The review sessions will be recorded and posted on Blackboard for students who could not attend.

The structure of the review sessions can include the following: study tips regarding testing anxiety and academic strategies, general topic recap, discussion of common misconceptions, and a few example problems. Some review nights could also be in-game formats, including a pre-game quiz, and then a post-game quiz to determine knowledge gain.

Sarayu Chandiri
Shira Cohen
Alex Griffiths
Elizabeth Wang

Poster Letter: D

Presentation Round: 1

In General Chemistry, discussions are structured around a weekly worksheet. Students work together in small groups to solve problems to reinforce new content from lectures. However, due to the course’s fast-paced nature, students sometimes struggle with remembering the concepts and problem-solving techniques introduced during lectures in time for discussion. When this happens, discussions can be largely unproductive, especially when students spend the entire time on the first question. In order to address this concern, students can prepare for discussions by self-assessing their understanding of the big ideas from the week’s lectures. Various studies have indicated that online platforms are a great way to accomplish this. As a result, the best way to help students prior to discussions would be to implement some kind of online learning tool.

One such tool is an online platform called Quizizz. Quizizz is an asynchronous tool where students can complete self-assessment questions covering big ideas and common misconceptions. Prior to every discussion, short optional Quizizz assignments would be posted for them to complete. This would be applied every week so that students can refresh and solidify their understanding of the material before attempting the worksheet. With these assignments, students can focus on their learning without the stress of being assessed on accuracy. In an effort to increase collaboration within the course, students would be encouraged to complete these questions with their small discussion groups. The ultimate goal is to help students overcome barriers in their learning in an engaging and fun way.

Haasith Garapati
Gabe Russo

Poster Letter: E

Presentation Round: 1

​A critical part of chemistry education involves teaching students how to follow procedures and utilize complex equipment. The lab manual for CH109, written by Professor Binyomin Abrams, is incredibly detailed, with explanations of many complicated concepts. The dense detail however can be intimidating to lab newcomers and leaves no room for equipment instructions. Combined with the variable practices employed by teaching fellows, it’s likely that procedure misunderstanding and equipment misuse will occur. We believe that visual aides that accompany the lab procedures would benefit every CH109 lab student. Visuals can provide an alternate method for students to understand instructions and can be helpful for those struggling to understand the written procedure’s dense prose. Much of what seems intuitive about chemistry equipment usually isn’t, and this can lead to simple yet costly mistakes. ​For our study, we created visual aids for the Cary 60 UV-Vis spectrometer that were distributed to various lab sections that were using the spectrometer for the first time. Data on student satisfaction and equipment usage adequacy were collected via surveys given at the end of the lab sections. Our hypothesis is that visual aids will make students more proficient with the equipment and that their level of satisfaction and confidence on the surveys will be significantly higher.

Eliana Porter-Self
Logan Rajah
Tess Shotland

Poster Letter: F

Presentation Round: 1

EE 107, Introduction to Climate and Earth System Science is an essential class for Earth and Environment students. It also fulfills the highly sought after HUB units Quantitative Reasoning and Scientific Inquiry I without the added fear of being a weed out class. This combined with the fact that BU serves a small number of E&E undergrads typically makes the student makeup of this course majority non-major students. This brings an added difficulty for instructors, as many students don’t have the science background or drive to learn the content that environmental science students do. A lot of difficulty tends to arise in the lab section of this course. One of the biggest challenges with lab is the lack of engagement during the in-lab lecture section, where the pre-lab reading is explained more in-depth. Students often skip the pre-lab reading and don’t pay close attention, missing essential information. The TFs have also noted this issue. To address these issues and foster student engagement, we are suggesting that the pre-lab process be changed. We either want to reintroduce a pre-lab quiz or facilitate group discussion at the start of lab. We will evaluate students’ opinions and knowledge about pre-lab preparedness, and conduct an experiment concerning the pre-lab reading to gauge their understanding before class, while also discussing with them their comfort level with the material going into the lab. Upon reviewing our findings and observations we will make our final recommendation and get feedback from our TFs and the course instructor.

Xiang Jin
Arjun Patel
Jorge Rivera
Madi VanWyngarden

Poster Letter: G

Presentation Round: 1

In a physics class of well over 300 students, monitoring each individual’s personal growth and understanding of the material can be a daunting task. It is believed that the use of technology can give instructors the opportunity to teach students the concepts they are personally struggling with, and learn at their own pace. We propose the creation of a website with practice problems organized by topic to present to students as a study tool. Each problem will be accompanied by a video explanation, in which an LA will work through the problem so that the students can see an explanation, learn about the relevant concepts, and check their answers. The problems given to students will range in difficulty from simple conceptual questions to more difficult calculation-based questions. By incorporating conceptual questions in the app, we hope to improve students’ abilities to understand and utilize the underlying concepts of E&M topics, which has been shown to be a major limitation of current physics curricula by McDermott and Shaffer in their analysis of UW undergraduate students. The more involved problems involving calculations will be presented to students in a quiz-like format, with them having to input an answer before they see the explanatory video. We believe this grants additional opportunities for students to extend their physics knowledge, as students learn significantly more by “doing” instead of being told how to solve a problem.

Liz Bakhnov
Isabel Bojorquez-emmons
Hyo Young Choi
Emma Martin
Susie Pan
Vashist Poosapati

Poster Letter: H

Presentation Round: 1

Our proposed project for bettering the PY105 course pertains to improvements that can be utilized by all courses that use Learning Assistants. While LAs are peers with no extra knowledge of the subject, they are expected to help other students understand it through their previous course experience. Yet, learning the subject for themselves does not always translate to being successful in teaching it to others. We believe that the LAs’ previous success in the course can be more effectively harnessed with additional guidance. For our final project in this course, we are proposing a structured, weekly preparation session for the LAs that will allow them to refresh their knowledge of that week’s topics, worksheets, and learning goals while providing preparation for explaining the topics to other students. This idea came from our own experiences of feeling unsure when explaining some course topics. We feel that attending preparation sessions where we would be taught not only the course material but also given tips about how to explain it would be highly beneficial. This measure also creates consistency among the teaching team to ensure that all students are taught according to the course requirements. We surveyed current PY105 students to gauge their opinions on LA preparedness and their feedback indicated that LAs are underprepared. We also surveyed current and previous LAs to gauge their confidence in their teaching and assess any thoughts on these structured preparation sessions. We will propose this idea to our professors and work together to develop preparation sessions.

Charles Son
Maeve Wang

Poster Letter: I

Presentation Round: 1

PY107 is a course designed for students of all backgrounds, ranging from very limited to extensive scientific knowledge. During weeks with a hands-on laboratory experiment, students must hand in a post-lab report that usually includes a quantitative measurement and analysis using the data that they have obtained. Although students are comfortable with identifying the relationship between two variables, we found that a lot of students are having a hard time utilizing Google Sheets or Excel for data analysis. Thus, we wish to allow students to expand on their Excel/Google Sheet skills by holding a workshop to teach students how to adjust axes, delete outliers, graph two trend lines, and interpret their results, along with various other techniques. In the workshop, we will initially present slides with common mistakes. Then, we will show them an example of proper data analysis with extensive explanations of the various components. Consequently, we will allow students to retry their data analysis in one of their labs. We hope to gather feedback from the students on whether or not a Google Sheets/Excel data analysis workshop would benefit the course moving forward. Also, we hope that students will be able to carry this information to other science laboratory courses.

Jason Lin
Maria Lerena Sanchez
Charlie Zhang

Poster Letter: J

Presentation Round: 1

ENG EK301, Mechanics I, is a mandatory course in the engineering track at BU. This course introduces students to several concepts about the fundamentals of engineering. We propose integrating physical models to the learning of each topic to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and intuitive understanding. Seeing real world mechanisms on paper is often difficult for students to understand and learn, and we feel by the students seeing it in real life they will grasp a better understanding and be able to apply it better. Our initiative proposes the incorporation of physical models representing mechanical elements such as supports, hinges, and ropes into the EK301 curriculum. These models will serve as visual and physical tools that can help form mental models and enhance intuition about mechanical interactions that are then examined on paper. These models would be used during discussion sections to better their understanding of the homework. A main example would be pulleys, students often struggle with this mechanism and do not understand the interactions of pulling each rope of a pulley or the interaction between each pulley. By seeing this in person physically and having students able to physically interact with it, we feel it would enhance their understanding of these systems. Integrating these models into the curriculum and creating a more innovative real world applied teaching method would greatly benefit students in this introductory course, as these mechanisms will carry into all the other courses they will take.

Georgia Karantenislis
Sophie Katsitadze
Olivia Scappa

Poster Letter: A

Presentation Round: 2

The first lab in BI107, Diversity and Ecosystem Health, has a 10-minute pre-lab video and an in-lab lecture portion for about 90 minutes. The procedure of the lab is discussed very briefly during the lab; therefore, leaving the students with many questions about how to execute the experiment. We suggest that the pre-lab video be made slightly longer to cover more of the content and allocate the lab lecture time towards discussing the procedure. The aim of extending pre-lab videos is to reduce time in class spent on reviewing context and abstract information. By extending pre-lab videos, we can condense lectures within the lab to essential procedural information and allow students to spend more time exploring and experimenting within the lab. In application, we intend to demonstrate how the Diversity and Ecosystem Health lab can be restructured to a longer pre-lab video with shorter in-lab lecture. For this project, we will completely cut out any of the slides regarding the introduction to biodiversity and anthropogenic influences on the environment; these will be incorporated more thoroughly in the pre-lab video. Having no introduction slides will encourage students to pay attention to the required pre-lab videos. Moreover, the slides themselves should write out the procedure as well as the TF/LA explaining the steps. Most students do not take the time to read the lab manual thoroughly so to ensure student success, clear distinct instructions should be presented to them prior to the start of conducting the experiment.

Claire Anderson
Taylor Breiby
Anna-Maria Marinescu
Alex McKane

Poster Letter: B

Presentation Round: 2

The brainstorm assignment that students are given at the start of Quest 2 is a building block for the remainder of the course and one of the most challenging missions to complete. When students misunderstand this assignment, it can lead to faulty or difficult projects that hinder their learning. It is essential that students have a more thorough understanding of what constitutes a good primary source to best set them up for success in their experiments. Our revision of the brainstorm will consolidate the guidelines and information necessary for reproducing experiments in B315/211. We hope to use the given information in both the brainstorm assignment and grant proposal (GP) requirements to make students aware of the upcoming requirements sooner and mentally connect assignments on a larger scale. Our main objective is to simplify the brainstorm’s TopHat question on project rules using a guided Q&A instead. A series of multiple-choice questions will be asked at the beginning of the assignment to help students hone in on an adequate source before filling out the annotated bibliography. Questions will be asked in the order of a standard research paper, pertaining to introduction, methods, results, and discussion. We also plan on revising the GP requirements flowchart and adding it into the TopHat brainstorm assignment as an image, allowing students to visualize an experiment’s timeline. Overall, these changes will provide a guided structure that allows students to understand and address common misconceptions so they do not negatively impact future assignments.

Hedaya Badr
Theo Kamperides
Rhea Rai
Aaron Uotila

Poster Letter: C

Presentation Round: 2

Through our experiences, we have noticed students losing motivation on their coursework because it is not “mandatory”. At the beginning of the semester, it was easier to manage the coursework. As the material got harder, we observed students starting to lose motivation to complete the material. Since nothing is mandatory, students often feel like they can get away with not doing the problems but that contributes directly to their success in CH101/102. Some test material is based on textbook problems, but it is hard to know what problems are crucial. Making mandatory assignments would greatly benefit the students because it would hold them accountable for learning the material as well as applying their knowledge to the problems. This worksheet would be similar in format to the test, thus providing preparation, and ultimately leading to further intrinsic motivation to do the homework. CH101 is cumulative, so ensuring that all students complete the work would greatly benefit them. However, over 700 students are taking the course, and professors or TFs grading each homework assignment would be extremely difficult. Therefore, homework would be completion-based and graded by LAs. In this way, there would not be a great gain in workload for anyone. Another issue that could be brought up is that students would copy other students or insincerely complete it. However, the net effect of a homework policy would be positive.

Kevin Amoateng
Christina Carlos

Poster Letter: D

Presentation Round: 2

Years of research supports the fact that students absorb poorly the material presented in traditional lectures. This phenomenon is largely attributed to the infeasibility of one absorbing the quantity of information presented during the time constraints of lecture. Therefore, the extent of students’ learning is strongly dependent on their time spent on the lecture material outside of class. While it is vital that students develop effective study habits and complete their assignments, the researchers of this paper also feel that as instructors, they have the responsibility of providing resources that would help bridge the gap between students’ knowledge and lecture material. Carlos and Amoateng have noticed that in their discussion sections, which occur at the end of the week, students are asking them questions that indicate a lack of understanding of the lecture material given at the beginning of the week, or sometimes even the previous week. To remedy this discrepancy comes the proposition that General Chemistry II introduce pre-lecture videos, which are provided in General Chemistry I. Amoateng and Carlos feel that these videos make a helpful introduction to what will be discussed in lecture because they allow students to build a familiarity with the topics before class. Thus, the processes of expanding on the concepts in question and retaining more information from the lecture are eased. The pre-lecture videos include brief introductions to the concepts that are to be covered in lecture and walk students through a simple problem that applies the newly-acquired ideas.

Marisa Crichton-Amaya
Nhat Quang Nguyen
Ivy Yang

Poster Letter: E

Presentation Round: 2

As laboratory learning assistants, (LAs) we aid advanced general chemistry students and assist a Teaching Fellow (TF) during four-hour lab periods to successfully and safely run experiments. In our experience, students have difficulty discerning foundational information from the 50-minute pre-lab lectures. Our LA project aims to bridge the gap in understanding between pre-lab lectures, conducted on Thursdays, and lab periods, which run from Monday to Wednesday of the following week. We constructed short videos to summarise the most crucial and commonly misunderstood concepts from pre-lab lectures for the students to watch shortly before their lab periods. The videos will cover both theoretical concepts and procedural apparatus techniques in a format that can be easily and universally understood, including elements such as closed captioning. We feel that this could be very beneficial for students for whom English is not their first language, for which the laboratory manual’s verbose wording and dense formatting can be formidable. We hope that implementing these videos will enhance both conceptual understanding and success in the lab. We used surveys to measure students’ qualitative understanding of the apparatus and siphon in Lab 8 as well as the conceptual foundations behind gas laws in Lab 9. This video project is conducted in association with another project from fellow Lab LAs Pat and Ajay. Based on our pre-lab videos, they will create “exit-ticket” questions to ask students before they leave the lab period, hoping to increase fundamental theory understanding and comprehension.

Clara Chung
Belen Karakullukcu
Sophia Karpouzas
Nicole Robertson

Poster Letter: F

Presentation Round: 2

NE 101 (Introduction to Neuroscience), NE 203 (Principles of Neuroscience Lab), NE 218 (Fundamentals of Neuroscience II Intensive Lab) are comprehensive courses that include learning the basics (e.g., ion movement, electrical conductivity within neurons, neurotransmitter function, etc) and gaining the tools to understand key concepts such as pathway mechanisms, consequences of lesions and UAS/GAL4 systems. With that said, students enter the course with varying levels of knowledge in both biology and neuroscience, and it is difficult to gauge the pace to teach certain subjects within the course for this reason. To combat this, and to ensure students are coming in confident that they can succeed in the course, we propose releasing weekly pre-lecture videos (similar to the chemistry department). That way students can come to lecture primed and prepared to learn the material. Pre-lecture videos would also ensure a more in-depth understanding of the content being taught, and give students the ability to apply their knowledge into real-world scenarios. This would especially benefit those who did not have the opportunity to have previous exposure to the content, and serve as a refresher for those who had.

Shreyas Puducheri

Poster Letter: G

Presentation Round: 2

Understanding the dynamics that contribute to academic success and group performance is very importance in educational settings. My project is a research project that aims to analyze the characteristics and performance metrics of students enrolled in PY 104 at Boston University. Data will be collected through a detailed google forms survey that asks about various aspects of student life, including academic history, language proficiency, prior academic experience, employment status, study habits, attendance, and course engagement. Additionally, academic grades will be exported from Blackboard to complement the survey data. The student names will not be collected, but the last four digits of the student BUIDs will be collected as unique identifiers for each student. The primary analytical techniques I will employ include various unsupervised clustering and regression models. I aim to identify clusters of students that share similar attributes, creating profiles that could be indicative of specific student success pathways or challenges through the use of k-means and Principal Component Analysis, potentially leading to a more data-driven course curriculum. Various regression models such as random forests and linear regression models will be used to predict student grades and to analyze the factors useful for predicting student grades. As a potential later-stage extension, I’d like to explore the feasibility of employing advanced relational modeling techniques like relational regression and Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) to study group dynamics. This part of the study may or may not fall within the project’s scope due to its complexity and limitations of the data collected.

Colin Gao
Florence Huang
Susan Wu
Ruishu Zhang

Poster Letter: H

Presentation Round: 2

One aspect of improvement that we thought could be included in PY105 and PY106 to help facilitate preparation for class could be the incorporation of a post-session video on EdPuzzle at the end of every unit. As a result, we would have a total of 5 post-session videos for each respective quiz that explain the main equations and concepts learned for the unit. This can be included in the syllabus as additional participation credit for the students. We have brought up our idea to Professor Trunfio and the idea was approved. We believe this idea can be very beneficial to the students in PY 105 and PY 106 because it serves as a mini-review in addition to their practice quiz that the LAs can make to help students better understand the topics before their quiz in the hopes of clarifying and summarizing concepts. There will also be a few questions for students to answer during the session. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our idea, we plan on creating a sample post-session for the upcoming quiz in both classes. Following the quiz, there will be a survey questioning the benefits of this post-session.

Daniel Gergeus
Sofia Kamal
Kriya Patel

Poster Letter: I

Presentation Round: 2

In the realm of STEM education, the creation of study aids, such as summary sheets, plays a pivotal role in students’ learning processes. This project aims to investigate the value of students creating their own summary sheets. The purpose is to understand the thought processes and strategies that students employ while making a summary sheet to evaluate the benefits and challenges of making a summary sheet. Furthermore, the goal aims to answer whether creating their own summary sheets enhances students’ comprehension and exam preparation. Concurrently, we will conduct a series of think-aloud interviews with the Learning Assistants. During these interviews, one of the LAs will create a summary sheet while vocalizing their thought process. The other two LAs will actively take notes and pose questions for clarification such that we may gain insight into the learning processes that take place in the act of making a summary/review sheet. Additionally, after both summary sheets have been generated, students will be given the opportunity to offer feedback on their utility in preparing for exams. We will compare the insights gained by the think-aloud interview to those gained from working with the students. This project is significant as it offers a deeper understanding of how students engage with study aids in physics education. By examining the benefits of student-created summary sheets, we aim to provide evidence-based recommendations for enhancing the learning experience in STEM classes.

Ankita Tiwari
Andy Wang
Maosheng Wu

Poster Letter: J

Presentation Round: 2

Within the EK301 and EK121/122 courses, students have to attend lectures and complete work outside of classes. Often, students forget or do not fully understand the content within lectures and then later struggle with the homework. While resources are available outside of classes, they are often lengthy and detailed, requiring a large amount of time and effort to search through. In addition, students may not be able to attend office hours due to scheduling conflicts and external commitments. Another problem students have is a lack of connection with the LAs, which may make it harder for some students to ask questions or approach them. In EK301 and EK121/122, only some students ask questions during the lecture group problems, while others do not reach out even if they are confused. We propose creating a multifunctional LA-led website, including a summary of the weekly material, information about the LAs, and surveys. It will act as an informal, laid-back resource that students can utilize to better connect with the LAs, learn the content, and navigate through college in general.

Steven Kaplan
Tiffany Chen
Christopher Hyon
Sanjana Devalla

Poster Letter: A

Presentation Round: 3

In BI107, students are taught the basic aspects of scientific writing in preparation for future biology courses – one example being the 2-week avian optimal foraging lab. The aim of the first week of this lab is to review the scientific method and chi square calculations; however, the lab is heavily lecture-based and less so interactive lab work. Our goal is to reconstruct this lab so the scientific method and χ2 lessons are taught with more student engagement. This could be through simulations of the field study lab prior to the week 2 lab, allowing more opportunity for classroom discussions. With the redesign, we hope students can complete most of the lab procedure by utilizing learning with a hands-on approach. Since Avian optimal foraging week 1 leads students through the steps of writing a scientific paper, the optimal way to teach this would be conducting a mock lab of the following week’s field lab. Throughout the lab, students will follow the basic outlines of a scientific method-based lab experiment through a lab procedure rather than one long-winded lecture. We propose that squirrels, possessing similar foraging tactics to birds, can be used for the experimentation process in the simulated field lab. Then, the students will briefly write their data results and finish by doing an χ2 calculation. Using a walkthrough example of the scientific method would ensure students a better understanding of the concept of writing a scientific paper.

Nalin Aggarwal
Shea Dulin
Anastasia Isakova
Juliana Walrod
Natalie Will

Poster Letter: B

Presentation Round: 3

The laboratory portion of Human/Systems Physiology at Boston University (CAS BI211/315) challenges students to undergo the process of planning, designing, carrying out, and analyzing past human physiology experiments with a large emphasis on teamwork. As past students of the laboratory, the BI211 and BI315 Learning Assistants (LAs) sympathize with current students struggling to find course content in laboratory resources to answer their questions. To maximize the use of LAs in the course, creating an organized master spreadsheet categorizing frequently asked questions with their respective resources will decrease the number of questions asked during the lab period. As a result, LAs will be able to spend more time helping students with the lab itself rather than on where to find specific resources. Additionally, we hope to remind students of the abundance of resources available to them and the contents of each one. We aim to create a Google Sheets spreadsheet, uploaded as a file under resources, with different sheets for each week of lab. Each sheet contains any resources necessary for that week labeled as they are in TopHat. Ultimately, we hope to consolidate resources so students don’t have to search through several resources to find vital information. We will also add a sheet for frequently asked questions throughout the semester along with relevant resources.

Adrienne Allison
Maria Homann
Kyri Stavros

Poster Letter: C

Presentation Round: 3

One of the chief complaints from students in CH101 is that the experiments they conduct in the lab feel disconnected from the content they learn in lectures and discussions. They also have trouble understanding what they are doing in the labs on a chemical level, often following the procedure without any idea of the chemistry behind it. While learning laboratory skills is crucial, the effectiveness of this practice is contingent on there being clear connections to the content students are exposed to in other course components. As a solution, replacing some of the labs with discussion-based group work would allow the students more time to digest the material and thoroughly understand the content. Along with that, establishing a direct connection between labs and the key concepts they learn in lecture gives students the opportunity to put what they learn in lecture into practice, which will allow for a better understanding of the conceptual material. This solution simultaneously streamlines labs to increase the efficiency of students’ learning and application of lab skills and increases opportunities for dialogic learning beyond the 50 minutes per week they have now. Furthermore, establishing a clearer connection between lab work and the content they see on quizzes will increase students’ appreciation for the lab component, motivating them to actually understand the experiments they are performing instead of blindly going through the motions of the step-by-step procedures they are given.

Lili Hyde
Sarah Kornfeld
Carlo Lanza
Owen Tan
Rama Varanasi
Sydney Wu

Poster Letter: D

Presentation Round: 3

CH 109 is based on a large lecture course and first year students often find the 75 minute lectures overwhelming. Other BU chemistry programs have pre-lecture videos that prevent information overload during lectures. For our project, we created similar educational video assignments. With a small background in lecture information, students enter lectures less confused and learn more. These prelecture videos are specifically for lecture content between their second and third exam. The videos are a short, efficient method to deliver the basics of information to new topics such as hybridization and molecular orbital theory. Students can develop a basic understanding to which greater detail can be added while attending the lecture. Within the videos are worked-out practice questions that require the students to engage while watching them. To relieve any stress of the students, the questions and videos were based purely on completion, not correctness. To analyze the effectiveness of our prelecture videos, we administered a survey to CH109 students. This evaluated their understanding and retention of course material and preparedness and study methods for their second exam. The same survey will be administered after completing their third exam after they have had the opportunity to use pre-lecture videos as a resource. In addition to the survey, we will compare scores between the second and third exams to determine the effectiveness of our videos. We predict an increase in the number of prepared students, and an increase in scores between the second and third exams.

Megan Goudge
Akiva Zeff
Michelle Zhao

Poster Letter: E

Presentation Round: 3

A single semester of a prerequisite chemistry course is insufficient to allow the students to fully grasp the material. We aim to see if the context of questions helps the students to better understand the subject. The purpose of our project is to determine how categorizing questions impacts how students perceive them, both in what questions they choose and how well they answer them. We believe that the students will feel more confident in answering questions categorized by skill rather than subject. A significant difference in student perception could inform how segments of the course should best be arranged. We ran two review sessions to help the students prepare for a chemistry exam and collected data. The review sessions were themed after the game show Jeopardy, with a board of twenty questions divided among four categories. In the first session, the questions were categorized into different chemistry topics, and in the second session the questions were categorized based on required skills students have been performing throughout their educational path. We divided the students into 3 groups of 4 to 6 people and recorded the order in which they chose the questions and how many groups got each question correct. We found that the students were more confident in choosing higher-difficulty questions when they were categorized based on skill than when they were categorized based on subject. However, this increased confidence did not correlate with better performance on the questions as the subject-based group did better.

Sehjin Jo
Ranjan Narendra
Laima Ozola-Szoke

Poster Letter: F

Presentation Round: 3

Lab-based courses have a significant impact on the learning experience of students because of their hands-on nature which often creates an environment for higher quality learning. Utilizing concepts in real world settings has been proven effective both in previous studies and through current student feedback. NE212 and NE203 are both lecture-lab courses that rely on sufficient understanding of course material for success in labs. As neuroscience courses, the contents are additionally complex and often interconnected. While there is no doubt that the lecture-lab model is an efficient educational paradigm, we have found that it loses its effectiveness when fundamental course material is not fully understood by students during labs. This is evidenced by student requests in evaluations for additional concept review as well as anecdotal evidence from our own experiences as LAs. Therefore, we propose to begin lab sessions with a brief 2-question quiz summarizing the most significant concepts covered in the lecture. So as to not impose additional academic stress, the quizzes will be graded leniently and with little weight in the overall lab grade. Questions may be both multiple choice or free response, but will be thought-provoking. We hypothesize that including this quiz at the beginning of lab sessions will not only allow us to gauge students’ understanding of content and readiness for the lab, but also engage students in meaningful metacognitive thinking. Overall, this project is expected to fulfill the requests of many students and enhance the educational quality of the NE212 and NE203 labs.

Chuhan Bao

Poster Letter: G

Presentation Round: 3

The topic of this project is inspired by the student survey given out after approximately 1.5 months of LA-ing. Among the 47 responses, it was noticeable that more than 90% of the students agree that the LA is spending enough time with them/ their group, yet nearly 40% of the students utilize their LA as a resource with frequency of “occasionally” or “infrequently”. Since my class is taught in “studio” form, we expect the students to discuss with their classmates, and also seek help from their LA when they need. According to the short answer question asking students for suggestions, one idea besides suggestions about the LA’s personal capability appeared repeatedly. Several students suggested that they hope the LA can “be more available”, and “check in more”. This indicates that a certain number of students expect LAs to ask them if they are doing alright, instead of raise their hands actively. From the instructor’s perspective, I personally believe that in a class with 80 people, it will be hard and inefficient for the instructor to ask the students one by one in order to check if they have any question. Besides, as an introvert myself, I get too intimidated to ask questions and just focus on finishing the work quickly. In this case, I actually don’t like getting disturbed by instructors checking me. This leads to the topic of this project: how much students actually need their instructors?

Pat Cezon
Ajay Kent

Poster Letter: H

Presentation Round: 3

CH 109 lab enhances critical thinking skills by providing applications of lecture material and requires students to understand the importance of each step in a procedure. However, we have noted a deficit in students’ ability to apply lecture material to lab. The purpose of this project is to implement exit tickets to evaluate the students’ comprehension of the fundamental theory of the lab. Exit tickets will include a question regarding the most relevant concepts of the lab that are crucial for them to successfully complete their post-lab. In a related project, we aim to improve the comprehensibility these concepts via supplemental pre-lab videos. The two projects will work together to provide this information before the lab and assess students’ understanding afterwards. Understanding the fundamental concepts before leaving lab will ensure students have a sufficient knowledge base before attempting to analyze data and answer questions that require critical thinking. Therefore, we expect to see an increase in students’ critical thinking and more confidence in approaching post-labs.

Jaren Friesen

Poster Letter: I

Presentation Round: 3

PY 405 is a polarizing course in the core physics curriculum at Boston University. Though electromagnetism is one of the more cohesive subjects an undergraduate physics student will study, the material is difficult, involving advanced methods of vector calculus and differential equations that many students will see for the first time, and the structure of the course can be uniquely demanding. Homework is computentially intensive in that students are expected to make extensive use of Wolfram Mathematica, while exam questions tend to be a conceptual challenge for which students get little practice. There is also a lack of harmony between lectures and discussion sections, the latter of which only sometimes serve as an opportunity for further practice or collaboration. The goal of this project is to bridge the gap between different sources of learning in PY 405 and provide intentional practice with the kinds of questions students are ultimately expected to be able to answer. The plan will involve introducing an interactive element to discussion sections by giving students a worksheet walking them through an exam-style question and setting up a more challenging homework-style example of the concept, and finally presenting the solution through an example Mathematica notebook. After this discussion section, students will be asked to respond to a survey in which they note how helpful they found this format, and the extent to which they believe each component should appear again in PY 405, as well as PY 406 for those who expect to take it.

Sarah Koesema

Poster Letter: J

Presentation Round: 3

In ME357, Intro to CAD, there are a range of students beginning from those who have never seen a CAD program, to those who have years of experience in multiple CAD programs. Since this is a beginner level course, it aims to accommodate everyone. However, since this is also only a one semester course, the course material moves relatively quickly in order to cover everything before the end of the semester. As such, students can struggle to grasp certain ideas. I propose that additional videos and/or demonstrations are posted to the course website for each unit to give students more exposure to the material and guidance when working through assignments. Additionally, students can look back to these videos in the future if they need a refresher on certain topic