Matthew Belskie testing Toolset view (DND)

Helping Faculty Articulate - Supporting Creative and Interactive Course Design in the School of Dentistry

The overarching goal of this project is to improve course design across the Adams School of Dentistry. The School is undergoing curriculum transformation to promote more active learning and creative solutions to instructional design. This project will help to revitalize the learning experiences of students in courses that were traditionally didactic instruction in both dental surgery and dental hygiene. The project will help faculty integrate the use of Articulate Storyline 3 software, a program designed to help users create instructional content that is widely accessible across digital platforms. Faculty will participate in workshops and be able to loan laptops and AV equipment from the ASOD Academic Support Center to use the Articulate software to create more discussions, assessments, and application-based structure in their courses.

Results: Due to COVID, unexpected responsibilities in transitioning courses online, and the need to identify a new collaborator, progress on this project has paused.

EXCITE: Expanding Carolina’s Immersive Technology Ecosystem

This proposal builds on the groundwork laid down in a prior CFE/Lenovo award with the mission to support a number of projects and proposals across the university and foster a thriving ecosystem of immersive technology at Carolina. Faculty interested in integrating immersive technologies into their courses often require technological expertise to understand the range of software and hardware that might apply to their subject. Additionally, they need access to those apps and devices, and someone to teach themselves and their students how to use them. Most importantly, faculty need partners who can help them to determine the best ways to truly integrate these technologies into their courses to enhance student learning and outcomes.

This project will unfold in three key areas: (1) Projects: In-depth partnership with approximately 4 projects throughout the year with a focus on integrating technology into curricula; (2) Faculty Engagement & Consults: Consulting with faculty and students looking to use immersive technology, and give workshops or presentations to select groups about how the technology applies in their field; and (3) Campus-wide Ecosystem-Building: Benefit all of campus through support for community building, awareness raising, and engagement through the AR/VR interest group, student group, events, workshops, online resources, Twitter outreach, providing connections across campus, and introductions. The goal is for library’s efforts to enhance a thriving ecosystem; a community of people engaged in helping each other. We have mapped the landscape of departments and labs on campus supporting VR, including the 3D workshops and VR stations at the libraries which are open to all at UNC.

Results: With updates of the Project PI to Nandita Mani, and Co-PI to Lynn Eades, the project has led to these presentations:

Moynihan & Eades (2019) “Disability, Enhancement, and Empowerment: Giving Users Superpowers Through Emerging Technologies” at the IDEAL ’19: Advancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Libraries & Archives.

Mani, Eades & Batista (2020) “Empowering Teaching and Learning Through AR/VR” at the

EDUCAUSE ELI Annual Meeting.

Technology-Enhanced Opportunities for Experiential Learning of Research Methods for Human Development and Family Studies

Human Development and Family Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study examining the biological, relational, and sociocultural influences that shape families and human development across the lifespan. HDFS undergraduates go on to numerous health and helping professions, and rigorous experiences with research methodologies used to obtain valid information about human functioning and evaluate programs aimed at improving lives across ages, contexts, and cultures is critical for their training. The goal of this project is to build upon a ‘flipped classroom’ by creating three new and highly innovative enhancements that will increase the dynamic and direct learning experiences for students. These include (1) a series of virtual reality vignettes to provide dynamic and realistic opportunities explore sensitive content, (2) a hands-on experience with bio-behavioral data collection methodologies, and (3) the development of an online searchable repository of video clips from existing online lectures that would allow students to “ask” questions about specific topics and be directed to relevant material.

Results: While slowed by the pandemic (pause in video recording in the classroom for the VR portion), updates included progress on background work and planning, interviewing, and scripting in anticipation of returning to classrooms.

The Greenlaw Gameroom: Transforming Greenlaw 316 into a Gaming Classroom

Our project focuses on fostering instructional innovation in multiple literature and composition courses in the Department of English and Comparative Literature by centering gaming pedagogy. The Digital Literacy and Communication (DLC) Lab will offer support for instructors in developing best practices for games-based pedagogy through training, workshops, and most importantly access to gaming equipment and instructional space in the proposed Greenlaw Gameroom. The courses listed below will be taught in 2019-2020 academic year, and the instructors listed have agreed to work with the DLC Lab to integrate games-based pedagogy into their classes.

Results: A phase I update on the project includes this Gameroom promo. A full progress report can be found Here which described an active/playful learning classroom environment that includes furniture, gaming equipment, along with a website and the establishment of one-on- one consultations, multiple gaming classes both remote and in person, and the establishment of the gameroom as a space for research. Accompanying these activities are new successful efforts in communication and outreach with extensive attention to remote learning during the pandemic and future plans for renovations, and assessment tools.

3D scanning, photogrammetry, and CAD for multiphysics simulations of tissues, organs and organisms

The purpose of this project is to integrate 3D scanning, computer assisted design, 3D illustration, and multiphysics simulation technology into lessons and semester projects for BIOL 064 (Fall 2019) and into two lab activities for BIOL 226/226L (Spring 2020). The specific technology to be integrated includes Autodesk Fusion, Autodesk Meshmixer, Autodesk ReCap, Adobe Photoshop, and COMSOL Multiphysics. This software will be used to perform simulations of flows around and through 3D models of organs and organisms (BIOL 64) and to simulate diffusion of chemicals and heat in biological structures (BIOL 226L). Students will use Adobe Photoshop for 3D illustration and the creation of images for semester project reports and presentations. The topical focus this particular FYS is to describe organisms living within moving fluids using both mathematical and physical models.

Results: Integrating computing and visualization in my BIOL 064 Flows through and around organs and organisms was successful with assessment showing strong improvement and student enjoyment with using COMSOL in particular. While the implementation of the lab in Biol 226 (valve flows) has been delayed due to the difficulty in a remote environment, progress has been made on a paper on the BIOL 064 project to submit to the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology that will include some of the student evaluation data. Finally, a project to make IBAMR easy to install and run as a free alternative to COMSOL has advanced and should expand the impact of the project to colleges and universities that do not have COMSOL licenses.

Collaborative Workflow Development for Teaching Using Holographic Displays

This unique collaborative effort between the Curriculum in Archaeology (College of Arts and Sciences) and the Department of Radiology (School of Medicine) leverages the synergistic expertise of the two groups. The Archeology team has developed photogrammetric and photo-overlay techniques that place a realistic “texture” on 3-D objects. This significantly enhances the visualization of objects, transforming them from bland 3-D models to realistic objects that closely resemble the originals. With such visualizations, students can closely examine and even “handle” precious artifacts and fossil casts without risk of damage. The Radiology team has developed an expertise in extracting the 3-D data from different imaging modalities (CT and MRI). These modalities can rapidly scan biological or nonbiological (artifacts) items without risk of damage to the objects. In archaeology, teaching tools will be developed to introduce students to ancient artifacts and hominin fossils using 3-D technology. In Radiology, teaching tools focused on complex 3D anatomy will be developed based on anonymized and publically available CT and MRI data. The Looking Glass Hologram allows the visualization of 3-D digital objects without the need for virtual reality glasses utilizing a light-field display technology. This enables collaborative discussions and interactive teaching without the need for virtual reality goggles that limit the number of people who can view the object, and more importantly, the ability of participants to interact with each other in the learning process.

Results: Most recent updates include the creation of more than 70 models in 3D of their fossil cast collection along with progress on a set of “teaching modules” built around this collection. Completed models can been seen Here. The medical side of the project has shifted towards virtual teaching techniques since the single screen is not compatible with multiple students. To enhance this effort, they have engaged a realistic 3-D patient avatar who understands human speech and responds following a predefined script. A sample of the system at work on Looking Glass platform appears Here. Also, they have developed a low cost 4-D video recording technique that can easily be deployed for both medical and archaeology teaching using off-the- shelf hardware.

Web-based Interactive Interprofessional Modules Advancing Fundamentals of Population Health and Health Policy while Fostering Interprofessional Communication

This project will develop interactive, interprofessional modules to address the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies (Values/Ethics, Roles/Responsibilities, Interprofessional Communication, and Teams and Teamwork), and to connect students across multiple professional schools and geographic locations. Colleagues in the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, Dentistry, Social Work, and Pharmacy will collaborate to design modules that promote team-based care.

Results: Given that their project is web-based, it was possible to meet the need for more online learning as clinical rotations in the school of medicine were paused. To address the challenge of creating accurate rosters of students moving from their 3rd to 4th years between 2 courses where the web-based modules are embedded, they have embedded these modules entirely in the 3rd year course.

Revolutionary Teaching: Exploring Latin American Insurgencies through Live Documentary

This project charters a new pedagogical approach to bring the history of modern Latin American revolutions and culture into the university classroom by using “live documentary” that fuses traditional documentary form with real-time interactions between students, experts, and a documentarian. Students will examine the multiple causes, trajectories, and effects of armed conflicts that swept through Latin America. Students will also engage with the digital humanities to produce their own historical videos via small group projects in which students write, film, and edit short films on course topics. The course will take advantage of resources available in an updated flexible classroom space.

Results: Project planning and resources were completed, but course disrupted due to the pandemic and shift to remote teaching. A collaboration with Duke on the project has advanced with Michael Betts who has pressed forward with IRB reviews of assessment of student outcomes. A systematic study is ongoing of the impact of this interactive teaching module on student engagement and student learning.

Electronic Laboratory Notebooks for New Neuroscience Methodology Laboratory Courses

These faculty help lead the cross-campus, interdisciplinary effort for the new neuroscience major which has grown quickly among undergraduate students. They will offer a new series of four research methods courses to provide hands-on lab experiences to students. Teaching students how to create and maintain Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) is an essential skill for students in the modern STEM workforce in industry, government, and academia. Students will learn how to design neuroscience experiments and will use ELNs to create detailed records of experimental procedures, data collection, results, and conclusions to conduct and report on their research.

Results: Despite the pandemic, Sabrina Robertson has been able to incorporate the ELNs in a neuroscience wet-lab course (Spring 2020); and several of her students in Spring 2020 presented research posters on their lab findings virtually at the UNC Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research.

The BeAM Toolkit: Supporting Blended Learning Modules with Digital Technology

The BeAM (Be A Maker) Makerspace program has four campus locations and has grown quickly to over 4,000 campus users annually. BeAM staff have provided face-to-face orientation and training events for faculty and students on all tools via small groups and hands-on individual instruction which is at capacity. PIs will create online orientation and training modules on various BeAM tools (3D printer, laser printer, etc.). The modules will follow evidence-based learning practices, provide learners with longer-term retention and confidence with skills, and solve capacity problems for staff and locations by allowing users to complete initial or updated training prior to BeAM usage.

Results: Project completed. Development and piloting were completed on modules for Orientation (in person and online in Sakai), the 3D Printer, and Laser Cutter. Given the shift to remote teaching, they also added online modules and digital learning approaches.

The Sky’s the Limit: Promoting Innovative Drone Technology in Environmental Research and Teaching

The focus of this project is to design and execute a five-day drone (unmanned aerial system, UAS) course and create online learning modules to provide experience, confidence, and skills for faculty to begin incorporating drone technology into classroom curricula and research applications. Participants will be prepared to obtain their FAA Remote Pilot Certification and will plan and execute a flight operation to collect and analyze geospatial data for a nearby natural system.

Results: Project completed. Endeavors Magazine covered the project in their presentation Here

(“Taking Research to New Heights.”) UNC’s The Well also covered their progress Here.