KCC FIG – Undergraduate Research as a High Impact Practice
Minutes of the Meeting of Fri, 4/1/2022, 10:20am via Zoom
Mary Theresa Ortiz – Facilitator
Present: Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO Faculty), Mary Theresa Ortiz (KCC BIO Faculty),
Laura Spinu (KCC Comm & Perf Arts Faculty)
Meeting began at 10:20am.
- Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming.
- Mary shared an update on the joint research project she and Laura are doing with their classes. Mary explained that, even though she thought it was explained in the instructions she posted for her students, it was not clear to them that each subject in the practice data table had about 120 rows of data. The students thought that each row was a different subject. She shared a summary data table that show each subject, the rows their data were in, and the total number of rows with data for each subject. This helped the students see that there were 16 subjects, and each had many rows of data.
- Laura discussed how different languages have differences in pitch depending on whether a male or female is speaking.
- Laura and Mary discussed different scenarios for paring their students in the research project their classes are doing together this semester. Discussed were 4 groups with 4 students each, 8 groups with 2 students each, etc. They also discussed possible ways and venues for all the students to get together at the end of the semester. Zoom and the Brooklyn Public Library were suggested as possible locations. Laura and Mary will have to give this more thought, especially since Mary’s Biostatistics classes are online asynchronous (cannot require them to attend in person).
- Laura mentioned that students from the Biostatistics classes interested in doing more linguistics research this summer could apply for KCoR. She will make the application available later in the semester.
- Grace spoke about her collaboration with the KCC Urban Farm to do the Winogradsky columns in her BIO5000 (General Microbiology) classes. She spoke about the microbe diversity study of the soil. The sand collected for the Winogradsky columns this semester came from Manhattan Beach and Great Kills Park. The classes are comparing the microbes in the sand with those in soil, and those in cultivated versus uncultivated sediment. Laura mentioned the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens as a possible place to get soil and to collaborate with. (Since we are from CUNY, we have free admission there.)
- Mary discussed an ABT article that was published in March about undergraduate research in the classroom and the positive effect it has on students.
- Our next meeting will be on Fri May 6, 2022, at 10:20am via Zoom. Mary will send the Zoom info out with the minutes of this meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 11:05am.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication license.
