KCC FIG – Undergraduate Research as a High Impact Practice

Minutes of the Meeting of Fri, 5/6/2022, 10:20am via Zoom

Mary Theresa Ortiz – Facilitator

Present:  Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO Faculty), Karen Colombo (KCC Nursing faculty),

Lilja Nielsen (KCC BIO Faculty), Mary Theresa Ortiz (KCC BIO Faculty)

Meeting began at 10:20am.

1. Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming.
2. We did introductions and brief research backgrounds for all present since we had a new participant.
   1. Grace discussed her soil diversity project in collaboration with the KCC Urban Farm using Winogradsky columns.
   2. Lilja discussed her research with students in CSTEP using online and molecular databases.
   3. Mary shared an update on the joint research project she and Laura Spinu are doing with their Speech and Biostatistics classes. She will share it after the meeting with the group.
   4. Karen shared how she wants to incorporate research into her Nursing classes. She may want to work with a CRSP student.
3. Grace explained that Kieren Howard is the Director of CRSP at KCC. She also explained that Karen would need to complete the CITI Certification to do research with human subjects.  Also, CUNY IRB approval is required for collaborating with human subjects.  IRB applications are via a CUNY link.  There are deadlines to adhere to.  Here is the IRB link:

https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/irb/index.html

4. Karen did a project with her class where students submitted a survey with questions on how the pandemic affected their ability to learn.
5. Grace suggested having students design/create surveys. Can use previous work as a teaching tool.
6. Gordon Ally-Young should be contacted regarding HRTP.
7. Grace shared some useful links:

https://hipresearch.commons.gc.cuny.edu/        The link for this FIG.

https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/wac/fellows.html    The KCC WAC link and Writing Fellows.

https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/faculty/kctl/StrategiesforSuccesswithESLstudents.html      KCC ESL website.

The second and third links above were posted because we discussed issues with students writing unintelligible documents.

8. We plan to continue meeting in the Fall 2022 semester. Format TBD. Mary will send the minutes of this meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 11:15am.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz

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.

1. Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming.
2. 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.
3. Laura discussed how different languages have differences in pitch depending on whether a male or female is speaking.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. 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.)
7. Mary discussed an ABT article that was published in March about undergraduate research in the classroom and the positive effect it has on students.
8. 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

KCC FIG – Undergraduate Research as a High Impact Practice

Minutes of the Meeting of Fri, 3/18/2022, 10:20am via Zoom

Mary Theresa Ortiz – Facilitator

Present:  Grace Axler-DiPerte (KCC BIO Faculty), Christina Colon (KCC BIO Faculty),

Michael Hojnacki (AP Science at NDHS and KCC College Now Science Faculty)

Lilja Nielsen (KCC BIO Faculty), Mary Ortiz (KCC BIO Faculty)

Stephanie Palumbo (NDHS Science Teacher and Science Research Program)

Meeting began at 10:20am.

1. Mary welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming. Everyone introduced themselves.
2. Grace shared that because this is our first semester back from the pandemic, she is putting on hold a more extensive research and interaction with the farm in her BIO5000 (General Microbiology) class with respect to the Winogradsky columns. She will be working, though, with Shannon.
3. Mary discussed the joint linguistics research project between her Biostatistics classes (BIO9100, MAT9100) and Laura Spinu’s Speech 29 (Voice and Articulation) and Speech 40 (Phonetics) classes. Laura’s classes will generate the data.  Mary’s classes will analyze the data.  Mary explained how the logistics of the project have evolved over the last few of months since the modality of Mary’s classes went from in-person to online asynchronous.  Issues (ex. classes not meeting in person together, one-on-one interaction) were shared.
   1. Grace suggested the students could use Flip Grid to record videos to explain their part in the project to be shared via Blackboard for all of the students to have a better understanding of the project. Mary thought perhaps this could be an extra credit assignment for any interested students to do in her classes.  Grace offered to help with this.
   2. Christina shared she has her students narrate their PowerPoint slides to explain concepts. Maybe the students could do this as part of the project to explain different parts.  Christina said that you can re-record narrations for a slide, save and edit them.  She says the students give one-minute narrations and it works well.  Make the PPT first, save it as a PPT, then go in and record a narration on each slide.  Then upload it to Blackboard.  Christina has the students check each other’s work and give feedback to their classmates.
4. Michael asked what we want the high school students to know before leaving high school.
   1. Lilja suggested math skills and the Metric System and measurement.
   2. Christina suggested reading strategically; knowing process and not just repeating what is read.
   3. Grace suggested deep reading; give critical analysis.
   4. Mary suggested graphing and basic statistics (mean, standard deviation) and what it means.
   5. Grace suggested learning something about working with unknowns.
   6. Grace and Lilja both suggested the students be made aware that in real labs there isn’t a right answer; not everything works. In research we deal with what no one has ever seen before.
5. Stephanie shared that in the Fall the science research students at New Dorp High School (NDHS) did a hydroponics project where they grew mustard greens, used a budget; etc. In the Spring they will work on the environment in NYC, recycling, waste, GMO perceptions, and watering projects with plants.
6. Michael explained that the “NYC Science Fair” is now “Regeneron” and judges are needed for the event. The question was posed if college students can judge the science fair.  Michael will find out.
7. Christina shared about her research with students helping to tag horseshoe crabs.
8. Christina discussed her research on coyotes in NYC, and she and Mary discussed possibly teaming up the BIO5300 (Ecology) and BIO/MAT9100 (Biostatistics) classes to do a joint project.
9. Our next meeting will be on Fri April 1, 2022 at 10:20am via Zoom. Mary will send the Zoom info out with the minutes of this meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 11:20pm.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Mary Theresa Ortiz