The Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning annually awards faculty engaged in scholarly teaching, scholarship of teaching and learning or disciplinary-based educational research with funds and expertise to support projects that advance implementation and/or research of instructional best practices in Ohio State courses.
Two Ohio State Lima professors have been awarded grants for 2021.
Fábio Leite
associate professor of psychology
"How does the adoption of high-utility learning strategies change as students take 'Intro to Psych (Psych 1100).'"
Project goals: The grant project will study student’s use of high-utility learning strategies (i.e., adopted strategies while studying that support student success in course assignments and exams). Study results may help instructors of introductory courses to help students adopt/consolidate useful studying strategies for a successful college tenure from their first semester, in turn helping students to maximize their learning in route to their degrees.
Virginia Tompkins
associate professor of psychology
“Senior to Senior: Connecting Advanced Undergraduate Students to Residents in Long-Term Care for Weekly Chats”
Project goals: There are two overarching aims of the “Senior to Senior Project.” The first aim is to increase students’ research methods skills and self-confidence. Advanced undergraduate students, aka seniors, will achieve these aims by conducting weekly chats with an older adult in the community. The research project will involve assigning two older adults to each student, collecting pretest information on each, conducting the weekly chats with one, and then collecting post-test information on each. Thus, students will be able to collect data on group differences between those who chatted weekly and those who did not (e.g., loneliness, symptoms of depression). By randomly assigning one of the pair to the weekly chats and the other to receive no weekly chat, students will better understand basic experimental design, such as random assignment to groups, group comparisons, and pretest-posttest design. Students will also complete training in research ethics before the project begins, submit a written report on their weekly chats each week, and engage in regular discussions about the project throughout the semester. By assigning each student to two residents, as a class students will be able to examine the larger sample together and share their experiences with one another.
The second goal of this project is to improve attitudes towards older adults and increase empathy for, comfort with, and knowledge of older adults and decrease students’ ageism.