Month: March 2017

Christian Sorensen is a PhD student with ME. (You can see his LinkedIn profile here.)  In our Strategy Sprint yesterday he asked an important question.

How could re|course teams help our student organizations to grow and prosper?

Well, the short answer is we have no idea. So let’s explore. Our first challenge is coming up with a list of all the student organizations. Then, we need to listen for some  really good ideas about how we could collaborate.

There’s a virtuous cycle the Christian suggested  we develop.

If we can get more faculty more involved with student organizations, chances are student organizations will attract more students. And if we attract more students, will attract more faculty.

In other words the whole system will become more vibrant.

The challenge course is figuring out where to start.

As a first step, we are compiling a list of student organizations.  Here’s a snap shot of the white board we took after yesterday’s session.

If you want to help,  please connect with Ed Morrison (edmorrison@purdue.edu).

Who is doing what research?

How can I participate?

It turns out these very simple questions are not very easy to answer.

So, our recourse team for Undergraduate Research has come up with an idea.

Why not design a Research Hub specifically for undergraduates so that they can explore the research opportunities available to them?

Research skills take time to develop. So it makes sense to start early in your undergraduate career. But until you have a  map with some guideposts, it’s easy to get lost and frustrated.

Chris Goldenstein’s thoughts on a wireframe for the research hub

Right now, the world of undergraduate research within ME is difficult to navigate. We can make it a whole lot easier by coming up with a web design that is accessible, flexible, and easy to update. We’re looking at designs like this one: highly visual, fast to load, easy to explore.  All built on a WordPress platform.

In our last Strategy Sprint, we began to explore wireframe for this new research hub. Here’s that wireframe idea that Chris Goldenstein came up with.   As you can see, Chris suggests that we organize the site around research opportunities by undergraduate class. In this way, the faculty can help guide undergraduate students on the type of research experiences that build off of one another. We can also use a system of categories and tags to make research projects easier to find.

This is just one idea. There may be others.

If you’d like to help us out, please contact Ed Morrison at edmorrison@purdue.edu.

Here’s an idea. What if faculty and students started to share their love of music? What would that look like?

Well, the idea has sparked Tahira Reid and some others to explore how we could provide a venue for faculty and students to share their musical talent — during the day.

The initial idea is Ten Minutes of Talent on Thursdays: T3.

Here’s how the prototype would work. In April, on Thursdays, between classes, interested students and faculty would give very short — 10 minute — performances between classes in the Hollander Atrium.

Are you game?

We need your thoughts and guidance to make this idea work. Please connect with Tahira (tahira@purdue.edu ) or Ed Morrison (edmorrison@purdue.edu) if you’d like to lend a hand.

One thing is clear.

No single person has an understanding of all the research opportunities are available to ME undergraduates.  The situation is not really satisfactory to anyone.

Students can’t  easily identify research opportunities, if they’re interested. Faculty are put in the position of simply responding ad hoc to student requests  to participate in research.

The “system” is confusing and fragmented.

How can we make it more clear? How can we make it more productive? How can we provide students with valuable opportunities to learn research skills?

These are all the questions that our re|course team on undergraduate research are tackling.

If you’d like to help out, contact Ed Morrison at the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab: edmorrison@purdue.edu.

Who’s involved in this team?  Well, a lot of faculty:

• Pavlos Vlachos

• Adrian Buganza

• Arezoo Ardekani

• Ilias Bilionis

• Jay Gore

• Song Zhang

• Liang Pan

• Ruan Xiulin

• Thomas Siegmund

• Chris Goldenstein

As we currently arrange faculty office hours, they don’t work very well. So what would happen if we lost the faculty office? We are launching a couple of experiments to find out.

Peter Meckl

Peter Meckl  launched the first one. He simply announced this class that is office hours would not be held in his office but in the common area on the second floor.

Here’s what happened.

A student came up  (a student  who normally comes to office hours) and sat next to Peter to discuss a specific problem. After about 20 or 30 minutes, the second student came up.

Then something interesting happened. The conversation shifted. It wasn’t about the problem in class, it was about the experience of co-op education. In other words, by simply moving the conversation out of the office, Peter thinks that the conversation became more informal, more helpful and meaningful to the student.

That’s what re|course is all about. Expanding the connections between students and faculty outside the classroom. We  can learn more from each other that way.  Peter is going to continue his experiment.

And he’s got another idea. 🙂