Undergraduate Research Embedded Across Course Levels and Types Through Scaffolded Projects

This article explores how to embed an undergraduate research project within a course and summarizes the student experience in courses including undergraduate research. The authors specifically focus on how to modify and alter materials to fit with different course foci and different course levels. We have been leading an interdisciplinary, multi-year research project for the past four years. During that time, we have scaffolded a research project from year to year. Each piece of the project has been embedded within a course. However, the specific course level and content focus has changed from year to year. By embedding a research project within a class, faculty members have a unique opportunity to give their students a high-impact experience and further their own research simultaneously. We have successfully mentored and supervised students in the following formats: a freshman interdisciplinary honors course, two different undergraduate criminal justice courses made up of 5-10 students that were focused around criminological theory testing, individual directed study projects with graduate students, a 30-40 person upper level criminology research methods course, and a freshman individual directed study research project. Throughout all of these modalities, we have kept a core type of course design and course requirements but modified the components and grading criteria as needed for the type and level of course. We will summarize and discuss student assessment data both on their experience in the course as well as their achievement of student learning outcomes.

Epidemiology and the SIR Model: Historical Context to Modern Applications

We suggest the use of historical documents and primary sources, as well as data and articles from recent events, to teach students about mathematical epidemiology. We propose a project suitable -- in different versions -- as part of a class syllabus, as an undergraduate research project, and as an extra credit assignment. Throughout this project, students explore mathematical, historical, and sociological aspects of the SIR model and approach data analysis and interpretation. Based on their work, students form opinions on public health decisions and related consequences. Feedback from students has been encouraging. We begin our project by having students read excerpts of documents from the early 1900s discussing the Indian plague epidemic. We then guide students through the derivation of the SIR model by analyzing the seminal 1927 Kermack and McKendrick paper, which is based on data from the Indian epidemiological event they have studied. After understanding the historical importance of the SIR model, we consider its modern applications focusing on the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 in West Africa. Students fit SIR models to available compiled data sets. The subtleties in the data provide opportunities for students to consider the data and SIR model assumptions critically. Additionally, social attitudes of the outbreak are explored; in particular, local attitudes towards government health recommendations.