Four educational research projects developed by Missouri S&T faculty have been funded for the 2014-2015 academic year as part of a mini-grant program co-sponsored by the office of the vice provost for academic affairs and the Center for Educational Research and Teaching Innovation (CERTI). Academic affairs provided $22,000 in funding to the four-year-old program. The 2014-2015 funded projects are:

• “Assessment of Textbook-free Courses in the Biochemical Engineering field as Vehicles for Lifelong Learning,” Dr. Daniel Forciniti, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, $4,720
• “Improving Understanding of Academic Integrity Among Undergraduate Students in STEM Fields,” Dr. Amber Henslee, assistant professor of psychological science, and Dr. Susan Murray, professor of engineering management and systems engineering, $8,000
• “Development of a Conceptualized Guided Coding for the Course of Mathematical Foundation of Finite Element Methods,” Dr. Xiaoming He, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, $4,732
• “Implementing Guided Group Activities to Improve Performance and Self-efficacy in College Algebra – Stage 2,” Kimberly Kinder, assistant teaching professor of mathematics and statistics, $4,500.

The program provides funding to help instructors tackle a teaching and learning issue that affects an individual course or lab, a sequence of courses or the entire campus over the span of an academic year. Results of the research will be shared with the campus at Missouri S&T’s Teaching and Learning Technology Conference in March 2015. More information about the educational research mini-grant program is available on the CERTI website.