Day: May 2, 2017

Thank you UGS200H!

Leigh Graves Wolf

It’s hard to believe another semester is in the books! Over the 2016-17 academic year, I had the pleasure of working with 10 amazing undergraduates (along with Jeff & Bill) in UGS200H. UGS 200H = Undergraduate Honors Research Seminar. This was my first opportunity to co-facilitate a freshman research seminar and work with undergraduates, and as I expected, it was incredible! Our seminar was titled – A Maker Approach: Crowdsourcing Knowledge & Transforming Research into Meaning.

Course Description: 
Make a contribution to the knowledge and understanding of Maker Spaces at MSU! Experiences will include project – based learning and reflection on identifying the purpose, developing a literature review, identifying and implementing appropriate (mixed) research methods, analyses, visual and textual reporting, and engaging multiple audiences. Topics covered include research design, epistemology/ontology, disciplinary research lenses, methodologies, and skills development with various analytical software for quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Over the fall semester we explored various research methodologies and the Maker Movement broadly. (Tonia, they helped contribute to our MakerEd bibliography!) As the fall semester came to a close, the students broke into teams to conduct research along different lines of inquiry over the spring term.  My team decided to center their inquiry around a case study exploration of the following questions:

  1. How do makers think about the quality of making? How do they understand the concept of “good” in relation to what they do? In relation to what others do?
  2. What relationships do we see between space and making with regard to our question?

Luckily, they were able to tap into the amazing Lansing Makers Network for their research. A few weeks back, the teams presented their poster at the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF). I’m proud of all of these amazing Spartans and wish them the best of luck in their future studies and scholarship.