Project PLURIS: Purposeful Learning in Undergraduate Research and Independent Studies

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This project is creating a "brokering system" to mediate the interaction among faculty and students who want first to identify topics of mutual interest for independent study and/or research experiences, then to explore what questions to consider, and finally to negotiate a formal agreement on what the project would entail. The Purposeful Learning in Undergraduate Research and Independent Studies (PLURIS) system helps: i) to align individual student learning agendas with the goals of supervising faculty; ii) to clarify the intended student learning outcomes; iii) to monitor and document actual learning outcomes; and iv) to make public the learning achievements of the students. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its "community-based co-design" approach in which faculty and students are iteratively developing and testing components of this model system. This development approach carries into the way that PLURIS enables faculty and students to negotiate intended learning outcomes, reflecting the critical collaborative discourse essential to science. The project's broader impacts include: the modeling of collaboration among scientists, educators, and educational technology professionals that develops the science education expertise of STEM faculty, and the provision of a means for undergraduate, postdoctoral, and faculty researchers to think meta-cognitively about research experiences and learning in general. Furthermore, through its approach that links rich learning experiences of undergraduate independent research studies with specific measurable outcomes the project seeks to improve the cost-effectiveness and academic consistency of STEM independent study courses and research activities, so that larger and more diverse numbers of students may take advantage of these high-impact activities.