Teaching-as-Research Project: Collaborative Annotations in Engineering

This semester, Dr. Byron Hempel, Associate Professor of Practice in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, worked with Eliza Ballantyne (TAR ‘26 cohort), Ph.D. student in Optical Sciences, to investigate the usefulness of collaborative annotations in Dr. Hempel’s engineering course. Dr. Hempel was instrumental in helping design and facilitate the first iterations of the teaching-as-research program at the University of Arizona.

Tell us a little about your project. What inspired you to want to work together?

Eliza: I was interested in taking the TAR course to see if I would like to join the certificate of college teaching program. A 1-credit class (IA 627) seemed like the perfect way to test the waters. Since I’m working as an RA, I didn’t have a class to experiment with, so I sent a panicked email to Dr. Winet at the beginning of the semester. She put me in touch with Dr. Hempel, who was willing to facilitate my project within his course.

Byron: I enjoy mini projects to help understand how instructional techniques in my classroom work. I am excited to work with graduate students to explore TAR projects, and when Eliza reached out, I was happy to have a project. Everyone wins with these projects. I get more insight into the classroom, students see that I am open to change and improvement, and Eliza gets a project to study.

How did you come to your topic? What did you want to know?

Eliza: I felt a little out of my depth planning a TAR project in environmental engineering since it has been years since my general education biology coursework. When Dr. Hempel suggested focusing on collaborative annotation activities, it seemed like a way for me to help improve the class without a crash course in a totally different field. I also thought collaborative annotation could be useful in my research group’s journal clubs, so I could see an application in my own work.

Byron: Eliza collaborated with me to explore where we could test different items in the classroom with minimal upheaval.

What was working together like? How did you collaborate?

Eliza: We met at the beginning of the semester to decide on a project that would fit well into Dr. Hempel’s classroom. As I started to dig through the data, we met to look at the results, which helped me catch some mistakes in my analysis. I also visited the class to pitch the project to the students in January and returned at the end of the semester to report what I found.

Byron: This was a great collaboration! I found Eliza to be highly motivated to capture both qualitative and quantitative components of the mini project. Since I do not actively participate in extensive education research, it was refreshing to have a psyched student to collaborate with.

Did you find out anything that surprised you? Byron, will it change the way you teach the course in the future?

Byron: The results weren't what I expected at all! Education research is always messy, but the results showed collaborative reading and annotating did not help the students answer live multiple-choice questions in the classroom better. More importantly, the results pushed me to discuss the assignments with the students. I changed the requirements as a result and added quizzes at the end of the reading.

What do you think the value of doing a TAR project is for a graduate student? (i.e, what did you learn about yourself, your future teaching, etc.?)

Eliza: I’m sure many graduate students have gaps between the research skills we develop for our specific research and the huge array of activities and analysis methods we could be using to improve our students’ experience. TAR projects can help bridge that gap, especially when they are fostered in a cohort of graduate students from so many different disciplines. For example, I gained confidence in working with qualitative data, which was totally out of my comfort zone. My qualitative results turned out to be the most important part of my project and I’m glad I had the support to walk through using this kind of data rigorously for the first time. I also discovered sankey plots, technology resources I never would have found on my own, book recommendations,  and so much inspiring enthusiasm for teaching. It was a really enriching experience to learn from other students and teachers who cared about their students so deeply, and I’m excited to apply their ideas in the future.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to do their first TAR project?

Eliza: I would recommend picking a bite-sized project so you can really focus on teasing the nuance out of your results and then being flexible when your project inevitably changes over time. My original idea for a TAR project teetered on the brink of ambition and insanity and I am grateful for the support from Dr. Hempel and Dr. Winet to pare it down into something that I could really dig into successfully. A single TAR project is meant to give you the tools to refine your teaching for the rest of your career, so it’s ok to slow down and focus on a single well-defined problem. And, since adapting to your students’ needs is key for any educator, your well-defined problem will probably morph into something a little different by the time your project is over. That’s part of the process and probably means you are doing it right.

Byron: Eliza hit the nail on the head on this one!