Raider REU

Mentor: Dr. Sarah Bleiler-Baxter 

Other Senior Personnel: Dr. Grant Gardner, Dr. Gregory Rushton   

Website: https://www.act-stem.org/  

What makes a STEM department a place where people can learn, take risks, collaborate, and grow? And how can faculty recognize what is already working, imagine what could be possible, and help positive change spread?

Advancing the Culture of Teaching in STEM (ACT-STEM) is a five-year, NSF-funded research project studying how STEM departments can cultivate teaching cultures that better support faculty learning and student success. ACT-STEM takes a strength-based approach to change: notice the good, imagine the possible, and help it grow.

During Summer 2027, the REU student will join the ACT-STEM research team as we study culture change across multiple STEM departments (agriculture, aerospace, biology, chemistry, geosciences, mathematics, physics). Our current work focuses on understanding and cultivating a Culture of Growth, an environment where faculty feel connected to colleagues, supported in developing their competence, and empowered to experiment and grow as educators.

The student will help investigate questions such as: How do faculty recognize strengths in their colleagues and departments? What helps them imagine new possibilities for teaching and learning? How do relationships, departmental norms, and faculty leaders help promising ideas and practices spread?

Students from all majors are welcome, and no previous educational research experience is required. This project may be especially appealing to students interested in STEM, education, or organizational change.

Through this experience, the REU student will have opportunities to:

• Participate in authentic educational research as part of an NSF-funded project.
• Explore theories of motivation, strengths-based development, and organizational change, including Self-Determination Theory, Positive Psychology, and Diffusion of Innovations.
• Develop qualitative research skills through analysis of interviews, observations, surveys, or other project data.
• Work collaboratively with an interdisciplinary research team and faculty across STEM departments.
• Gain insight into how positive ideas and practices spread within organizations.
• Develop skills in research communication, with opportunities to contribute to presentations, posters, reports, or manuscripts.

Most importantly, you will become part of a research team working to understand how we can notice the good that already exists in STEM education, imagine what else might be possible, and help those possibilities grow.

Mentor: Dr. Greg Rushton 

Other Senior Personnel: Dr. Ryan “Seth” Jones, Dr. Keith Gamble, and Dr. Kevin Krahenbuhl 

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/leads-program 

Through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program opportunity, students will actively participate in the Leaders in Education Advancing Data Science (LEADS) Master Teaching Fellowship program 2.0. LEADS 2.0 is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program and is a partnership among MTSU, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the University of Memphis, the Concord Consortium, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), and partner school districts across Tennessee. The project prepares 30 middle grades STEM teachers as Master Teaching Fellows who earn an Ed.S. in Teacher Leadership for Data Literacy, lead school-based Network Improvement Communities with their colleagues, and mentor future teachers through the UT PLAYS Registered Apprenticeship, while generating rigorous evidence on how teacher leadership improves mathematics and data science instruction.

This REU is ideal for undergraduate students interested in education research, artificial intelligence, data science, teacher leadership, or STEM teaching careers. Participants will leave with skills, experiences, and professional networks that prepare them for graduate study or future roles as educators and researchers. Your work will directly support efforts to strengthen middle grades mathematics and data science instruction across Tennessee. By contributing to LEADS, you will help build the evidence base and a replicable program model that can be shared nationally to improve teacher effectiveness, teacher retention, and student achievement.

As an REU participant, you may:

• Work closely with faculty mentors, the project team, and a postdoctoral researcher to collect, organize, and analyze data from a statewide randomized controlled study of the LEADS 2.0 program.
• Contribute to ongoing studies on teachers’ data science pedagogical content knowledge, leadership and professional identity development, and the use of AI in teaching and coaching.
• Participate in summer institutes, cohort meetings, and Network Improvement Community sessions alongside LEADS teachers, giving you both research and practitioner perspectives.
• Gain training in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, including coding classroom observation and interview data, analyzing survey and assessment results, and using digital research tools.
• Co-author presentations or publications and help develop the LEADS program replication package that will be shared with educators and researchers nationwide.

Mentor: Dr. Keith Gamble

Other Senior Personnel: Dr. Ryan “Seth” Jones, Dr Greg Rushton, and Dr. Kevin Krahenbuhl 

Through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program opportunity, students will actively participate in the Leaders in Education Advancing Data Science (LEADS) Master Teaching Fellowship program 2.0. LEADS 2.0 is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program and is a partnership among MTSU, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the University of Memphis, the Concord Consortium, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), and partner school districts across Tennessee. The project prepares 30 middle grades STEM teachers as Master Teaching Fellows who earn an Ed.S. in Teacher Leadership for Data Literacy, lead school-based Network Improvement Communities with their colleagues, and mentor future teachers through the UT PLAYS Registered Apprenticeship, while generating rigorous evidence on how teacher leadership improves mathematics and data science instruction.

This REU is ideal for undergraduate students interested in education research, artificial intelligence, data science, teacher leadership, or STEM teaching careers. Participants will leave with skills, experiences, and professional networks that prepare them for graduate study or future roles as educators and researchers. Your work will directly support efforts to strengthen middle grades mathematics and data science instruction across Tennessee. By contributing to LEADS, you will help build the evidence base and a replicable program model that can be shared nationally to improve teacher effectiveness, teacher retention, and student achievement.

As an REU participant, you may:

• Work closely with faculty mentors, the project team, and a postdoctoral researcher to collect, organize, and analyze data from a statewide randomized controlled study of the LEADS 2.0 program.
• Contribute to ongoing studies on teachers’ data science pedagogical content knowledge, leadership and professional identity development, and the use of AI in teaching and coaching.
• Participate in summer institutes, cohort meetings, and Network Improvement Community sessions alongside LEADS teachers, giving you both research and practitioner perspectives.
• Gain training in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, including coding classroom observation and interview data, analyzing survey and assessment results, and using digital research tools.
• Co-author presentations or publications and help develop the LEADS program replication package that will be shared with educators and researchers nationwide.

Mentor: Dr. Grant Gardner 

Despite the prevalence of research supporting best practices in undergraduate STEM instruction, do you wonder why your instructors still rely on outdated lecture methods in their classrooms? 

The Supporting Pedagogy Research & Outcomes in Undergraduate Teaching (SPROUT) team studies these issues in various ways including:

• STEM graduate students’ beliefs about teaching and how they learn to teach during their academic programs
• How STEM faculty adopt and adapt evidence-based instructional methods in their classrooms 

As part of the team, you’ll work closely with us to:  

• Communicate findings to diverse audiences and pursue education research! By joining, you’ll not only gain valuable research experience but also play a role in shaping how the next generation of education researchers are trained.  
• Design and develop small research projects in support of larger research initiatives
• Develop skills in quantitative and qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, coding, analysis)  

Mentor: Angela Google

Description Coming Soon

Mentor: Jennifer Kaplan

Have you ever wondered why a certain course is required for your degree program? If so, you are not alone. Interviews with undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has revealed that one reason students leave STEM majors is because their program of study doesn’t “make sense” to them. In this project we will be analyzing syllabi and other curriculum documents across (at least) biology, chemistry, and physics to uncover the mathematics and statistics necessary to learn science. We will also interview faculty in science disciplines to gain their perspective on the mathematical and statistical ideas and skills required for students to be successful learners and practitioners of their scientific discipline.

As an REU participant you will

• Read literature on learning across mathematics, statistics, and science disciplines
• Learn qualitative analysis techniques, such as document analysis and interview transcript coding
• Perform interviews with faculty research subjects
• Contribute to writing manuscripts for mathematics, statistics, and/or science education disciplines informing the fields of our findings.

We hope this project will lead to critical revisions of science and mathematics curricula for undergraduate STEM majors.

Mentor: Dr. Katy Hosbein 

Are you curious about how students support each other in college science classes and how that support can shape their academic journey? In this project, you’ll explore the role of Learning Assistants (LAs), undergraduate students who return to help in a course they’ve already taken. LAs receive training in teaching strategies and course content, and they work closely with students during class and as peer mentors. 

We’re studying how these LA-student interactions help build a sense of community and influence students’ confidence in science, their identity as scientists, and their plans to continue in STEM majors. As a researcher on this project, you’ll work with survey and interview data to uncover how these relationships impact both the students and the LAs themselves. 

Student researchers on this project will:

• Become familiar with the literature base that explores peer learning and affect, such as science identity development 
• Gain experience with qualitative methods, such as coding survey responses and interview transcripts 
• Practice collaborating on a project with a graduate student 
• Develop research questions appropriate for a short-term research project 

Mentor: Dr. Michael Hicks 

Other Senior Personnel: Dr. Holly Zolt 

Covariational reasoning refers to the cognitive ability to coordinate two varying quantities simultaneously. Although significant research has been conducted on students’ understanding of the function concept, less is known about students’ understanding of function transformations with respect to covariational reasoning. For example, in what ways might students reason about invariance of rigid transformations such as f(x) – 3? How might students understand the mechanism that explains why the function f(x-2) results in a shift of the function to the right rather than to the left? What are productive ways of reasoning about the transformations that stretch or compress graphs, such as f(3x)? Answering questions such as these can support instructors in helping their students reason about function transformations conceptually rather than rely on procedural memorization.

In this project, we will engage in didactical analysis of the function transformation concept as it might be understood through covariational reasoning. In particular, we will develop tasks that support students to make sense of function transformations in meaningful ways rather than memorize symbolic patterns. The student working on this project will work with mentors to accomplish this goal by:

• Developing foundational knowledge of the mathematics education literature related to function and function transformations
• Making use of the art of conceptual and didactical analysis to deeply understand the concept of function transformations
• Developing foundational knowledge for designing rigorous, research-backed curriculum by actively engaging in the creation of a Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) for the function transformation concept
• Understanding the process of scaling up curricula through initial development of a Local Instruction Theory (LIT)
• Learning to effectively communicate findings to a broader research and practitioner community in the form of a poster presentation