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1. Implementing and Assessing a Joint REU/RET Program in Materials Science

   Salzman, Noah; Nadelson, Louis; Ubic, Rick (January 2016, ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   In this paper we describe a joint Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program focused on energy and sustainability topics within a Materials Science and Engineering program at a public university. This program brought ten undergraduate science and engineering students and five local middle and high school teachers on campus for an 8-week research experiences working with different lab groups. Given the relatively small number of participants, we chose qualitative interviews as our primary source of data for assessing the effectiveness of this program. The participants identified numerous positive aspects of participating in the summer research program. Students appreciated the sense of community they developed with both the other participants in the research program and the other members of their lab groups. Although most of the participants did not report the summer research experience as having a strong influence on their decisions to pursue graduate school or careers involving research, they did report both being more confident in their ability to be successful as a researcher and appreciating the opportunity to learn more about the practice of engineering research in an academic setting. For the teachers involved in the program we describe how participation influenced their leadership, perceptions of adoption educational innovations, and willingness to provide more opportunities to engage their students in authentic STEM research. The participants also provided several recommendations for improvement to the summer research program. For the students, these included more materials in advance and a more streamlined onboarding process to allow them to get up to speed on their projects more quickly, consistent access to their supervisors, and work that is intellectually challenging. Suggestion from the teacher participants for improvement mostly involved requests for more guidance on how to incorporate what they were learning in their research into lessons for their classrooms. By describing this program and the successes and challenges encountered by the participants and organizers, we intend to help others considering implementing REU/RET programs or other summer research experiences to design and implement successful programs. 

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2. Lessons Learned in Adopting a Multi-Site Combined REU/RET Program for Exclusive Remote Participation Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

   Nyarko, Kofi (October 2021, 2021 Fall ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Meeting)

   The Smart City Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) (SCR2) Mega-Site program, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (#1849454), was formed in 2018 to address the low participation and graduation rates of post-secondary students belonging to underrepresented minority groups in the engineering field. The participating schools in the program are all minority serving and members of a consortium consisting of 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and 1 Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), where Morgan State University (MSU) serves as the lead institution. The program targets lower division underperforming REU students who are less likely to have the opportunity to participate in research as undergraduates. Participation in this type of experience has been demonstrated to be transformative and to have the potential to increase retention and graduation rates at these institutions. RET participants are recruited from local community colleges and high schools that serve as feeder schools to the consortium institutions. These teachers are responsible for preparing students who could potentially be interesting in pursuing a college major in engineering by exposing them to hands-on engineering design practices. Over the last two years of the program’s existence, 61 students and 24 teachers have successfully participated. As with most 2020 summer programs, the SCR2 program was challenged by the novel corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, which hit the United states during the recruitment period of the project. Consequently, the project leadership team decided to offer the summer program remotely (on-line) rather than bring students to the participating three campuses across which the program is distributed. The planning and execution of the program during a global pandemic has brought key insights into techniques, methods, and technologies for effective cross-site communication, faculty advisor/mentor involvement, participant engagement, and leveraging the strong network that connects the participating schools. Essentially, a multi-site remote only combined REU/RET program is efficacious in increasing participant’s confidence, knowledge and desire to pursue further engineering research experiences. This paper presents these insights along with supporting program evaluation findings. 

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3. Board 369: Research Experiences for Teachers (RET): Engineering for People and the Planet as Inspiration to Teach Integrated STEM

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46952  

   Chen, Katherine; Taylor, Donna; Solovey, Erin (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) are the focus for a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Engineering at X University. The relevant and meaningful contexts of the SDGs allow middle and high school teachers and their students to easily make connections between research in a university lab setting to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts in their classroom. Lesson plans inspired by the UN SDGs research experience were developed as an “integrated STEM” problem solving activity by each of the RET teachers. Ten (10) teachers comprising of both pre-service and in-service middle or high school teachers have participated in each cohort over the two years of the NSF RET grant thus far. Six weeks of authentic summer research takes place in 5 different faculty labs at X University under the mentorship of faculty and their graduate students or postdoc. Examples of the research projects include “Photocatalysis for Clean Energy and Environment,” “Genetically Engineering Plasmid DNA molecules to address Tuberculosis Antibiotic Resistance,” and “New Water-Based Technology for Plastic Recycling.” RET participants also attend a weekly coffee session to help guide the teachers through the research process and a weekly ½-day professional development (PD) session to translate the research experience into a classroom lesson plan that aligns to state standards, as well as evidence-backed curriculum design and teaching strategies. Teacher cohort building and community is fostered through group lunches and additional activities (e.g., coordinated lab visits, behind the scenes tour of a local science museum, and industry panel). For evaluation of the RET program, pre/post-surveys measured the teacher’s self-reported ability, confidence, understanding, and frequency of use of the Engineering Design Process (EDP), Integrated STEM, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Formative assessment was conducted throughout the summer on various aspects of the RET through surveys and regular check-ins with the teachers. At the end of the summer, focus groups were conducted by an external evaluator for both the teacher participants and the research mentors. Both teachers and mentors declared the program was well planned and executed. The teachers developed close bonds and connections, learned a lot from each other, had meaningful research experiences, and developed a sense of community. The research mentors reported that the teachers provided useful research contributions, were enthusiastic about the research, had genuine lab experiences, developed professional skills, and built good community connections. Areas for improvement included clear expectations for everyone, reducing steep learning curves, and consistency of mentoring across the labs. The RET program continues into the academic year with occasional meetings to report on the implementation of their research-inspired lesson plan in their classroom. The RET participants share that they are bringing in the “real world” relevance to their students with an integrated STEM lens (e.g., climate change and UN SDGs) and that they refer back to their own lab experiences (e.g., importance of measuring chemicals accurately). The research experience has made several positive impacts on the teacher participants that also benefit their students. 

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4. Research Experiences for Teachers Summer Program in Biologically-inspired Computing Systems

   Na Gong and Shenghua Zha (January 2022, Proceedings ASEE annual conference)

   Funded by the NSF Division of Computer and Network Systems, this grant establishes a new Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Site at the University of South Alabama (USA). In the summer of 2021, eight middle school and high school teachers from two local public-school districts spent six weeks engaged with research activities on biologically-inspired computing systems. They worked on discovery-based research projects and obtained transdisciplinary research experience on biologically-inspired computing systems spanning application (cancer detection), algorithm (Spiking Neural Networks), architecture and circuit (synaptic memory design), and device (memristor). The USA faculty mentors, curriculum development specialist from school districts, Instructional Coach from Science/Mathematics faculty at USA coached participants as they designed standards-compliant curriculum modules and conducted professional development activities. The implementation details of the summer program and the evaluation results are presented in this paper. 

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5. Development and Assessment of a Combined REU/RET Program in Materials Science

   Salzman, N.; Ubic, R. (April 2017, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   In this paper we present an evaluation and lessons learned from a joint Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program focused on energy and sustainability topics within a Materials Science and Engineering program at a public university. This program brought eleven undergraduate science and engineering students with diverse educational and institutional backgrounds and four local middle and high school teachers on campus for an 8-week research experience working in established lab groups at the university. Using the Qualtrics online survey software, we conducted pre-experience and post-experience surveys of the participants to assess the effects of participating in this summer research program. At the beginning of the summer, all participants provided their definition of technical research and described what they hoped to get out of their research experience, and the undergraduate students described their future career and educational plans. At the conclusion of the summer, a post-experience survey presented participants’ with their answers from the beginning of the summer and asked them to reflect on how their understanding of research and future plans involving research changed over the course of the summer experience. Many participants evolved a new understanding of research as a result of participating in the summer experience. In particular, they better recognized the collaborative nature of research and the challenges that can arise as part of the process of doing research. Participants acquired both technical and professional skills that they found useful, such as learning new programming languages, becoming proficient at using new pieces of equipment, reviewing technical literature, and improving presentation and communication skills. Undergraduates benefited from developing new relationships with their peers, while the teacher participants benefited from developing relationships with faculty and staff at the university. While most of the participants felt that they were better prepared for future studies or employment, they did not feel like the summer research experience had a significant impact on their future career or degree plans. Finally, while almost all of the participants described their summer research experience as positive, areas for improvement included better planning and access to mentors, as well as more structured activities for the teachers to adapt their research activities for the classroom. 

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