Submitted Photo Special education assistant professor Wenjing Zheng and program head Holly Pedersen received a small grant from the university this summer to study the impact of Swivl robotic technology and guided video analysis on teacher candidates’ reflective ability and instructional skills.

Eleven Minot State University professors, working on nine different projects, have received grant funding to conduct research this summer, according to the university.

One of the projects awarded funding through the university’s Small Grants Program is Wenjing Zheng and Holly Pedersen’s study of how Swivl robotic technology can be used in classrooms to help improve teacher education.

Zheng, an assistant professor of special education, and Pedersen, the head of the department, said the grant funding will enable the department to purchase the new technology. Seniors enrolled in a methods practicum this fall who will be doing their student teaching in the spring will make use of the Swivl robot, which can record their interactions with students in the classroom and upload it to the cloud, as part of the research project.

Pedersen said teacher candidates have used video for years to capture what goes on in the classroom. The Swivl robot will do an even better job of recording what is going on in different parts of the classroom since it can swivel 360 degrees and tilt 20 to 30 degrees. The teacher or the student will wear a little trasmitter with a microphone that will record the data. The teachers will later be able to watch their interactions with students in the classroom and use the material to write reflections about what happened.

“Teachers are moving, they’re having work groups, they’re all over the classroom and so that’s a lot to keep track of,” said Pedersen. “… If you’re really watching the whole environment, that’s where this technology can give the teacher a lot of feedback. When you were over helping this student, what was going on over here and over here and how was your proximity and how did the students react?”

Teacher candidates who are in remote settings can also upload their classroom interactions so that their professors can view them and later make observations. Pedersen and Zheng said the data might also be used in group work settings so that classmates can observe interactions and offer constructive criticism.

Zheng said that a teacher candidate’s ability to use self reflection to improve his or her teaching practices is part of the accreditation standards for the teacher education program. The accreditation body, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, also requires use of integrated technology in the curriculum.

The Swivl Robotic Technology can also be used with technology already in use in the program.

In addition, the professors will also present at two peer-reviewed conferences as well as at the research poster session held each April at Minot State.

According to a press release from the university, each year, faculty from a wide range of disciplines apply for funding through Minot State University’s Small Grants program. Each grant application is reviewed by members of the Minot State Faculty Research Committee. Committee members use a scoring rubric to rank the applications and use these rankings in making final funding decisions.

Grants ranged from $977 to $3,000.

Other grants went to Heidi Super, biology; John McCollum, sociology; Jynette Larshus, sociology-political science; Bishnu Sedai, math; Ryan Stander, art; Rebecca Daigneault, social work; Mary Huston and Sarah Boyle, communication disorders; and Naomi Winburn, chemistry in 2019-2020.

According to the press release, Super will conduct research, titled, “Teaching Old Cancer Drugs New Tricks: Using Epigenetic Modifying Compounds to Sensitize Leukemia Cells to Respond to a Derivative of Vitamin A.” She will test a relatively old drug, All Trans Retinoic Acid–ATRA, a derivative of vitamin A, in combination with new compounds, in order to sensitize previously ATRA-resistant types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to respond.

McCollum will conduct an interview project called “Extraction, Class, and Consciousness: An Examination of Unionization in North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Shale Region.” He seeks to understand why, in the presence of suitable conditions, oil workers in North Dakota’s Bakken Oil Shale region are not coalescing into strong unions.

Larshus will begin her sabbatical research project in Spring 2020. “Tensions of Transformation in Snowboarding Culture: From Lifestyle Sporting Activity to Legitimate Occupation,” will add to in a stratified analysis of the transformations of snowboarding culture over the course of 15 years.

Sedai’s project, titled, “Spectral Shift Function and Trace Formula,” will involve undergraduate students in the research of study spectral shift function and associated trace formula, celebrated topics in both math and physics, for a pair of self-adjoint matrices.

Stander’s project, “Photographic Printmaking Exploration,” will explore variety of ways photography may cross over into the print world, in particular how a photograph may be translated into a woodcut, screen print, aluminum plate lithograph, and polymer plate etching.

Daigneault’s pilot program is in partnership with Turtle Mountain Community High School students, parents, and staff, along with Tami Jollie-Trottier, to improve high school graduation rates and decrease truancy and dropout. The project is titled, “Positive Partnering Program: An Effort to Reduce High School Truancy and Dropout Rates for Turtle Mountain Community High School.”

Huston and Boyle’s study, “Enhancing Student Learning through 3D Printed Anatomical Models,” will build on Boyle’s master’s thesis. The purpose of this project is to develop 3D-printed anatomical structures needed for communication disorders (e.g., larynx, skull, brain structures, etc.) to determine if accuracy of models results in increased learning and retention of anatomical knowledge. In addition, students within the communication disorders program would be encouraged to explore 3D printing to facilitate learning styles.

Winburn’s project, “X-Ray Diffraction of Materials,” includes core research projects, continuing projects, and new research projects that provide hands-on experience for undergraduate chemistry students. The core project focuses on increasing the accuracy of the Rietveld method, while the continuing research may also address this, but will have some finite end; such as the heavier mineral study and potential the solid solution study. The new research focuses on an aspect of some continuing work (the synthesis of brownmillerite) and on an entirely new area (veterinary medicine).