Abstract Detail

The Science of Meaningful Undergraduate Research Experiences

Ison, Jennifer [1].

Independent bees, working together: Using self-reflection and cohort building to support successful research experiences for all students.

The College of Wooster is a liberal arts undergraduate college that has a nationally recognized year and a half long research experience for all students, entitled ‘Independent Study’ (I.S.). Every College of Wooster student, designs, conducts, and writes-up an independent project. Students also present their I.S. research at a symposium and orally defend their work to a faculty panel. I’ll talk about my five years of experience with I.S., including mistakes I made early on and how I developed my current mentoring style. I have a structured but flexible, I.S. mentoring style. We have a weekly whole-lab meeting where we discuss the successes and challenges or their I.S. projects. I also encourage students to use this time to work with their peers and build a strong cohort. We also have short weekly individual meetings, where we discuss a student’s overall progress. To prepare for each meeting, each student reflects on their last week’s work and think about your goals for the next week. Recently, I.S. students in my lab have also started peer-mentoring first- and second-year students so students can gain research experience earlier in their college career, and I.S. students gain valuable leadership and mentoring experience. As I discuss my I.S. mentoring style, I’ll also highlight recent I.S.-driven research. In particular, I’ll discuss our research to quantify the pollinator effectiveness of native solitary bees and the role of pollinator preference in floral color polymorphisms. Note, the College of Wooster’s motto is ‘independent minds, working together.’ For the talk’s title, I thank Avery Pearson ’20 for her inspired modification of the motto to connect with our lab’s research.

1 - The College Of Wooster, Biology Department, 1189 Beall Ave., Wooster, OH, 44691, United States

Keywords:
PUI
Undergraduate research
pollination
plant-pollinator interactions
mentoring
Echinacea
Campanula
native bees
reproductive ecology.

Presentation Type: Colloquium Presentations
Session: COL10, The Science of Meaningful Undergraduate Research Experiences
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Friday, July 31st, 2020
Time: 12:45 PM
Number: COL10002
Abstract ID:287
Candidate for Awards:None