Rice University is one of 12 institutions selected for participation in the CUR Transformations Project: Integrating and Scaffolding Research into Undergraduate STEM Curricula, a four-year grant funded by the National Science Foundation. Faculty experts in STEM pedagogy and assessment will collaborate with the Office of Inquiry-Based Learning, the Department of BioSciences, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy to scaffold undergraduate research into department curricula, to assess the impact of research-rich curricula across demographic groups, and to examine the institutional cultures that affect curricular change. Through participation in this project the Department of BioSciences will create a more coherent scaffold among existing research courses while the Department of Physics & Astronomy will consider how course design can improve the recruitment of students to the major, increase demographic diversity, and enhance retention. More broadly the project provides resources that will enhance the QEP’s efforts to scaffold inquiry and research into the curriculum while allowing for comparative study of CUR’s central research questions in the context of additional STEM fields as well as Humanities and Social Sciences.
