Examination of Undergraduate and Graduate Student Experiences in an Undergraduate Research Course

Mentored undergraduate research experiences have been identified as beneficial to students for persistence in STEM disciplines and increased grade point averages. Participation in research is impactful for both STEM and non-STEM students. Additionally, undergraduate research experiences have a positive effect on subsequent student performance in graduate and professional school as evidenced by students with previous research experience having superior communication skills at the start of their first year and after. Undergraduate research courses tend to be heavily hands-on experiences and structured classroom teaching may not be large portions of the course content. Online material has become increasingly common in the post COVID-19 learning environment. Courses that can have difficulty with online instruction or the inclusion of online content tend to be courses with a heavy focus of hands-on learning or hands-on skill development. The use of a flipped classroom can facilitate student learning in a digital way in addition to in person class meeting. The incorporation of online lecture content to broaden undergraduate student understanding of the application of the scientific method was used to enhance the research experience. Student experiences were evaluated with the Undergraduate Research Student Self-Assessment survey. Significant positive correlation was found between student feelings of "project responsibility" and "Workshops on science writing and presentation" during the semester that online lectures were incorporated. Additionally, graduate student training is a variable and highly individualized experience for each trainee. Most programs focus strongly on cognitive skill training, advanced knowledge of the discipline, conducting research, and preparing manuscripts for publication. Professional development is a component of graduate training that can be easily overlooked or undervalued. The development of soft skills such as time management, personnel management, and leadership and mentoring qualities are vital for trainee success post-graduation. Some current thinking is that devoting time to professional development will result in a slower progression by the trainee, however this is shown to be untrue and students who participate in career growth maintained the same level of productivity measured by time to degree completion and manuscript output. Graduate student experiences with mentoring undergraduates were shown to develop soft skills while also being noted as "an influential experience" when making future career decisions. Development of an undergraduate research program that incorporates more than simply hands on skill development that also significantly incorporates graduate students benefits both student groups and leads to improved outcomes for both student groups post-graduation. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Animal Science is the property of Oxford University Press / USA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A participatory study of college students' mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted college students' mental health and wellbeing. Even before the pandemic, young adults reported high mental health morbidity. During the pandemic, young adult college students faced unprecedented challenges, including campus closure and a pivot to fully online education. Methods: This study employed a novel participatory approach to a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) in an introductory epidemiology course to examine factors students considered important regarding their experience during the pandemic. Two groups of undergraduate students enrolled in this course (one in Fall 2020 and another in Spring 2021) and participated in the CURE. A sub-group of these students continued after the class and are authors of this article. Through repeated cross-sectional surveys of college students' peer groups in northern California in October 2020 and March 2021, this student/faculty collaborative research team evaluated depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and several other topics related to mental health among the students' young adult community. Results: There was a high prevalence of anxiety (38.07% in October 2020 and 40.65% in March 2021), depression (29.85% in October 2020 and 27.57% in March 2021), and suicidal ideation (15.94% in October 2020 and 16.04% in March 2021). In addition, we identified the significant burden of loneliness for college students, with 58.06% of students reporting feeling lonely at least several days in the past two weeks. Strategies that students used to cope with the pandemic included watching shows, listening to music, or playing video games (69.01%), sleeping (56.70%), taking breaks (51.65%), and connecting with friends (52.31%) or family (51.21%). Many reported distressing household experiences: more than a third reporting loss of a job or income (34.27%) in the first year of the pandemic. We explain the participatory research approach and share empirical results of these studies. Discussion: We found this participatory CURE approach led to novel, experience-based research questions; increased student motivation; real-world benefits such as combatting imposter syndrome and supporting graduate school intentions; integration of teaching, research, and service; and development of stronger student-faculty relationships. We close with recommendations to support student wellbeing and promote student engagement in research.

Virtual summer research camp for incoming Freshmen students in STEM

In Summer 2020, our university organized a two weeks summer research experience for 16 recently graduated first-generation and underrepresented high school students who would be joining University as incoming freshmen in various STEM majors. The summer camp was originally planned to be in-person with students residing in the university dorm to receive an early university experience and plan for their college life. But due to COVID-19, it had to be changed to a completely virtual format. This was the first time the faculty were organizing a two weeks camp in a complete virtual format. In this work, we discuss the overall virtual camp experience, challenges faced to provide effective experience to students in the online format, and evaluate the program based on student's feedback. We found that frequent breaks, activities that include students move around for some physical activity, interactive lesson plans, good communication tools, better planning and information tools are required to organize an efficient virtual program. In summer 2022, we plan to have second cohort of summer research camp and use the experiences from 2020 to improve the program. © 2022 IEEE.

The research experience of postgraduate students: a mixed-methods study

Research experience is widely used in quality assurance exercises to benchmark postgraduate education at the institutional level. However, individual differences in students' research experience have been largely neglected. Furthermore, little is known about how differences in students' research experience are associated with skill development and overall satisfaction. This study addressed these gaps using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Study 1 was a quantitative study that involved surveying 590 research postgraduate students (i.e. 421 PhD and 168 MPhil students). A person-centered approach, specifically latent profile analysis, was used to analyze the data. Our findings revealed that students could be divided into three groups based on their research experience: rewarding, ordinary, and unsatisfactory. Those with a rewarding research experience experienced greater development in their skills and higher levels of satisfaction, while those in the unsatisfactory group demonstrated the worst outcomes. Study 2 was a qualitative study that involved interviews with 10 PhD students. The qualitative findings largely triangulated the quantitative results but also uncovered emerging themes, including the importance of student-supervisor misfit, publication pressure, and the COVID-19 pandemic context. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

A CURE for the COVID-19 Era: A Vaccine-Focused Online Immunology Laboratory.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities across the globe quickly shifted to online education. Laboratory courses faced unique challenges and were forced to reevaluate learning objectives and identify creative projects to engage students online. This study describes a newly developed online immunology laboratory curriculum focused on vaccine development. The course incorporated learning objectives to teach the scientific process, key experimental design components, and immunology techniques to evaluate vaccine efficacy. The curriculum, a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), asked students to engage in the research literature, propose a vaccine design and assessment, and interpret mock results. Instructor evaluation of student work as well as student self-evaluations demonstrated that students met the curriculum's learning objectives. Additionally, results from the laboratory course assessment survey (LCAS) indicate that this curriculum incorporated the CURE elements of collaboration, discovery and relevance, and iteration.

Converting a face-to-face neuroanatomy course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) to an online environment: Lessons learned from remote teaching.

Previously, we described a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) for first-year students that featured a unique approach to brain mapping in a model organism (rat). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we adapted this course for an online learning environment, emphasizing image analysis (identifying immunoreactive signal in an immunohistochemical stain, making neuroanatomical distinctions in a cytoarchitectural stain) and translation of image data to the brain atlas. Using a quasi-experimental mixed methods approach, we evaluated aspects of student engagement, perceived gains in student confidence with respect to the nature and process of science, and student science identity development. Additionally, we examined the dynamics of mentorship and student connectedness experienced in the online-only context. We found that the majority of students reported positive affective outcomes for the course in domains such as project ownership and project engagement in addition to positive responses toward perceived mentorship received during the course. Unsurprisingly, students expressed frustration in not being able to freely communicate with members of the course in an organic face-to-face environment. Furthermore, we found that students encountered greater difficulty in mastering image software skills causing delay in producing consistent-quality data maps. From our analysis of the course, we have identified both useful approaches and areas for course improvement in any future iterations of the online research course.

The research experience of postgraduate students: a mixed-methods study

Research experience is widely used in quality assurance exercises to benchmark postgraduate education at the institutional level. However, individual differences in students' research experience have been largely neglected. Furthermore, little is known about how differences in students' research experience are associated with skill development and overall satisfaction. This study addressed these gaps using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Study 1 was a quantitative study that involved surveying 590 research postgraduate students (i.e. 421 PhD and 168 MPhil students). A person-centered approach, specifically latent profile analysis, was used to analyze the data. Our findings revealed that students could be divided into three groups based on their research experience: rewarding, ordinary, and unsatisfactory. Those with a rewarding research experience experienced greater development in their skills and higher levels of satisfaction, while those in the unsatisfactory group demonstrated the worst outcomes. Study 2 was a qualitative study that involved interviews with 10 PhD students. The qualitative findings largely triangulated the quantitative results but also uncovered emerging themes, including the importance of student-supervisor misfit, publication pressure, and the COVID-19 pandemic context. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Remote Research for Undergraduate Students: Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)

This evidence-based paper will review the outcomes of a recently developed summer research program for undergraduate students. The Center of Transportation Research & Implementation (CTRI) at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MSUM) created a remote research program for Summer 2020. Along with others across the United States, MSUM went under COVID-19 lockdown for the unforeseen future during the Spring 2020 semester. The university cancelled access to most campus laboratories and brought a halt to all experimental research conducted in these facilities. Moreover, a significant number of undergraduate students lost their internships for Summer 2020. With these two substantial changes, CTRI created the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. CTRI contacted a donor who donated a funding for a single undergraduate research project (pre-COVID) and asked to make changes in the funding process to benefit multiple students. With the adaptation approved by the donor, the research center asked the faculty to submit proposals for undergraduate research projects that the researchers can conduct at their homes. The proposals requested projects to employ 1 - 4 undergraduate students with a limited, supplies-only budget (<$500). The supplies of the approved proposals were mailed to the students mid-May. The students worked on their projects throughout the summer at their homes with online guidance from their project advisor. In Summer 2020, five research projects that were related to transportation, utility, and energy infrastructure were funded. Each project had a unique theoretical background. An important selection criterion was the potential for the project to be expanded upon into a full undergraduate research project in the 2020-21 Academic Year and that may lead students presenting at the virtual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2021. The initial findings of the project were presented to the research center via a Zoom conference call at the end of Summer 2020. Moreover, the groups that concluded their projects on time also presented in national platforms, including NCUR. The impact of the SURE program on undergraduate researchers were assessed via follow-up survey and meetings. This paper focusses on the impact of the SURE program on the students' technical ability, communication skills, educational experience, and future professional experiences. Additionally, the advisors provided positive feedback on their experience with the projects and undergraduate researchers. The initial success of the first SURE program caught the attention of the Undergraduate Research Center (URC) of the MSUM. URC adopted SURE as a permanent program and funds summer research projects, especially from disciplines that typically receive limited financial support. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Transitioning Sustainable Manufacturing Undergraduate Research Experiences from an In-Person to a Virtual Format

The Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing is an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site that offers unique summer undergraduate research experiences in the challenging field of sustainable manufacturing to national undergraduate students from two and four-year institutions. The objective of the REU Site is to introduce undergraduate students to the forefront of sustainable manufacturing research and to provide participants with the skills and pathways to pursue advanced degrees or careers in sustainable manufacturing. The intensive ten-week summer research and professional development experience hosts ten students per summer and addresses National Science Foundation priority areas such as advanced manufacturing and sustainability. Undergraduate research projects in the REU site address manufacturing process, manufacturing system, and fundamental sustainable manufacturing principles within continuous (e.g. chemical manufacturing) and discrete (e.g. automotive manufacturing) manufacturing systems. Projects are further associated with topics that cross cut the aforementioned thrust areas such as, emerging and environmentally benign materials manufacturing, sustainable process design and control, and life-cycle engineering and value recovery. Traditionally, this REU Site hosts in-person undergraduate researchers to undertake their research projects in a faculty mentor laboratory during the program. However, the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated that the REU Site program be held virtually during the summer of 2021. This poster and summary paper detail the steps taken to transition REU Site program activities to a virtual environment and post-program evaluation results of participant experiences. Evaluation results of the virtual program are compared to evaluation results of prior in-person Summer Academy in Sustainable Manufacturing programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

The Evolution of Multi-Site Combined REU/RET Program: From In-Person to Virtual to Hybrid

In 2018, the Smart City Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) (SCR2) Mega-Site program was launched, aiming to improve the participation and graduation rates of post-secondary students of underrepresented and minority groups in the field of Engineering. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the SCR2 program has been successfully conducted for the last three years, engaging a consortium of 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and 1 Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, is the lead institution for this program. The SCR2 program is designed to engage underperforming REU students in research opportunities demonstrated to improve students' retention and graduation rates. In addition, teachers from local community colleges and high schools are recruited in this program as RET participants. The experience of RET participants in hands-on engineering research projects helps them encourage their students to pursue engineering as a career. The SCR2 program offers summer research experience (eight weeks for students and six weeks for teachers) focusing on smart and connected cities. In this paper, we present our learnings from the last three years of the SCR2 program, which will inform the progress of engineering education and training in the United States. While the 2019 SCR2 program was able to offer on-campus research experience and mentorship for the REU/RETs, the 2020 program had to go virtual to accommodate the extraneous circumstances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this transition, the 2020 program engaged 32 undergraduates and 12 teachers, who successfully participated in 12 research projects across three host sites. Learning from the experience of the summer 2020 virtual program, the 2021 SCR2 program was redesigned as a hybrid program and was able to bring six host sites together, offering 18 projects in which 47 undergraduates and 23 teachers participated. One major success of the program was the positive impact of remote learning on both students and teachers. Despite the hybrid nature of the program, students excelled in their technical skills due to the effective collaboration using video conferencing tools. However, during the post-program survey, one primary concern was reported regarding the reduced participation of women students in the program. Simultaneously, the women participants reported less satisfaction and reduced confidence and knowledge gain than men. The transition of the SCR2 program from on-site to online and finally hybrid model exemplifies how innovation in engineering education can overcome the challenges posed by the health crisis. However, it is evident from the assessment results that more attention is needed concerning the experience of women in the program to improve their sense of belongingness in the field of engineering. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Virtual REU Program: Engineering Education Research

This paper describes a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site program conducted through virtual working environment. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, REU 2021 activities were conducted online through Canvas and Zoom communication platforms. The major aim of this program is to provide undergraduate students with experiences in engineering education research (i.e., education research in the context of engineering). This paper provides an overview of the program, and briefly describes the virtual working environment, and students' research experiences during the 10-week program. A total of 11 undergraduate students, seven graduate mentors, and seven faculty mentors have actively participated in the program. The program is conducted in two phases: Phases 1 (i.e., Weeks 1-2) and 2 (i.e., Weeks 3-10). Phase 1 consists of preparatory and foundational work that is delivered to participants and will allow them to begin Phase 2 with some educational research foundation already established. The results of the project evaluation show that the program has made a positive impact on increasing education research skills and communication skills of the participating REU students. The participating REU students reported that the research projects they worked on increased their motivation and confidence for continuing to engage in engineering education research. Four participants (i.e., 36.4% of the total participants) suggested that, if available, they would prefer face-to-face over a virtual REU program. Another four participants (i.e., 36.4%) felt that both face-to-face and virtual would offer the same quality of research experiences, and 3 participants (i.e., 27.2% of the total participants) voiced their preference of virtual over face-to-face REU program. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Digging Deeper with Data: Engineering Research Experiences for STEM Undergraduates and Teachers

It has become increasingly important for K-12 students to learn how to investigate patterns, correlations, and significance in data. The Berkeley Engineering Research Experiences for Teachers plus Data (BERET+D) pairs undergraduate pre-service teachers and experienced in-service science and mathematics teachers (PSTs and ISTs) to engage in engineering and data science research, exploring and analyzing data sets drawn from a variety of STEM fields and laboratories across the UC Berkeley campus. In addition to conducting independent summer research projects with guidance from university research faculty, the program provides opportunities for: (1) PSTs to develop data science-based lessons inspired by their research and aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), (2) ISTs to create data science-based curricula designed to inspire middle and high school students to see STEM classes as exciting and with real-life applications, and (3) ISTs to collaborate with and mentor PSTs preparing to enter K-12 STEM classrooms. Contributing towards broader impacts, CalTeach recruits a racially and socioeconomically diverse population of PSTs, and all ISTs were recruited from local public schools, in order to educate, prepare, and encourage more minority and female K-12 students to consider higher education and careers in STEM. During the first two summers of this project (2020-2021), participants completed over forty data-science related projects, developed over thirty K-12 data-science related lesson plans in math, science, and engineering, and created six classroom-ready and publicly accessible (teachengineering.org) curricular units showcasing data science. As an example of these curricular units, and as further evidence of the project's broader impact, one IST has developed an ongoing partnership between their classroom and a research laboratory on campus allowing high school physics students to learn data science techniques by analyzing and interpreting distant satellite signals collected by radio telescopes. Preliminary evaluation of this ongoing project revealed that participants viewed data science as important and essential in K-12 curriculum, that data analysis is a critical and useful skill for youth, and that data science aligns closely with the science and engineering practices called forth by NGSS. Though constrained by work-from-home restrictions due to COVID during the first two years, participants described their experience as positive and valuable, particularly in conceiving of ways to engage young learners with data-science through remote instruction. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Best Practices and Lessons Learned on Organizing Effective Cohort-based Undergraduate Summer Research during COVID-19

This paper summarizes the best practices and lessons learned from organizing an effective remote REU Site during COVID-19. Our REU Site is a three-year program that is designed to offer closely-mentored summer research experience to a cohort of ten students in each of the three years. COVID-19 has disrupted our site by forcing us to split our second cohort to two groups, two students in summer 2020 and seven students in summer 2021. However, the experience that we gained in summer 2020 by mentoring the two students virtually online has provided us with the confidence that a virtual REU Site with a larger group can be as effective as in person and on campus. To further improve the quality of our REU Site in the on-line mode, we have applied multiple novel practices. Specifically, before the start of the 2021 REU site we as the site co-directors proactively worked with mentors to better understand the needs of the defined research projects. Subsequently, we tailored the topics covered by the crash course of our site to the needs of the research projects as well as purposefully increasing active learning activities and student interactions. In lieu of the previous in-person bond building activity (a two-day high rope course in a nearby camp), we added virtual scavenger image hunt in orientation and game nights every Wednesday. During the ten weeks, we also organized a half-hour daily check-in and check-out in the morning and afternoon respectively, through which students got ample opportunities to speak in a group setting about their own accomplishments and challenges for the day as well as their plans for the next day. Moreover, a PhD pathways panel and several professional development seminars on Graduate School and the research process were successfully organized to motivate students to pursue a research career. To facilitate communication, our site adopted multiple software tools (slack, google calendar, zoom, and moodle). An independent evaluator evaluated our program through online pre- and post-program surveys for both students and mentors as well as a focus group discussion with students. The evaluation report indicates significant improvement from the summer 2021 program regarding student satisfaction compared to the previous summer 2019 on-site program. Detailed quantitative analysis and lessons learned from the report will be presented in this paper to offer valuable experience and best practices for organizing effective cohort-based undergraduate research programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

The measurement and discriminant analysis of enterprise resilience

The current environment is complex and uncertain. COVID-19 not only brings challenges to the government’s public health governance, but also disrupts the industrial supply chain and poses a crisis to the survival and transformation development of enterprises, which has raised severe tests to the resilience of enterprises and has also become an important issue for scholars to study. The existing academic research and practical experience show that resilience is the key ability to support enterprises to survive the crisis, and stability and adaptability are the main characteristics of resilient enterprises. Stable performance improves enterprise operation efficiency, and adaptability improves strategic flexibility. This paper focuses on the quantitative study of enterprise resilience, analyzes the relationship between stability and adaptability from the perspective of paradox, and selects efficiency and flexibility as discriminant variables from the outcomes of resilience. Based on the financial data of the resilient enterprises and the control group, the variables affecting the resilience of enterprises were determined by discriminant analysis and the measurement indexes were constructed to establish the calculation method of enterprise resilience. By calculating the scores of resilient enterprises and the control group, it is found that the scores of resilient enterprises are significantly higher than the control group in terms of stability and adaptability, which verifies the paradoxical relationship between them. This shows that the resilient firm is not an either-or choice between stability and adaptability, and there is a continuously distributed behavior space between them. Therefore, resilient enterprises adapt to the changing and highly uncertain business environment through constant change and innovation while maintaining the bottom line of survival in the crisis. © 2022, Editorial Board of Journal of Systems Engineering Society of China. All right reserved.

Sensitive Condition of the Tesearch Experience During the Pandemic

The outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic required several readjustments of daily life and work, including redefining the paths of ongoing research. For researchers who needed to make approximations and interactions with field subjects, these changes also involved emotional and ethical accommodations. In this sense, the objective of this article is to discuss the research experience of two doctoral students during isolation. We use the concepts of sensitive themes, sensitive conditions, and experience to build the theoretical framework and methodology of the duoethnography for the production of information and the construction of dialogue. The analysis of narratives allowed organizing the plot of the experiences lived by the doctoral students during the pandemic, revealing that expectations, frustrations, and loss of meaning are not externalities but part of the research experience. The recognition of the researcher's human condition helped to understand the sensitive condition of the research experience.

Rapid Pivot of CURE Wet Lab to Online with the Help of Instructor Communities.

The pivot to remote and hybrid learning during the Covid-19 pandemic presented a challenge for many in academia. Most institutions were not prepared to support this rapid change, and instructors were left with the burden of converting a traditional face-to-face course into multiple modalities with very limited preparation time. When institutional support is lacking, we posit that instructor communities of practice can help provide the resources needed to meet the instructional demands. Tiny Earth, a course-based-undergraduate research experience (CURE) and international network of instructors and students, responded to the instructional challenges of the pandemic by leveraging its large community of instructors to create several smaller working groups to form focused communities of practice. Using the pedagogical principles of backward design and scientific teaching, one working group, the Tiny Earth Pivot Group (Pivot Group) generated a course map of remote learning activities and simulated learning resources to fulfill the Tiny Earth learning objectives and maintain the essential tenets of a CURE. Additional working groups were created to disseminate the resources collated and created by the Pivot Group to the greater community. In terms of Tiny Earth, the community structure provided the means for instructors to rapidly pivot their course materials to multiple modalities while upholding the student CURE experience. Harnessing the hallmarks of communities of practice-collective workpower toward common purpose, diversity of perspectives, and ongoing evolution-coupled with high-structured course design allows instructors flexibility and adaptability in meeting the changing modalities of higher education.

TikTok: An Emergent Opportunity for Teaching and Learning Science Communication Online.

Increasing use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic practice of social distancing has emphasized the value and power of effective science communication through social media. As such, it has become equally important to teach and learn how to use social media accurately and effectively for science communication. In response, we developed an activity to use the social media platform TikTok to both model and build effective 21st century science communication skills. TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform whose popularity sharply increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using the short, focused video style of TikTok, we modeled effective social media science communication practices to teach basic science concepts and laboratory techniques. At the end of the semester, students were then challenged to create their own informative and engaging TikToks about their team's research projects to practice effective science communication. Here we share our approach and several TikTok best practices for effective and engaging science communication teaching and learning, along with example videos created during this process.

Keeping Students Connected and Engaged in a Wet-Lab Research Experience during a Time of Social Distancing via Mobile Devices and Video Conferencing Software.

Two major COVID-19 pandemic challenges presented for in-person instruction included adhering to social distancing guidelines and accommodating remote learners who were temporarily isolated or permanently participating from afar. At Binghamton University, our First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program was challenged with providing students with a wet lab course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), an intense hands-on experience that emphasized student teamwork, lab protocol development, iteration, troubleshooting, and other elements of the scientific process that could not be replicated in a fully remote environment. We developed an innovative technology approach to maximize all students' connection to the lab research experience, utilizing dedicated mobile devices (iPod Touch) and video conferencing software (Zoom) to synchronously connect remote learners to in-person learners, peer mentors, and instructors in our FRI research labs. In this way, despite limited lab capacities and fluctuating remote learning populations, we were able to connect remote learners to their peers and mentors in real-time and give them responsibilities that allowed them to be engaged and feel like meaningful participants in the research process. Although our students reported a preference for in-person labs, they noted that this hybrid model was better than other traditionally employed remote-learning lab options. We believe that the lessons learned here can be applied to improve access to research in all situations and allow us to be prepared for other catastrophic disruptions to the educational system.

I9MASKS: FROM A MULTIDISCIPLINARY SUMMER PROJECT TO A NON-ACCREDITED SHORT COURSE

This study presents a research experience with engineering students at undergraduate and graduate levels, during the summer of 2020 at the School of Engineering, University of Minho, Portugal. Following the first pandemic event in Portugal, from March to May 2020, the Foundation for promoting Science and Technology (FCT) has opened a call for research projects among students and researchers at different Universities. The main aim of these projects was to motivate students to return physically to the campus during a summer course, and to promote a research environment among them. i9Masks was one of the projects approved by the University of Minho and its main objective was the development of innovative masks in a silicone elastomer for the protection of COVID-19 with the use of state-of-the-art technologies. The development of masks was at the time a very hot topic as well as a fashionable subject for research. Considering the results obtained, from the final works presented by students, a very positive balance of the experience was achieved. The i9Masks project was a useful learning experience for engineering education, particularly in Portugal, where the opportunity to participate in this type of "learning by doing" experience is very small. Copyright © 2021 by ASME