Two NSF grants for $5.7 million to boost STEM education  

Mark Urban-Lurain, Associate Director of  CEER, is the PI on a grant that focuses on developing robust assessment methods for high enrollment courses. The project is built around the concept of "automated analysis of constructed responses"; the project is called AACR. 

Constructed response questions – in which students must explain phenomena in their own words – create more meaningful opportunities for instructors to identify their students’ learning obstacles than multiple choice questions. However, the realities of typical large-enrollment undergraduate classes restrict the options faculty have for evaluating students' writing.

In the AACR Research Group, the team lead by Urban-Lurain is exploring computerized analysis of students’ writing in large enrollment undergraduate STEM courses.

You can read more about AACR at the AACR website. 

The story that is moving around the country about the AACR grant includes ...

First Bell, 10/02/2013

Detroit CBS (WWJ/Technology Report), 10/01/2013

Detroit Free Press

Fox 47 News (Lansing)

Kansas City Star

Kentucky.com

Lansing State Journal

Miami Herald

MSU Today

NewsOK

Sacramento Bee

… around Michigan: Alpena News, Cadillac News, Escanaba Daily Press, Flint WJRT TV 12, Iron Mountain Daily News, Lansing WLNS-TV 6, Marquette Daily Mining Gazette and

… around the U.S.: California’s Ventura County Star, Florida’s Orlando WFTV, Indiana’s Columbus Republic, Oklahoma’s Alva Review Courier, South Carolina’s Enquirer-Herald and Lake Wylie Pilot