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The exhibit started when I was thinking about explaining to the students
how religion plays a role in American life.
And I wanted them to both incorporate research methods
but also think carefully about how sharing of those research products
shape perception.
We thought about having the exhibit that would
showcase some variations - variations on a practice.
So six teams took six different religious traditions
and looked at the variations of a particular festival unique to that tradition.
So, for example, the Hinduism group did Diwali
and looked at different practices of Diwali across
Hindus practicing in America.
The exhibit has a couple of different components:
a physical artifact, a digital presentation, and an interactive piece
where the crowd can begin to interpret a poem.
to determine whether the poem is religious or secular.
When I presented the assignment to my students
I told them it is experimental and that we had never done something like this before.
I wanted them to co-create the assignment.
I offered to incorporate their interests and ideas
the only parameters that I gave them were that it had to be
variations on a practice, and it had to be cool.
So I asked them to determine what they wanted to share
and how they wanted to share it.
We looked at several different digital tools that would allow interactive elements
within the exhibit.
I invited them to think through the process on their blog.
Then I gave them specific times throughout the beginning of the semester to work on it
to ask questions of me about what the exhibit required
and also to share their experiences in doing preliminary research
and in working together as a team.
When I pitched the project to students, I asked them to be very
reflective in their own participation
and also to think very carefully about what it meant to work in a team.
We have not yet done the team presentations. That's on Monday.
They will grade themselves as well as each member of their team
I want them to take away two different types of things.
To work within a team group
So much of scholarship is team based now.
So much of scholarship is no longer a simple journal article
or a monograph. It's a variety of different types of research products.
shared in a multitude of different ways.
I wanted them to have that experience on a safe scale
The audience in the library is going to be generally receptive
and engaged with them.
So far the feedback has been that they were very excited to work on something
that they could share with other people.
I think it gave them an ability to think beyond
the simple research, but also the stories that they want to share with people.
How they would share that.
I think that ultimately it has been highly productive
both in methodology and thinking about what research looks like in the 21st century
So many of the students are freshman and sophomores.
It gives them early experience in learning how to work across a team, learning how to work across a project.
It has to be done - when.
It's my advice to anyone thinking about doing an exhibit or engaging their students
in something experimental to reach out to them early
and have a few more guidelines.
One of the things I learned about "It has to be cool" - they needed a lot more guidelines than that.
They needed a little more clarification from me.
So we spent a lot of time co-creating
the project and the assignment
which was amazing. And I think if we had time
to do that - engaging the students as scholars
it gives them a lot of agency.
It allows them to bring the myriad of talents that they have
into a single discipline.
It becomes
more student owned and student driven.
But it did take a lot more time than I anticipated
I think next time I'll have a few more guidelines in
my assignment - with some examples
I was asking them to kind of create it out of thin air
that was a little difficult
I'm thinking that some of the benefits
is really tapping into the different expertise and different skillsets
within the students to make it highly interdisciplinary
One team had someone very strong with technology.
Another had contacts with
the Hindu community.
So it had a much stronger ability to kind of get into
the community of practice.
Most students are non-religion majors.
they come from a variety of different fields.
Human Food Nutrition, History, some Engineers
They are bringing a variety of different views
into the project and in working together
and kind of showcasing their different skills,
they really built something much more complex and much richer
than had it just been a simple research paper.
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