During my time at Hope College I had the opportunity to be apart of two different research projects. Below is a summary of both of them.
Friendship House: A qualitative study on independent living skills
I had the opportunity to follow up on previous research that one of my professors, Dr. Jane Finn, had done a few years ago. The Friendship House is a pod-style apartment complex on the campus of Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI. The complex houses 18 seminary students and 6 adults with cognitive impairments. This living community allows the 6 friends the chance to live and work in the Holland community with the support of the seminary students. This partnership has proved beneficial for the friends to improve independent living skills and simultaneously given the students a better understanding and appreciation for individuals with special needs. The purpose of this study was to see if the Friendship House was actually helping the friends with their transitional skills. Emma Fowler, Taylor VanRemmen, and I took the questions from the Transition Planning Inventory (TPI) and converted them into interview style questions to gain more information. In pairs, we would interview the 6 friends individually. We broke the questions up into two interviews so that we would not overwhelm the friends. After we conducted the interviews we looked at all of the interviews to find themes. Below is a link to the powerpoint we used when we presented our research at conferences. In the powerpoint, you can find our results of this study. Emma Fowler and I had the opportunity to present our research at the Michigan Council for Exceptional Children Conference in Grand Rapids, MI and at the Michigan Science and Arts Conference in Kalamazoo, MI. We also presented our research at Hope College's Celebration of Undergrad Research.
Presenting at the Michigan Council for Exceptional Children Conference - Emma Fowler and I and some of the Friends
A Unique Collaborative Project to Teach Common Core Math to Students in Special Education and who are At-Risk
A couple Hope College education professors, Dr. Jane Finn and Dr. Vikki-Lyn Holmes, are continuing research on this topic. In my Transition class, Professor Finn and Professor Holmes had all the students get into groups to go teach a math lesson at Zeeland East High School. There were three special education majors and one math education major in each group. We were given a math lesson and were tasked with modifying it so that we could teach it to students who are at-risk and students who receive special education services. The purpose of Dr. Finn's and Dr. Holmes' study is to help math teachers better understand and teach common core math. My class project was one part of their research. I had the opportunity to present alongside them and talk about my part in their research along with my fellow group members. Below is a link to the powerpoint we used when we presented at the Michigan Council for Exceptional Children Conference.