The purpose of our team’s research was to better understand the IU and Indy parks challenge to make recommendations for how the project could be feasible and how to get students/staff involved. The team had researched what other organizations had done. The team also learned other methods IU used beforehand to see what we could add to it. Our team used IU’s databases and the internet searches  together with two surveys, one for students and the other staff.

 

We met with Dr. Daday of IU Indianapolis on 9/25/23. The scope of the project is grand, as it tries to connect IU Indianapolis with Indy Parks, which is over 200 parks. The tools that were used were IU databases and surveys for research.

 

Electronic Research

For the digital research we focused on topics that may be similar, as this challenge was new territory for IU Indianapolis. In the beginning we searched through IU Indianapolis databases and google to find some sources that may help with our research. The main ones the team used for starting out were Proquest and EBSCO with a bit of information from google scholar.

 

To narrow our searches for relevant sources we had used different search terms including: “program model” and “community engagement” to find if there were similar models or partnerships that other schools used that could be useful. We had also used “engaged learning” and “marketing” so we could find the best way to spread word and learn about what would get students interested. Other search terms were “university”, “staff”, and “experiential learning”, as the staff of the university is also important to make recommendations for the project.

 

Local Study

The goal after doing research was to get information about faculty and students. The information we gathered was about how willing students and staff were to be involved and if they could do it at all. The team had created two different surveys: one for staff and one for students. There were general questions such as “Which of the following advertisement methods would interest you in instructing an engaged learning course? and “If you could be “matched” with a professor for a real-world engaged learning class, what would you like this match to be based on? There were also specific questions as “what would motivate you to adapt your current curriculum to include project-based engagement activities with local community partners?” and “What resources would you like to have from a faculty mentor in a real-world engaged learning class? The surveys were created with survey monkey and were sent out by electronic link. For the student survey there were 25 students who had responded and the staff had 6 responses so far.

 

We had analyzed the responses, more of the students as there were more responses, to learn of what could help with the recommendations. We had gained insight on what the staff would require, what the school would need, and what the students want for the program. This lets us focus on usable models,what the university could provide, and why the program is beneficial for everyone involved.