Eight teaching-based projects selected for Miller fellowships

Eight faculty projects received funds in the university's Miller Faculty Fellowship program for the 2026-27 academic year. These innovative teaching-based research projects, which will impact student-centric instruction, are supported with a total of $243,075 in grants. The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching's advisory board reviewed all submissions and made funding recommendations to senior vice president and provost Jason Keith. Since 1996, including this year, Iowa State has supported 254 Miller Fellowship projects totaling more than $5 million in grants. Below are the abstracts of the funded fellowship projects.

*Indicates the collaborator is a doctoral candidate

Developing peer mentor and mentee networks for learning and career readiness

Research team: Rachel A. Smith, School of Education (CHHS); Jen Leptien and Kyle Holtman, learning communities (Div. of Student Affairs); and Thaddeus Hill, residence (Div. of Student Affairs)

Amount awarded: $37,691

More than 600 undergraduate peer mentors are embedded in learning community courses across campus. The peer mentor role is designed to help new students transition to the institution, acclimate to their field of study and become successful college students. Implicit in this process is that peer mentors will deploy their campus interpersonal and engagement networks to help their mentees build their own campus support networks. As part of this mentoring process, the peer mentors themselves will learn and build career-readiness skills. The project proposes implementing an innovative network-based reflective activity and assessment tool to help learning community peer mentors and their mentees reflect on the construction of their campus support networks and their networks' resources and opportunities. The reflection also will serve as an assessment tool to help learning community administrators, coordinators and faculty better understand how to strengthen student network formation and peer mentor training, supervision and career-readiness skills.

Enhancing spatial reasoning and digital self-efficacy through learner-generated 360-degree virtual reality STEM modules

Research team: Yungjeong (Leah) Mo, civil, construction, and environmental engineering (ENGR); E.J. Bahng, School of Education (CHHS); and Michael Lyons, biomedical sciences (VET)

Amount awarded: $50,000

This interdisciplinary project enhances undergraduate learning by integrating student-designed 360-degree virtual reality (VR) modules into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM courses across three colleges, spanning construction engineering, biomedical sciences and education. Students will design immersive VR learning modules using 360-degree images, enabling active exploration of complex, spatially rich concepts that are difficult to convey through traditional instruction. Students will be content creators, strengthening discipline-specific content knowledge and spatial reasoning as they select meaningful viewpoints, annotate immersive scenes and construct coherent VR narratives. By capturing, ethically editing and assembling 360-degree visual data, students also will develop digital literacy and technological self-efficacy. Cycles of design, peer feedback and revision further promote active learning, reflective decision-making and instructional confidence. Reusable tutorials, workflows and prototype modules developed through this project will support scalable implementation across courses and sustained use beyond the project period.

Gamifying UX education: An interactive platform for active online design learning

Research team: Aaron Yang and Patrick Finley, graphic design (DSGN); Subinay Malhotra, industrial design (DSGN); and *Trishala Jain, human-computer interaction (ENGR)

Amount awarded: $24,87628

This project proposes a game-based learning (GBL) ecosystem to transform user experience (UX) design education from passive content consumption into active, situated learning. Addressing the challenges of student engagement and the "feedback bottleneck" in remote design courses, the platform integrates meaningful play into the curriculum to foster deep conceptual mastery. Beyond superficial incentives like badges, the system utilizes endogenous game mechanics across three distinct modules: a story-driven learning module for knowledge acquisition, a practice module where students apply concepts in simulated scenarios and a time-pressured lab module designed to understand the consequences of design decisions in the real world. The system will be implemented as a web-based application featuring stealth assessment, which provides real-time, data-driven feedback via student and instructor dashboards without interrupting the learning flow. By connecting seamlessly to Canvas, the project creates a scalable model for high-impact practices that can eventually be expanded to broader areas of undergraduate STEM and design education.

Impact of instructional modality and remediation on student performance in veterinary anatomy

Research team: Zoe Lambert, Thimmasettappa Thippeswamy and Karl Bolser, biomedical sciences (VET); Jessica Ward, veterinary clinical sciences (VET), and Aliye Karabulut-Ilgu, veterinary pathology (VET)

Amount awarded: $18,132.90

This project analyzes a decade of performance data from approximately 1,500 first-year veterinary students in Morphology I (small animal anatomy) to evaluate how lecture delivery modality may influence student learning. The small animal anatomy curriculum has four units, in which the lectures for units 1, 3, and 4 are taught with traditional in-person lectures, while unit 2 is delivered asynchronously online. The team will use unit exam grades to compare learning outcomes between in-person and asynchronous instruction. In addition, the project will analyze the effectiveness of remedial exams on improving student achievement. Findings will guide evidence-based decisions for instructional delivery within the first-year veterinary anatomy curriculum as well as contribute to broader discussions on effective delivery modalities for this foundational content. Results will be disseminated through campus teaching forums and disciplinary venues to inform pedagogical best practices.

Practice with AI audiences before live presentation: Assessing PitchVantage as a tool for building presentation confidence and competence

Research team: Skyler Rinker, Shuyang Qu and Fally Mamanuka-Kanchewa, agricultural education and studies (CALS)

Amount awarded: $44,050.27

Agricultural Education and Studies 3110 is a large-enrollment course that aims to enhance students' ability to deliver engaging presentations. To encourage students to practice more willingly outside of the classroom before delivering their presentations in class, the team proposes integrating PitchVantage, an AI-powered presentation training tool. The software provides automated feedback on delivery and content using responsive AI audiences, which reduces logistical barriers and anxiety that comes with looking for and practicing with real audiences. Previous studies have demonstrated that this software can effectively enhance students' willingness to practice, thus enhancing their confidence and competence in public speaking. A mixed-methods assessment will determine impact on student confidence, competence and audience engagement in course settings. If findings show clear benefits of adopting PitchVantage, a course fee would be implemented to support the use of the software immediately after the completion of this project.

Reinforcing non-language students' learning of Chinese calligraphy

Researcher: Tonglu Li, world languages and cultures (LAS)

Amount awarded: $4,990

This scholarship will reinforce the teaching of CHIN 3710/ARTH 3710 (Chinese Calligraphy: History, Appreciation, and Practice). Chinese calligraphy is a unique form of visual art. Combining theoretical and experiential learning, the course offers a comprehensive introduction to Chinese calligraphy, including its history, theory and criticism, social functions and cultural significance. It also provides students with opportunities to cultivate artistic creativity and writing skills through hands-on experiences. The course was first offered in fall 2025 as an experimental course. With an enrollment of 26 out of 30 students, it was highly successful based on student feedback. It can be further improved by making more high-quality duplicates of artworks available to students, hiring a student teaching assistant, incorporating additional visual materials and enhancing guest lectures.

Rhythms of the world: Expanding our percussion student experience with global sounds

Researcher: Johnathan Sharp, music and theatre (LAS)

Amount awarded: $24,95

This project expands the percussion curriculum and enhances the student experience in world music. The integration of percussion instruments from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean will serve as the cornerstone for a new focus on world percussion, promoting interdisciplinary learning and cultural literacy within the music and theatre department. Students will develop technical proficiency on instruments including samba drums, congas and Chiapas marimba, while also gaining insight into the cultural and historical contexts from which these traditions originate. Through the study of these world styles and instruments in applied percussion lessons and ensembles, students will gain valuable skills in rhythm, performance and music theory, all while building an appreciation for the cultural significance of the music they perform. This initiative will provide a foundation for more inclusive, innovative, and globally minded music education, contributing to the university's mission of preparing students for a dynamic and interconnected world.

Supporting AI pedagogies in pre-service STEAM teacher preparation

Research team: Jeanne Dyches, School of Education (CHHS); Sara Nelson, aerospace engineering (ENGR); Brandon Sams, English, (LAS); Ben Van Dusen, School of Education (CHHS); Aaron Maurer, Iowa Department of Education; and Rachel Shannon, NASA/electrical and computer engineering (ENGR)

Amount awarded: $39,378

Since 2010, U.S. national standards have required secondary students (grades 6-12) to develop disciplinary literacies: the ability to read, write and think within a particular disciplinary context. Given the rapidly increasing ubiquity of AI, secondary teachers must develop new pedagogical skills to meet the needs of their students. In this project, four cohorts of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) pre-service secondary teacher -- future math, science, English language arts and social studies educators -- engage in a six-week AI unit to learn about AI; collaborate with K-12, university and NASA AI instructional technology experts; draft, teach and refine their own AI disciplinary micro-lesson; and employ ISU resources such as the Student Innovation Center's Digital Media Studio and makerspaces to develop and open educational resource text showcasing the AI-driven micro-lessons. The project highlights ISU's innovative approach to teacher preparation, aids in recruitment and advances the university'sland-grant ideals.

The Miller faculty fellowships are named for F. Wendell Miller, a Rockwell City attorney whose estate created the Miller Endowment Trust, with income from the trust divided evenly between Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. Miller was born in Illinois, and grew up in Rockwell City. An alum of Grinnell College and Harvard Law School, he practiced law in Des Moines and Chicago before returning to Rockwell City to manage his family's farm holdings. He died in 1995 at age 97. At Iowa State, the annual earnings support faculty development proposals, graduate scholarships and other academic initiatives. The faculty fellowship program is administered by the president's office and the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.