Tower Day Instructor Resources

Tower Day is designed not only to showcase undergraduate scholarship but to also inspire students at all levels to engage in academics through research, critique, and creative endeavors. CSU professors are encouraged to create meaningful class assignments that require undergraduates to attend Tower Day so that they may be exposed to research designs and ideas.

Sample Assignments

Below are a few examples of assignments that may be incorporated into introductory courses in all disciplines. Instructors are encouraged to use or adapt them as they deem appropriate.

1. Require students applying for SRACE grants to include an application to perform/present at Tower Day as a component for receiving this grant.
2. Require students to attend Tower Day and provide a brief summary/reflection about a poster, performance, or presentation they find interesting.
3. Design a scaffolded course project around Tower Day in a lower level course to teach students how to design a project or thesis, write an abstract, and prepare their presentation.
4. Consider giving extra credit for students that submit and present a class project or individual project at Tower Day.
5. Require students to select three posters within their discipline and for each poster collect the project name, research question, data collection process, and method of analysis. Students would also interview the presenter(s) to determine:
   • What was the researcher's rationale for the design of their research project?
   • Did they consider other methods for answering their research question?
   • What did they view as the strengths and weaknesses of their project?
   • If they had to do the project again, what changes would they make?
   • Prepare a 3-5 page paper summarizing each project and providing an analysis of the similarities and differences in the projects.

Please follow these links for additional sample assignments:

• Sample Presentation Assignment (PDF)
• Sample Humanities Assignment (PDF)
• Sample Chemistry Project (PDF)
• Sample Syllabus (PDF)

This semester I am providing students with an opportunity to present their creative unit teaching plans to the broader CSU audience in two of my courses. One course is a project based learning course consisting of mathematics, science, and computer science education majors who are required to integrate the seven gold standards of project based learning (ASCD) in a unit. The other course consists of middle grades education majors with a concentration in mathematics who are charged with writing and implementing a lesson that fosters students development of procedural fluency from conceptual understanding. Students from both courses will implement this lesson in the field and provide the CSU community with the results of their planning, reflective teaching, and student learning. This experience is in alignment with critical course assignments for the programs in which they are enrolled as seniors.”-- Basil Conway, Secondary Mathematics Education

Student Engagement Tools

Instructor Resources for Syllabi (PDF)

Mentor Recruitment Handout Card (PDF)