Faculty Research Projects

Faculty Research Projects

Faculty members in the IU School of Liberal Arts are actively engaged in groundbreaking externally funded research and development projects across disciplines, valued, in total, at more than $XXX million. This page chronicles a sampling of current and previous research projects that focus on a range of topics to better understand and engage with the people and world around us.

 

Research Project: Sensory experience and experiential learning

Sensory Experience

We make “sense” of our world through the senses. But sensory experience is not just biological, it is intimately cultural. Smells can transport us back in time to places of our memory; sounds, such as music, can relax, excite, energize, and sooth. My research focuses on how sensory experiences and emotions carry multiple, sometimes contradictory meanings based on those involved in the interactions, and the role these multiple meanings play in identity negotiation. Through my work with cultural heritage tourism in southern Brazil, I developed a theoretical framework to analyze the multiple and layered social meanings produced through sensory experiences, emotions, and other aesthetic features within and across different spaces. Such a framework has applications for tourism and event management, including the design of tourism and other spaces, for landscape architecture, and for our understanding of the processes of transnationalism, human-environment relations, and identity and belonging in Brazil and beyond.

 My methodology involves sensory ethnography and multi-sited fieldwork. Central to this ethnography was a collaboration with German Brazilian communities in southern Brazil and their engagement with traditional gardening practices, folk dance, and their confluence at the largest Oktoberfest in Brazil in Blumenau, Santa Catarina. In addition to participant observation and interviews at various domestic tourism locations associated with German cultural heritage in Brazil, my ethnographic experiences also involve transnational German festivals in the United States as well as at the Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

Find out more

Oktoberfest in Brazil: Domestic Tourism, Sensescapes, and German Brazilian Identity
Teaching Materials for each chapter

Ricke, Audrey. 2018. “Producing the Middle Class: Domestic Tourism, Ethnic Roots, and Class Routes in Brazil.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 23(2):281-300. 10.1111/jlca.12291

Ricke, Audrey. 2017. “Making ‘Sense’ of Identity: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Sensory Experience of German Traditions in Brazil.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 46(2): 173-202. 10.1177/0891241615596774

Experiential Learning

Immersion offers the potential to carry a lasting impact; it involves interactions with people and places. Within the context of experiential learning, it also involves multiple, guided opportunities for application of course knowledge, critical thinking skills, and reflection. My Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) focuses on experiential learning and the integration of new pedagogical technologies inside and outside the classroom to enhance student engagement. It has involved the design and assessment of pedagogy related to fostering interactions with people and places through in-class activities, virtual exchange (COIL), virtual reality, and community engaged learning.

Drawing on student feedback, surveys, interviews, cultural domain analysis, and participant observation, my SOTL projects analyze:

  • the built learning environment and the role of technology within it to craft productive learning spaces and interactions, including the use of clickers, whiteboards, virtual reality, and image-sharing projection software to increase student engagement in active-learning exercises in medium-sized classes.
  • ways to extend and enhance engagement and the application of course knowledge outside of class through the integration of adaptive and digital learning as well as multi-week virtual exchanges with courses in the United Kingdom and Mexico.
  • ways to expand traditional approaches to teaching critical thinking and writing skills by basing the process on procedures anthropologists use to coordinate team-based analysis of qualitative data. The resulting collaborative assessment better addresses the ambiguities surrounding critical thinking skills because of its ability to capture more abstract concepts and craft consensus on what these mean.
  • how to scaffold in-class activities to help students apply theory, especially in contexts of community engaged learning and virtual exchanges.
  • students’ perceptions of community engaged learning in relation to other learning strategies and how these perceptions can be applied to designing and promoting such engagement.

Find out more

Collaborative Assessment

Ricke, Audrey. 2019. “Mapping Assessment in Anthropology: Using Team-Based Qualitative Methodology to Create Learning Objectives and Evaluate Outcomes.” Annals of Anthropological Practice 43(2):53-71. https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12127

Ricke, Audrey. 2018. “Making Anthropology Relevant: Collaborative Assessment in Support of Graduate and Undergraduate Success Beyond the University.” Annals of Anthropological Practice 42(2):53-67. https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12119

Community Engaged Learning

Ricke, A. 2021. Applying Students’ Perspectives on Different Teaching Strategies: A Holistic View of Service-Learning Community Engagement. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 27(2):21-44. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0027.202

Ricke, Audrey. 2018. “Finding the Right Fit: Helping Students Apply Theory to Service-Learning Contexts.” Journal of Experiential Education 41(1):8-22. 10.1177/1053825917750407

Digital Technology and Teaching

Ricke, A. 2021. Pivoting to Virtual Reality, Fostering Holistic Perspectives: How to Create Anthropological 360° Video Exercises and Lectures. Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal 4(1):97-103. https://doi.org/10.5070/T34152620

Ricke, A. 2019. “Enhancing Classroom Interaction: the Integration of Image-Sharing Projection Software in Social Science and Humanities Classrooms.” Interactive Learning Environments 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2019.1652834

Virtual Exchange (COIL)

Ricke, Audrey. 2021. Active-Listening Activity. The Convenience Store: Grab and Go Teaching Materials. IU Pressbook and Institute for Engaged Learning. https://iu.pressbooks.pub/resourceconveniencestore/?s=ricke

https://international.iupui.edu/global-learning/curriculum-internationalization/profiles-in-action/ricke.html

Teaching and Service Awards:

IUPUI School of Liberal Arts Outstanding Lecturer Award (2022)
IUPUI Barbara D. Jackson Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award (2020)
IUPUI School of Liberal Arts Trustee Teaching Award (2019)
IUPUI Division of Undergraduate Education-Sarah Baker High Impact Teaching Award (2019)
IUPUI Athletes Favorite Professor Recognition (2019)
World Refugee Day Award Recipient - Catholic Charities Indianapolis Refugee & Immigrant Services (1 of 3 IUPUI faculty recognized in 2019)