student directed research project

Directed Research Projects

Select a research topic, working with a faculty advisor and the library, design flaws to avoid, glossary of common legal research terms.

• Preparing to Research
• The Research Process
• The Writing Process
• Checking your Sources
• Getting it Published

One of the most important yet challenging aspects of a directed research project is forming an appropriate research question or topic. Your research process will be much easier if you have a well-defined, manageable research topic. If you need help finding a research topic, you can start by:

I. Examining legal developments

II. Searching for a novel case or a legal issue where courts have split on their interpretation of the law

III. Browsing recent scholarly publications

(see Preemption Checks in this guide)

IV. Mining topic ideas, including calls for papers and writing competitions

(see Steps for Getting Published in this guide)

V. Talking to people--especially faculty members and/or your faculty advisor

VI. Keeping up-to-date with current affairs

(e.g. news items can generate topic ideas)

• ABA's Blawg Directory The Journal maintained a comprehensive directory of more than 4,500 law blogs from 2007-2019. The project has now been sunset, and the listings are not being updated.
• Justia's Blawg Search These posts typically cover current events and developments in law, and can provide ideas for research topics.
• Law.com Law.com provides access to legal news stories, law journal articles, U.S. and global legal rankings, surveys, events, employment opportunities, and topical legal research.

Petition process:

• A student may petition for "Directed Research: Curricular Development" when they have a project that involves assisting a Law School faculty member in developing concepts or materials for new and innovative law school courses.
• Both the supervising faculty member and the Associate Dean for Curriculum must approve the petition for "Directed Research: Curricular Development."
• Students must meet with the instructor frequently for the purposes of reporting and guidance.
• Unit credit is by arrangement. Keep in mind that with the approval of the instructor, successful completion of a directed research project of two units or more may satisfy the JD writing requirement to the extent of one research writing course (R course).
• Directed Research petitions are available on the Law School Registrar's Office website (see Forms and Petitions). 

Connecting with a faculty member for directed research projects: 

• Sometimes, a faculty member will reach out directly to students and/or a group of students to gauge interest in a directed research project. Before committing yourself to the project, ask questions to get a better feel for the project subject and scope. Make sure you are interested in the topic before committing to move forward. 
• You can meet with faculty after class or during office hours to discuss potential directed research projects that interest you. Make sure your proposed research idea/project matches with the faculty member's area of expertise. Do have an idea about your proposed research topic and be sure you have done at least a cursory look at what has already been published.
• If you aren't sure about a topic but would still like to work on a directed research project, consider talking with faculty members about what research interests the faculty has. Also consider topics you've enjoyed in various courses and/or faculty members you would like working with.
• Be mindful that in addition to teaching courses, doing their own research, and mentoring students, faculty members do a variety of work for the law school. They may already have students that they are doing directed research with and/or additional time commitments, so they may decline to serve as your faculty supervisor.
• It is helpful to have had a course with the professor before (or to be in class with them currently) and for them to at least be able to recognize you as a familiar face.

Before approaching a faculty member with an idea or ideas regarding directed research, it is advisable for you to come talk to a reference librarian first. 

Connecting with the library for directed research projects: 

• You are encouraged to work with the library at all stages of your directed research project, even before you've met and confirmed the project with a faculty member. Visit the library to help refine your research question, plan out research timing, and ensure you're contributing to an academic conversation. 
• Appointments are strongly encouraged for directed research projects. Students can connect with a librarian and then meet with that same librarian several times throughout your research process. Appointments can be made through the library website . 
• If you don't see an appointment time that works for you, you can either email a librarian directly to request a time that does fit into your schedule, or you can hop into the Reference Office Zoom Room . 
• Feel free to send questions related to directed research projects via email to [email protected] .

Your research plan will help establish the timeline, decision making process, and final structure for your directed research project. Taking the time to develop a thorough research plan helps to organize your thoughts, set the boundaries of your research, ensure that your findings are reliable and up to date, and allow for room to check back through your work. Therefore, it is essential to develop a research plan before beginning the legal research process.

When developing your plan, avoid these common pitfalls (listed in no particular order): 

• You're finding too much information; you're finding hundreds upon hundreds of articles/cases that are related to your topic. 
• Information you find seems broken into specific aspects of the topic.
• Your topic could be summed up in one or two words (for example, "environmental law" or "animal law")
• Rule of thumb : If entire books have been written on your subject it is too broad.  A good topic will address a specific question.
• You can't find enough information and what you do find is tangential or irrelevant.
• You find information that is so specific that it can't lead to any significant conclusions.
• Your sources cover so few ideas that you can't expand them into a significant paper.
• The research problem is so case specific that it limits opportunities to generalize or apply the results to other contexts.
• Research questions that won’t keep you interested:  If you aren't interested in a research topic at the start of your directed research, chances are your lack of interest won't change while you're digging through resources. 
• Does your research question fit into an academic conversation?  When developing a research project within the context of prior research, don't just note that a gap exists; be clear in describing how your study contributes to, or possibly challenges, existing assumptions or findings.
• Significance : Your research design must include a clear answer to the "So What?" question. Be sure you clearly articulate why your directed research is important and how it contributes to the larger discussion about the topic being investigated.
• Poorly defined research question: The starting point of most new research in the legal field is to formulate a problem statement and begin the process of developing questions that address the problem. Your paper should outline and explicitly delimit the problem and state what you intend to investigate since it will determine what your research plan will look like.

Legal dictionaries can be helpful for directed research projects because the legal definition of a term will often differ from the non-legal definition of a term. During the research process, look up terms you encounter to verify that your interpretation of the word is correct. Black's Law Dictionary is the most commonly used legal dictionary in the United States. The 11th edition (2019) is available in  Westlaw  and  in print  at the Law Library's Borrowing Services Desk. 

General Legal Research Terms (the following list is a non-exhaustive, quick reference tool for words and/or phrases that commonly show up when discussing or mapping out a directed research project):  

ALR : American Law Reports. Large, secondary research resource consisting of multi-jurisdictional, in-depth articles (called “annotations”) on specific legal topics. Available online and in print. 

ALR : Alternative meaning: At many law schools, Advanced Legal Research, or ALR, is an upper level research course.

Analogize:  To take the facts, rationale or argument of a written decision and explain how the argument relates to your case/issue.

Annotated Code : A set of state or federal statutes that contains not only the wording of the statutes, but also research references, such as cases that have interpreted the statutes or articles that have examined the ramifications of a statute.

Bluebook : Officially titled, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , also known as the Harvard Bluebook. Currently in its 21st Edition, The Bluebook gives examples and states the citation rules used by lawyers and judges when writing briefs or opinions.   

Brief : A written, legal argument that conforms to specific court rules, in which a lawyer advances the merits of his or her client's case.  A brief usually includes a statement of the questions the lawyer wants the court to consider, the law the court should apply to answer those questions, and an argument that applies the law to the factual circumstances the lawyer wants the court to adopt. 

Case : A decision by a court. Also referred to as "case law" or an "opinion." Cases from a particular court or a group of courts are printed in books called reporters. Cases are also available in electronic databases.  

Circuit  - or Judicial Circuit: A Federal appellate court division. There are 13 United States Courts of Appeal, including the First through the Eleventh Circuits (based on groups of states), and the District of Columbia Circuit. 

Citation : A reference to a legal precedent or authority (primary or secondary) such as a case, statute or treatise. Case citation: The alpha numeric identifier provided to enable researchers to locate written decisions. The format usually consists of a volume number, the abbreviated reporter name, and a page or paragraph number. (e.g. 7 P.2d 206).  Citations are also used to find a resource in an electronic database. Consult  The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , 21st ed.  for correct citation formats. 

Citators:  A tool used in legal research to update legal authorities by listing their subsequent history and treatment. Also provide additional research references to primary and secondary resources citing your original document.

Code : A set of state or federal statutes arranged by subject matter rather than in the order the laws were passed.  Also shorthand for an administrative code, which is not a statute, but a regulation, so one must be careful to understand the difference.  

Digest : Digests are indexed, secondary sources that provide a means of finding cases by searching with subject terms, keywords and phrases, and party names, leading to case citations. Digests exist in print and online. 

District : A court division. At the federal level, trial courts are called District Courts. 

Headnote : A summary of a specific point of law taken from a published case opinion and arranged with other headnotes by subject in a digest.  The headnotes derived from a particular case opinion are set out at the beginning of the written case opinion in a reporter.  Headnotes are written by editors and are not part of the court’s decision. 

Keycite : The Westlaw citator providing the prior and subsequent history of cases, statutes, and regulations, as well as a list of other cases and publications mentioning the case or statute (citing references). Used to check the continued validity of a point of statutory or case law and to locate other similar cases. Often used as a verb.  "Did you KeyCite that?" 

Key Number System : A unique and consistent topic and number approach to locating points of law throughout any jurisdiction within the West digest and reporting system. Each point of law within a case opinion is assigned a topic and “key number” that represents a specific sub-topic. The points of law are then arranged by topic and key number within a digest, and can be researched accordingly.

Loose-Leaf : A set of explanatory materials that is updated regularly by inserting new pages within the existing pages. Some loose-leafs are updated by adding new material at the end of the set. When using this type of loose-leaf, the added material needs to be consulted as well as the text.

Opinion : A judicial decision. 

Periodical : A serial (journal, magazine) which is published at regular intervals, is numbered, contains separate articles, and has no pre-determined end date. Does not include newspapers or conference proceedings.  

Pocket Part : Supplementary material inserted into the back of a volume of a code, treatise or other legal research material. The pocket part updates the contents of the volume from the date of publication to the date of the supplement. When using a print resource, make sure to check the pocket part and/or supplements for updated information, and note the currency of the update. 

Primary Source : Constitutions, statutes, administrative regulations, case law, and treaties are primary law. Primary sources ARE law. Compare to Secondary Source, below. 

Regional : As in “regional reporters.” Regional reporters publish court opinions from courts within a group of states.

Regulation : A rule of law issued by the executive branch of a government through an administrative agency. Regulations may be codified into an administrative code such as the California Code of Regulations or the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. 

Reporter : Generic name given to volumes containing court opinions from a particular jurisdiction or opinions from one subject area. The reporters may be official or unofficial as stated by governmental authority. Reporter citations are used to identify cases in a brief or other court pleadings. 

Restatements : The Restatements of Law have been published by the American Law Institute ("ALI") since the 1930s. The Restatements are summaries of law written with the goal of distilling a legal subject into precise and succinct statements. 

Secondary Source : Any source that is not the actual law, but rather is an explanation or analysis of the law. Legal encyclopedias, treatise, articles, restatements, and books are secondary sources, as are attorney general opinions. See, Primary Source, above. 

Shepardize : Verb originally meaning to check the validity of a case using Shepard’s or another citator. Occasionally used as a generic term for checking the validity of a case or statute using a method incorporating a history check and a citing references check. "Don't forget to Shepardize!"  Shepard's was the first broadly used legal citator, named after Frank Shepard, who invented the original, print citator system. 

Shepard’s : The Lexis citator that provides the prior and subsequent history of a case, statute, or regulation, and lists cases and other sources that have cited it (citing references). Used to check the continued validity of a statute or point of case law, and to locate other similar law. 

Slip Opinion : Print form of a court opinion issued soon after the announcement of the decision of the court. Slip opinions provide access to case decisions before cases are published in bound reporters. 

Statute : Generally refers to a law enacted by either a state legislature or by Congress. A statute is sometimes referred to as a law or code section.

Supplement : A tool used to update a legal resource. Some supplements are stand-alone volumes containing new material. Other resources are supplemented by pocket parts or by newly added pages (as in a loose-leaf publication). In addition to the resource itself, its supplement(s) must be checked in order to obtain the most current information. 

Title : Can be a subject area in a state statutory or administrative code or in the United States Code, such as Criminal Law or Copyright Law, or in the Code of Federal Regulations. A part of an act as passed by Congress can also be called a title, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. 

Treatise : Explanatory material on a subject area, such as bankruptcy or contract law. Treatises may be single volume works or multi-volumes works. 

Unannotated Code : Laws of a jurisdiction that contain only the words of the law, but no research references. 

**Credit for this glossary goes to  Eckstein Law Library .

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• Non-Classroom Credits

Directed Research

How to register for directed research.

• Students must contact individual instructors and agree on a research project.
• Students may ask any full-time or visiting faculty member to supervise Directed Research.  A student who would like to have an adjunct faculty member supervise their Directed Research must submit a proposal to their program office to request permission from Vice Dean Randy Hertz.
• Student Name
• Semester you are adding or dropping course(s) Fall 2021 or earlier semesters
• Course Credits
• Total credits for the semester after you add/drop course(s)
• Course Faculty           NOTE: Please select TBA faculty if the desired faculty name is not part of the drop-down menu
•  Course Title/ Course Number:| (i.e. Directed Research Option A/ LAW-LW. 10737) or                                       (i.e. Directed Research Option B/ LAW-LW.12638)
• The written proposal must be at least 1,000 words and should describe the subject matter of the Directed Research and the issues the student intends to explore in the paper.  All students must state in the proposal how many credits the Directed Research should be for and JD students must state if the paper is for the Option A or Option B writing requirement. JD students, please review the Substantial Writing Requirements webpage for more information on Option A and Option B.
• Students considering a 3-credit Directed Research should contact their program office by submitting an "Add" form via the Law Registrar's Service Desk with their faculty-approved proposal attached. A three-credit Directed Research project is highly unusual and requires the approval of Vice Dean Randy Hertz. To justify a third credit, a DR project must involve major dimensions of research and writing that make the project a scholarly endeavor that substantially exceeds a traditional Directed Research.
• Late requests to add a Directed Research will only be considered if your credit load (not including the Directed Research credits) does not drop below the minimum 12 credits at any point in the semester after the add/drop period.
• Students who are granted permission to late add Directed Research will not be permitted to drop classes if the result is inconsistent with the above.

Other Considerations 

• Failure to make academic progress on a Directed Research may result in a student’s withdrawal with a grade of “WD.” See Grading System and Academic Standards .
• See JD Program Requirements for non-classroom credit caps on Directed Research.
• While Directed Research does not count toward classroom credit, it does count toward the 52 required full-time faculty credits for the JD degree if it is supervised by a full-time faculty member.
• After March 15 of the student’s final semester , no faculty member may accept a request from a student to perform directed research or other work for law school credit unless the student has first received the approval of Vice Dean Randy Hertz.  Students must send their petitions to their program office, not to Dean Hertz.

The Vice Dean may allow such work if the student needs the credit for May graduation and July bar certification subject to the following:

• ​No more than two (2) credits can be earned in this matter
• In making his or her decision, the Vice Dean shall consider (a) the date of the student's request; (b) the nature of the proposal; and (c) whether the missing credits or the timing of the student's request are the result of circumstances that were within the student's ability to avoid. Failure of the student to properly calculate his or her credit at an earlier time, failure in a course, and removal from a course for excessive absences are examples of circumstances within the student's control to avoid. 
• If the missing credits result from circumstances outside the student's control, the Vice Dean will permit the credit if at all academically reasonable. 
• If the Vice Dean approves the student's application, it will be the student's responsibility to find a faculty member willing to supervise the student's proposed work and award the credit in a timely matter. 

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Four principles for assessing student-directed projects

By Karen Brennan, Sarah Blum-Smith, Paulina Haduong | Nov 29, 2021 | Feature Article

The individualized nature of student projects makes them a challenge to assess. Here’s how computer science teachers are creating more effective assessments.

When we asked a longtime computer science teacher at a large public school to describe his classroom, he said, “Mostly, what you would see is people making stuff.” In his class, students explore their personal interests and questions through self-directed projects, no two of them the same. The teacher was excited about how much his students seemed to be learning about coding and programming, but he was having trouble figuring out how to gauge the specifics of their progress: “I don’t know how to assess that — how to know that they actually learned something. That’s my challenge for creative, open-ended, project-based work.”

This teacher’s conundrum is not unique. In our research, we’ve come across many K-12 computing teachers who are excited about the powerful learning that can occur when students engage in open-ended and personally meaningful projects. Yet, these same teachers are uncertain how to determine what those projects reflect about students’ content understanding and what the work means to them personally. In some cases, teachers go ahead and design project-based experiences but do not include assessment of what students know and still need to learn. Other times, teachers’ doubt and uncertainty about assessment makes them reluctant to proceed with project-based learning at all (Brennan, 2015).

As a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) makes clear, self-directed project-based learning is a key strategy for broadening students’ participation and deepening their engagement in computing. Indeed, our own research and teaching are informed by a tradition that views self-directed projects as a rich context for creation, expression, and learning in the field of computer science (Papert, 1980). However, and like the teacher we interviewed, we’ve always found such work difficult to assess, and we’ve found little consensus among experts in our discipline about how best to assess student-led projects (Blikstein, 2018).

Recognizing and supporting learners as individuals requires teachers to attend to not only what students create but also how they create it.

To better understand how teachers think about the complexity of assessing student-directed projects, we conducted an empirical research study of how 80 K-12 computing teachers who included student-directed programming projects in their curricula assessed students’ work. At the same time, we completed an interdisciplinary review of the research literature on assessing open-ended work. We knew that other disciplines — such as visual arts and language arts — have long wrestled with such questions, and we hoped that they might offer insights into how to determine evidence of learning in computer science projects, as well as how we can provide feedback that acknowledges students’ aspirations and efforts (Ozaki, Worley, & Cherry, 2015).

Rather than pointing us toward specific assessment tools (e.g., the use of scoring rubrics), our research led us to four principles that can guide teachers as they begin thinking about how their assessments can consider learners’ current interests, knowledge, and capabilities while supporting their ongoing growth and development. In short, assessment should:

• Recognize the individuality of the learner.
• Illuminate the learning process.
• Engage multiple perspectives.
• Cultivate capacity for personal judgment.

Each of these four principles is supported by research from across disciplines, and while we’re particularly interested in the assessment of project-based learning in computer science, we hope that they will prove equally useful to teachers in other fields.

To illustrate how these principles can be applied in practice, we describe the ways in which Erin, a grade 6-12 computing teacher, used them to assess the learning of students who designed and built apps for phones and tablets. Though we focus on Erin, we found that these principles were used, to at least some extent, by all of the 80 teachers in our study.

Recognize learners’ individuality

The standardized forms of assessment that prevail in most public schools tend to focus on “bringing every student to the same standard rather than looking at individual gains and personal bests” (Richard, 2010, p. 193). The vast majority of the teachers in our study described assessment as a means of understanding the individual learners in their classrooms, both their current capabilities and what they intended to learn and achieve through their projects. Most said that the goal should be to determine what is personally meaningful for each student, while acknowledging the potential variability of the work that different students will produce.

We found a useful model of this sort of assessment in the research on writing instruction. In English language arts classrooms, students are often asked to produce open-ended work that is grounded in personal perspectives, interests, and experiences. And when responding to and assessing student writing, teachers are advised to begin “with the subjectivities of the students and their desire to realize (rather than simply produce) meanings” (Robinson & Ellis, 2000, p. 75). Also, teachers often involve learners in articulating their own goals and aspirations for the work and in designing assessment criteria (Taggart et al., 1999). Developing trusting relationships with students and asking them about their goals can reveal important (and potentially hidden) facets of the work (Zhang, Schunn, & Baikadi, 2017).

In her computing classroom, Erin works to build precisely these kinds of relationships with her students. At the beginning of every project-based assignment, she schedules a one-on-one check-in interview with each student, asking them about their interests, the kinds of apps they like, what they aspire to create, their current capabilities, and what skills and content knowledge they hope to learn, and she uses these goals as the basis for individualized assessment:

They give me a parameter of what they’re going to produce. How they actually do that is up to them. My assessment is: “Did you do that? Did you meet your own requirements for what you proposed you would do?”

At the end of their app development project, each student submits a project documentation that summarizes the purpose, attributes, and development process of their app. Erin then compares these documents to the student’s initial goals and plans to gauge the extent to which they achieved their vision. Of course, students’ final projects do not necessarily include every feature they had hoped to include. However, the comparison between goals and eventual designs is not meant to penalize students for changes in creative direction or challenges they could not overcome by the due date. Rather, the comparison informs Erin’s understanding of learners’ evolving capabilities in relation to the goals they set for themselves and what they learned while completing their individual projects.

Illuminate the learning process

Recognizing and supporting learners as individuals requires teachers to attend to not only what students create but also how they create it. Accordingly, this principle invites teachers to view projects at multiple points in time, in contrast to most traditional forms of assessment (including standardized tests), which gauge students’ performance on a particular day or evaluate the end product of their work.

In our review of the research on assessing open-ended projects, we found that scholars and practitioners in a number of fields have long urged teachers to use multiple forms of assessment, spanning the length of the project (Earl, 2012; McGuinness & Brien, 2007; Orr, 2010; Richards, 2010). For example, professional visual artists, writers, and craftspeople often describe their work as an ongoing process, and within those fields, regular feedback and revision tend to be viewed as essential practices (Brocato, 2009; Eisner, 2004). Likewise, when teachers check in with students at regular intervals, ask questions about their work in progress, and provide feedback meant to guide them in their next steps, they communicate to learners that redrafting and revising are not signs of failure and that every open-ended project depends on an iterative process.

For example, early in the app development process, Erin asks her students to give short (two- or three-minute) elevator pitches about their project to the class, using storyboards. Then they receive feedback from the class, guided by carefully structured questions from Erin, such as, “Is the app presented socially useful?” Students then reflect on the feedback they have received, using it to guide what the next iteration of their proposed designs will look like. And when students finish their projects, Erin asks them to create a final document that describes the different iterations of their work, with an emphasis on the challenges they encountered and how they worked through them. Erin uses this reflection on iteration to understand students’ evolving comfort with perseverance and adaptability in response to challenges, which are necessary dispositions for engaging in open-ended projects in computer science and every other field.

Engage multiple perspectives

The majority of the 80 computing teachers in our study described the classroom learning community as essential to the success of student-directed projects. Similarly, researchers in many other fields have argued that the teacher should not be viewed as the sole audience for or judge of student work. Rather, classroom assessment should incorporate multiple perspectives. Feedback from a range of people (teachers, peers, parents, or others) increases the opportunities for students “to reflect on their learning and their learning needs” (Earl, 2012, p. 93). Additionally, when classroom peers offer feedback, the process can benefit everyone involved: Learning how to assess others’ work can inform students about what to look for in their own creations, helping them develop their ability to critically self-assess (Cennamo & Brandt, 2012; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994). Engaging with their peers’ work can also expose students to various solutions and strategies that they might not encounter otherwise (Sadauskas et al., 2013).

The teacher should not be viewed as the sole audience for or judge of student work.

For example, Erin knows that peers can serve as an authentic audience for students’ creations, so she makes sure learners have opportunities to get constructive feedback from other students. And to ensure that such exchanges are valuable, Erin developed a peer feedback guide to help learners understand both how to share their work and how to give one another useful comments. For instance, it offers advice on specific topics to consider when providing feedback (e.g., the clarity of the app’s purpose, its features, its aesthetic appeal) and how to structure that feedback (e.g., pointing out the features of the app that work well, highlighting one or two features that are confusing).

Erin asks students to keep this guide in mind while their classmates give 10-minute demonstrations and explanations of their projects. During the presentations, half the students sit with their laptops and share their projects with one person at a time. The students watching presentations listen carefully, take notes, ask clarifying questions, and then share their critiques. After rotating through several rounds of presentations, the two groups swap, and the students who have already presented now provide the feedback. Erin notes that this strategy engages everyone in the room: “There is no kid sitting in the back of the class finishing up their project, because they have a role just as much as the presenter. Throughout this whole thing, the presenter is getting continuous feedback.”

Cultivate capacity for personal judgment

While assessment is traditionally seen as something teachers provide to students, the computing teachers in our study tended to believe that the goal of assessment should be to develop learners’ autonomy, decreasing their dependence on teachers’ evaluations and increasing their own ability to exercise meaningful personal judgment and self-direction. This aligns with research from a range of disciplines, describing the ultimate goal of student assessment as the development of self-assessment skills (Ross, 2006; Sefton-Green & Sinker, 2000).

Put another way, researchers from many fields recommend a shift in perspectives: from focusing on the assessment of learning to seeing assessment as learning; not as a one-time judgment of students’ knowledge and skill but as a “personal, iterative, and evolving conversation” that helps students “make their own decisions about what to do next” (Earl, 2012, p. 45). When learners see assessment as part of their own growth and development, rather than as a performance for someone else to judge, they are “more likely to take risks, seek out challenges, and persevere in the face of difficulty” (Beghetto, 2005, p. 259). These qualities are essential to student-directed projects, where learners need ownership over the work and the process of creating it, exercising judgment and flexibility in navigating open-ended tasks.

For Erin, promoting her students’ autonomy is prompted not only by deeply felt pedagogical values but also by practical considerations. Erin wants her students to have constant feedback as they are working on their projects, but the time that she can spend with each learner is limited. Thus, she creates daily opportunities for students to reflect on their work in writing. Erin notes that having students self-assess daily mimics real-world work, where learners will have to be able to judge for themselves what is and is not working and how to adjust. But beyond practical considerations, her desire to make learners what she calls “participants in the process” of assessment is grounded in core values that she wants to convey to students about who they are and the importance of their contributions. Speaking about what informs her classroom learning design, Erin explains:

When we engage them and make this a place they can succeed, it goes so far beyond the actual content. It basically says, “You belong, you have a right to be here, and you have a right to expect a lot from the world. You have great skills and ideas, and the world needs you.”

Difficulties and possibilities

Despite continued enthusiasm about the value of learning through student-directed projects, multiple barriers have limited the widespread incorporation of such activities in K-12 classrooms. Some scholars have noted the need for new forms of teacher development (Grossman et al., 2019) and a rethinking of the underlying grammar of schooling to enable teachers to provide students with these kinds of open-ended, personally meaningful experiences (Mehta & Fine, 2019). Our conversations with teachers have shown that assessment can also be a significant challenge, but we hope these four principles — recognizing individuality, illuminating process, engaging multiple perspectives, and cultivating capacity for personal judgment — can help teachers in all disciplines to incorporate student-directed work into their classrooms.

Researchers from many fields recommend a shift in perspectives: from focusing on the assessment of learning to seeing assessment as learning.

In the context of our own field, computer science education, we acknowledge both the difficulty of  assessing student-directed projects and the possibilities for such assessment. On one hand, computer programming makes aspects of the learning process visible — it’s easy for students to examine each other’s lines of code and to solicit feedback from multiple audiences by sharing work via digital platforms. On the other hand, computer science has strong cultural traditions of didactic teaching and of learning as an accumulation of predefined skills and knowledge, and these traditions work against the embrace of individuality, process, multiple perspectives, and self-direction. While each discipline will navigate these contextual issues in its own way, we benefited enormously from learning about assessment practices in other disciplines that share a commitment to supporting open-ended and personally meaningful work. Reciprocally, no matter the content area, we hope these assessment principles can inspire and support more teachers in designing for learning through student-directed projects, creating opportunities for young learners to imagine themselves and their contributions to the world in new ways.

Note: This research was supported by Google, through CS-ER Grant No. 93661905.

Beghetto, R.A. (2005). Does assessment kill student creativity? The Educational Forum, 69 (3), 254-263.

Blikstein, P. (2018). Pre-college computer science education: A survey of the field . Google LLC.

Brennan, K. (2015). Beyond right or wrong: Challenges of including creative design activities in the classroom. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 23 (3), 279-299.

Brocato, K. (2009). Studio based learning: Proposing, critiquing, iterating our way to person-centeredness for better classroom management. Theory Intro Practice, 48 (2), 138-146.

Cennamo, K. & Brandt, C. (2012). The “right kind of telling”: Knowledge building in the academic design studio. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60 (5), 839-858.

Earl, L.M. (2012). Assessment as learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning . Corwin Press.

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Grossman, P., Dean, C.G.P., Kavanagh, S.S., & Herrmann, Z. (2019). Preparing teachers for project-based teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (7), 43-48.

McGuinness, C. & Brien, M. (2007). Using reflective journals to assess the research process. Reference Services Review, 35 (1), 21-40.

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This article appears in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of  Kappan,  Vol. 103, No. 4, pp. 44-48.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Karen Brennan

KAREN BRENNAN is an associate professor of education in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

Sarah Blum-Smith

SARAH BLUM-SMITH is a doctoral candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

Paulina Haduong

PAULINA HADUONG is a doctoral candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

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Directed Research - Sign Up Instructions

• Only full-time faculty can supervise Directed Research. This includes full-time tenured/tenure-track, research, and teaching faculty.
• You must personally contact the full-time Computer Science faculty member with whom you wish to do directed research.  Use the CS Faculty Directory and Research Areas & Labs listings to find full-time faculty members whose research matches your interests.
• After gaining permission from a full-time Computer Science faculty member, you will need to fill out the online application at: http://myviterbi.usc.edu under "Directed Research" to request clearance to enroll in the course.

B.S. Students: Choose CSCI 490 only. M.S. Students: Choose CSCI 590 only. Ph.D. Students: Choose CSCI 790 only.

The number of units for Directed Research is determined between you and your chosen instructor.

• Once you complete the application, your selected research supervisor will receive an automated email and they must approve your project via the online application system.
• Do not fill out the online application until you have received permission to do so from a full-time Computer Science faculty member.
• After the full-time faculty member approves your application, the department will approve the project and issue d-clearance within one week.

Directed Research FAQ

Graduate Students: No.   CSCI 590 and CSCI 790 Directed Research is credit or no credit.  It is not graded.  You can only earn units toward the degree. Undergraduate Students: Yes. You are assigned a letter grade for CSCI 490 Directed Research.  It counts toward your GPA and you earn units toward your degree, typically these are technical elective units.

Students who began in Spring 2017 and earlier: A maximum combination of 4 units of CSCI 590 Directed Research and ENGR 596 Internship can be used toward the M.S. program.

Students who began in Fall 2017 and later: A maximum combination of 2 units of CSCI 590 Directed Research and 2 units of CSCI 591 Research Colloquium can be used toward the M.S. program.  Internships do not count for credit in the M.S. Program. Please check in with your department advisor to see if your program is eligible.

M.S. students can only take a 1-2 unit Directed Research.  A maximum of 2 units can be taken for credit toward the M.S. degree, so you can either take 1 unit of CSCI 590 twice, or do the course once for 2 units.  The number of units should be something that you discuss with your Professor and Advisor. Undergraduate students should consult with their Professor regarding the appropriate number of units. Keep in mind that 3 units of research is roughly supposed to be the same amount of time as a 3 unit class. Typically, each unit represents an hour of class time and two hours of outside-of-class study time.  So, a student taking a 3 unit Directed Research could expect to spend about an average of 9 hours per week on the course.  A student taking a 4 unit Directed Research could expect to spend an average of about 12 hours per week on the course.

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Growing as an Undergraduate Researcher and the Benefits of Directed Research

Scientific research has become the foundation for much of today’s public policy, medicine, lifestyle choices, and financial investments. We generally conduct research to learn more about the world and maybe find objective truth in the process, like the truth we have found in the existence of gravity and time. In many ways, science has allowed us to improve our quality of life and our society as a whole. Because of this, we take science seriously and try to maximize its success by investing in it, giving it structure, and treating it with rigor.

The author summiting the Travers-Sabine Saddle on his backpacking trip with fellow EcoQuesters.

Science starts with motivated students and their interest in getting involved with research. Bringing along young researchers is arguably the most important part of science today. Inspiring and guiding young researchers ensures that our society will continue to benefit from research in the future. Fortunately, academic institutions have several ways of getting students involved with the research process and sparking their interest in new subjects. As a fourth-year environmental science major and undergraduate researcher at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), I can say wholeheartedly that directed research has been the most transformative experience in allowing me to grow as a young scientist.  

My Undergraduate Research Journey

As a second-year student, before taking part in directed research, I was fortunate to get involved with a research group at UNH studying water systems. The group consisted of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs researching water system issues throughout the world. I started as a research assistant for two semesters and was later awarded a summer research grant from the National Science Foundation through the New Hampshire Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Interested in the mitigation of nitrogen runoff in watersheds, I focused my research on the spatial variability of denitrification in local reservoirs. This project wasn’t structured in such a way that I could expect extensive guidance from the members of my lab. I met with my mentor occasionally, but because of the independent nature of this project, I struggled with communication, executing the scientific process, and grasping the implications of the research. Had I had more experience, I likely would have felt more comfortable; nevertheless, I was inspired to grow as a researcher and to develop fundamental skills in new projects.

I sought an opportunity to study abroad and joined the EcoQuest Education Foundation program in New Zealand during the spring of my junior year. This UNH-administered program welcomes students of many majors and universities and gives students the opportunity to understand sustainability, what challenges the ability of New Zealanders to live sustainably, and the solutions they have explored to address these challenges. The program is based in a rural area close to Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand. The first nine weeks of the program are dedicated to three courses: restoration ecology, biogeography, and policy. The courses center on place-based learning consisting of lectures, field exercises, discussions, and guest lectures. This format is employed throughout the curriculum to offer firsthand educational experience for all three courses. Learning takes place in a variety of indoor and outdoor locations on the North Island, as well as in three weeks spent on the South Island, that focus on ecotourism, alpine ecology, and beech forest ecology.

The final five weeks are spent completing a directed-research project: two weeks of preparation and data collection, two weeks of analysis, and a week to complete the final report and presentation. In the simplest sense, a directed-research project emphasizes the collaboration of a student team with a research mentor who offers fundamental guidance in the research process. Collectively, it is the most efficient way for a novice researcher to develop core research skills, focusing entirely on fundamental techniques without the expectations of advanced research. The group setting allows the mentor to support several students, making the more intensive effort worthwhile. For me, this experience was extremely helpful, my only regret being that I had not had a chance to complete it sooner in my college career.

For our project, my team assessed a restoration project at Lake Waikare in the Waikato Region of the North Island. The lake has suffered pollution in the form of pathogen intrusion, nutrient runoff, and excessive sediment deposition. To combat these processes, the local government and scientists have strategically planted native tree species around the lake. To assess the success of this effort, my team studied the biodiversity of invertebrates in the surrounding soil ecosystems. The presence of high species diversity, particularly rare native species, would indicate a healthy ecosystem at the lake. I worked with four of my classmates every day, adhering to a strict schedule set by our research mentor. Though the schedule was strict, our mentor was devoted to making sure we understood how to approach each task. We started with intensive literature review of papers already retrieved for us from scientific journals by our mentor. This was followed by data collection, which involved invertebrate sampling and water sampling.

To sample invertebrates, we used common methodology from other invertebrate studies. We set up pitfall traps (insects walk into a container), took soil samples, used a beating tray to sample the branches of vegetation (hitting a plant with a stick to knock insects into a tray), and took detritus samples (gathering leaves into a bag). This allowed us to compare biodiversity across reference sites composed of different vegetation types representing varying stages of restoration. 

Water sampling entailed using test kits to measure phosphorus, nitrogen, and pH in addition to using other instruments for measuring the  E. colic  ontent, temperature, and conductivity at various sites around the lake. With water and invertebrate sampling experience, we learned the process of finding common practices for a certain type of study and modifying them in our methodology to address the specific research question. This aspect of the research was very interesting and helpful for future research.

Like other research teams at EcoQuest, Jake and his team were given their own space to conduct research and collaborate on their project.

During this time, we also met with several professionals who offered us information we could use in writing our report. Because the directed-research projects are part of long-term projects at EcoQuest, stakeholders of various cultures and organizations (e.g., universities and government agencies) have also become invested in working with students on their research projects. This allowed us students to work with different professionals and officials while also giving them the opportunity to learn from our findings. We each wrote our own papers in segments throughout the five weeks, following a chronology set by our mentor (introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, then abstract). For each segment we wrote two drafts, the second of which was graded. This gave us the opportunity to go over a draft with our mentor and learn how to perfect our writing. 

As a team we worked together constantly on data collection, analysis, and writing. We identified and counted more than 40,000 invertebrates from the various kinds of samples we took. This massive data output gave us a robust basis for assessing the effect of the restoration strategy at the lake and making recommendations for improvement. Although we wrote our papers independently, we often discussed what we planned to include as the main features of our research. This allowed us to see the data and literature from different perspectives and develop our analytical skills. Any confusion throughout the research process, whether derived from a team conflict or a misunderstanding of the materials, was always resolved by our mentor and turned into a learning experience. Our final papers ranged from thirty to fifty pages long, and as a team, we gave a twenty-five-minute PowerPoint presentation to local stakeholders, staff, classmates, and family.

For major stakeholders, like the local Māori tribe members and the Department of Conservation, our results were incredibly insightful, giving these people updated information on the status of the lake and offering new ideas on how to address the problem. Particularly for the Māori, protecting the native species and the quality of the water at the lake are of the utmost importance, because these entities have sacred significance in their culture. It was an honor to contribute to this cause through the directed-research project. We hope our findings will inform the design of conservation policy and help protect the environmental quality of the lake’s ecosystem, given its profound cultural value in the local community and culture.

The team presentation was a great way to complete the project, because we had to work as one unit and condense our weeks of research into a short description that adequately informed our audience. Learning to overcome the pressure and present with confidence was just as important as learning to complete a literature review, writing the reports, or any other aspect.

A New and Improved Researcher

Before and during my time in New Zealand, I had been working with Dr. Shadi Atallah at UNH on an application for a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Abroad (SURF Abroad), a program offered by the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research at UNH. We proposed a social science research project studying rural livelihood dependence on an endemic palm species in western Ecuador. While in New Zealand, I was informed that my application had been approved, so two weeks after returning to the United States, I traveled to Ecuador to start my research. I am interested in Latin American culture and the pressing issue of deforestation in the face of climate change, so this project was an amazing opportunity to use my new research skills while taking on a project with personal significance. Through focus groups and interviews with members of several indigenous communities, my foreign research mentor, Dr. Rommel Montúfar, and I found that a majority of benefits the communities perceived were not among the benefits being taken into account by the government. For example, the palm was very important to building and maintaining community relationships; many participants reported that their interaction with others depended on tasks related to the palm.

Jake personally conducted many interviews as part of his research in Ecuador. They always took place in participants’ homes or other settings where they felt comfortable.

My SURF Abroad research was very complex and required that I perfect skills beyond those of a beginner researcher. I often planned meetings with researchers from around the world and constantly switched between using Spanish and English to complete the research. With a great deal of traveling required to conduct interviews, I faced several obstacles that pushed me to further my ability to improvise and form plans. In the lab, I spent hours going through literature on a wide variety of topics, and I learned to synthesize my findings in an expedited manner.  

Having written the proposal for SURF Abroad before going to EcoQuest, and then completing the SURF research after returning from New Zealand, it is clear that my directed-research project experience allowed me to grow strides beyond the researcher I had been. Writing my SURF proposal took many hours because I struggled with big-picture research concepts, literature, and writing structure. However, these tasks and skills became almost trivial after completing my directed-research project, which then allowed me to focus on more advanced research skills while in Ecuador. Completing mass quantities of literature review, coordinating with a team, collecting data, analyzing it, and writing were far less daunting tasks than they would have been before my directed-research experience. The field of my research in New Zealand was also very different from that of my research in Ecuador. This shows how the benefits of the directed-research project were not specific to my topic, and my growth as a researcher was not bound to a particular field.

In reflecting on my undergraduate research experiences, it is obvious to me now that a directed-research project would have been a perfect way to start as a researcher. In only five weeks, I developed fundamental skills quickly, and any confusion that arose was settled smoothly by my mentor. It would have been best if I had participated in the water systems research after my directed-research project. The water systems project structure was more appropriate for a student with more experience and skills who could function more independently from a lab group and research mentor. I believe if I had had the directed-research experience first, my water systems project would have gone far better and could possibly have allowed me to coauthor a paper.

The Future of Science and Research

Research has allowed me to explore several facets of sustainability, which is my passion in my career and my life as a whole. With experience studying environmental systems, restoration, and economics, I am now prepared to investigate new facets of sustainability, such as agriculture, investing, and advocacy. Research has taught me much about my life and my place in the world, which is knowledge I would hope any passionate student could access through undergraduate research.

Based on my experience with the EcoQuest program, it is clear that it would be extremely beneficial to make directed research available to more students. Although directed-research projects can be enhanced in an international setting, they would be equally beneficial on a local scale. An appropriate chronology in undergraduate research is also important. With the support and guidance offered by directed research, an aspiring researcher can make early strides in meeting their full potential by pursuing this kind of project first. Such a student could move swiftly into advanced research as early as their third year of college, committing to programs like SURF. Given that young researchers are the future of science, investing in their development should be a priority, and I believe that directed research presents an amazing opportunity to do this.

I am so lucky to have completed three research projects as an undergraduate student, and none of it would have been possible without the support of my amazing mentors and peers. Thank you to Dr. David Clarke for his mentorship and contribution to all aspects of my directed-research project. Thank you to Jono Clark, Ria Brejaart, and Dean Kimberly Babbitt, the coordinators of the EcoQuest program.  Thank you to  the Nikau Estate Trust at Matahuru marae, Lake Waikare.  Thank you to Dr. Rommel Montúfar (PUCE) and Dr. Shadi Atallah (UNH) for their mentorship and contribution to all aspects of my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Thank you to Dr. Wil Wollheim, my academic adviser and head of the Water Systems Analysis Group at UNH. Thank you to the Hamel Center at the University of New Hampshire for funding my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Thank you to the EcoQuest Education Foundation for funding my directed-research project. Thank you to the National Science Foundation for funding my summer research with the NH EPSCoR Ecosystems & Society Project. Thank you to Dr. Georgeann Murphy for assisting in the logistics of conducting my Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, for encouraging me to publish in  Inquiry , and for motivating me to work harder.

Author and Mentor Bios

Jake Gehrung , from Walpole, New Hampshire, is completing a major in environmental science and two minors: business administration and Spanish. He will graduate with his bachelor of science degree in May 2020. His passion is “to gain a holistic view of sustainability, and drive change through political and economic efforts.” Jake participated in several research projects through programs at the University of New Hampshire and says, “Research is one of the most sophisticated ways of learning about the world. Educating myself on people and the environment has been my priority as a college student.” In particular, Jake enjoyed research that involved cultural connections. “In New Zealand, I was able to support indigenous stakeholders and present my findings to them; in Ecuador, I learned so much about both rural and urban culture and how they alter the perception of the natural world.” Jake decided to write a commentary for  Inquiry  to inform others about the great value of a rigorous directed-research experience.

David Clarke  is a lecturer for EcoQuest Education Foundation in Whakatiwai, Kaiaua, New Zealand. He shares responsibility for teaching the EcoQuest program content as well as designing and coordinating EcoQuest directed-research projects. Dr. Clarke’s own research interests include wetland restoration ecology, invertebrate ecology, acaralogy (the study of mites), and the study of long-tailed bats, an endemic species in New Zealand. When Jake attended the Ecology in Action semester program, Dr. Clarke served as his EcoQuest research mentor in New Zealand. Their research project focused on assessing soil invertebrates as bioindicators in a degraded lake catchment. Dr. Clarke has been the designer and supervisor for all directed-research projects related to the wider research initiative, which involves input from regional councils, community groups, universities, and private research institutions. He has supervised many undergraduate researchers, both during his PhD candidacy at the National University of Ireland Galway (2010–2015) and in his role at EcoQuest since 2016.

Shadi S. Atallah  is an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 2015. Dr. Atallah’s research encompasses agricultural, resource, and environmental economics, and he specializes in bioeconomics, the study of the economic management of biological resources. He recently started a collaboration with universities in Ecuador, Colombia, and France to research biodiversity and ecosystem services in the tropical Andes. It is through this collaboration, LMI BIO-INCA, that he met Jake’s mentor in Ecuador, Rommel Montúfar. One of their areas of interest is the ivory palm, which became the focus of Jake’s summer research. “Through Jake’s research, I now have an assessment of the relative importance of economic uses to noneconomic uses of the tagua palm,” Dr. Atallah said. “This information is critical for me before I embark on assessing the resource and its use from an economic perspective.”

Rommel Montúfar  is an associate professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Quito, Ecuador. He mentored Jake during his Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in that country. Dr. Montúfar is also a director of LMI BIO-INCA, an international consortium of scientists. His current research projects include genetic diversity of  Mauritia flexuosa  (Arecaceae) in Yasuní National Park in Ecuador and regional genetic patterns of  Oenocarpus bataua/Euterpe precatoria  (Arecaceae) in northwest South America.

Contact the author 

Copyright 2020, Jake Gehrung

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Directed Research Opportunities

Undergraduate directed research.

Everything You Need To Know

Directed Research (PSYS 392/492) is a class in which you work on a research project with a faculty mentor. Unlike a regular class, where you follow a fixed syllabus, a Directed Research project is much more open ended. The key requirement for Directed Research is that it leads to a product (e.g., a writeup or poster presentation about your work), that can be graded. Learn more from the dropdowns below:

What kind of research project will I be doing?

No two Directed Research projects are alike. The range of possible projects is enormous and depends very much on your interests and those of your faculty mentor.

Past projects have included analyzing behavior in game shows, running neuropsychological studies on older adults, measuring electrical signals in the brain in response to stimuli, and exploring the causes and correlates of implicit bias. Some of these projects have even led to published papers such as this work on phishing email detection  or this work on how personality affects participation in the Psychology Subject pool

In some projects, you work largely on your own on a small research project. In other projects, you work in a group as part of a much larger project. In all cases your work is ultimately supervised by a faculty mentor who assigns a grade for the Directed Research course at the end of the semester.

The key requirement of your Directed Research project is that it leads to a product that can be graded. This product can be almost anything, so long as it can be assessed by the faculty mentor to assign a letter grade for the class. Example products include: a Powerpoint presentation delivered in lab meeting, a poster, a written report, computer code to analyze experimental data, an organized dataset that is ready for sharing, etc.

Finding a Lab and Faculty Mentor

Seeking out a lab and/or faculty member to work with will be a proactive process on your part.  While your advising team and the Psychology Department can assist with the basics, ultimately, you will be responsible for seeking your research lab. Here are some tips:

• Search for Faculty currently accepting Undergraduate Research Assistants  for Directed Research.
• Check your email. Directed Research opportunities are sent out through the Psychology-Advising email to all students on our student listserv throughout the year.
• Read and refer to the Psychology Monthly Newsletters. Announcements about research opportunities are sent out in the newsletters. Archives of the newsletters can be found HERE .
• Talk to your faculty!  Your instructors are likely also researchers.  Speak with them about their labs and inquire about opportunities.

Contacting Faculty Members

Contacting faculty members can seem intimidating, but professional communication is a skill you'll need your entire career, so this is a great way to practice!

•  For each of the labs at the top of your list, write an email to the faculty or their designated contact, being sure to address them by their proper title, like Professor or Dr.  (not "hey")
• You email should say, in your own words, your grade level, major, and you are looking for a lab position.  You are particularly interested in their lab because…(some of this can be from the web site review you did, but keep it short).  Then ask if they have any open positions and if so, you would like the opportunity to be considered for it.  You can attach a resume if you like.  Make sure that your email is grammatically correct, that all the words are spelled correctly, and that you don’t use text-messaging short cuts, like “i” instead of “I.” 
• See our Email Etiquette Guide  for help writing a successful email.
• Be patient, yet persistent.   Faculty members and busy labs receive a lot of emails each day, and you should be prepared to wait 3-5 business days during the fall/spring semester. Most faculty do not work regularly during the summer, so response times will be slower.

Enrolling in Research Credit

Because you work with a faculty mentor, signing up for Directed Research credit is slightly different to a normal class. Instead of simply signing up for the class, you need to first make contact with your potential mentor and obtain their agreement to work with you. You can find a list of potential mentors and their contact information here .

Once you have identified potential faculty mentors, reach out to them to discuss what kind of projects you could do in their lab. Some mentors will have ongoing projects that you can step into, others will be willing to work with you to develop a new project involving new experiments or analyses.

To help set expectations before you begin your Directed Research project, it is important to fill out the Directed Research Enrollment Form (below), which outlines goals for the project and a timeline to achieve them. Directed Research Form

Once your form is completed, signed by you and the instructor, submit to [email protected] or bring to Psychology Department Office in Psychology 312.

When should I sign up for Directed Research credit?

In order to fulfill the 9-unit requirement, you should plan to sign up for Directed Research credit across 3 semesters (3 units per semester) in your junior and senior year.  However, if you find an opportunity earlier in your undergraduate career, you can begin as early as your second year.

What is the time commitment for Directed Research?

Directed Research should take up no more or less time than a regular class. This corresponds to 3 hours per week per unit. In most cases, students take one 3-unit Directed Research class per semester and should expect to work approximately 9 hours per week on their project.

Updated 01/18/23