Students & SWGs
The Short-term Working Group (SWG) program is designed to provide UTD students an opportunity to work closely with a faculty member on a targeted project. Students can expect to see projects for Spring 2025 posted no later than December 10th. Join the SWG Student Team to be notified when new projects are available!
Faculty members propose projects and welcome ~10 undergraduate students to join them for four in-person sessions to complete a project. Students who complete a SWG program will gain skills, develop a professional relationship with a faculty member, meet other UTD students and receive a digital badge highlighting skills gained during the project.
Student Testimonials
“This SWG was a great way to share ideas and implement tangible changes to a course that will better help future students taking the course (plus, you can add it to your resumé)!”
“SWG was a unique opportunity that came just at the right time. As a transfer student in my senior year, I hadn’t had many opportunities before to network or conduct research. Overall, a 10/10 experience.”
Getting to work with my peers and Dr. Kristin Atchison in a safe, group-oriented way was an incredible experience. I got to strengthen my skills in public speaking, teamwork and time management. It’s such a rewarding feeling to know that our opinions as students do make a difference to faculty members, and that our voices are being heard and put into action through this program. I would recommend this program to any student looking for a challenging and ultimately extremely rewarding experience!
Fall 2024 Projects
Browse details of all Fall 2024 projects
MoGraph Lab Promo Video (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Prof. Eric Farrar
Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Join us in crafting a promotional video for the MoGraph Lab at the BAHT School! Dive into the world of motion design – where graphic design meets animation – by participating in our short-term working group. Learn to capture dynamic live-action interviews exploring the essence of “motion design.” Whether you’re a newcomer ready to explore the world of motion design or a seasoned animator seeking to refine your skills, there’s a place for you here. Dive into live-action interviews, learn editing/animation tools, and elevate your skills alongside a diverse team of creators.
Digital Game Storytelling Course Creation (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Monica Evans
Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Students will assist with co-creating course content for an advanced course in digital game storytelling, focusing on games with single-player, multi-linear narrative experiences. Students will examine, analyze, and help develop assignments centered on games with strong characters, dialogue, plot, worldbuilding, and settings/environments, as well as games with unique structures for interactive storytelling and strong representation of diverse characters and cultures. Students will develop skills related to game design, narrative structure, course design, and inclusive teaching.
DEI Principles Textbook Material Creation (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Meghna Sabharwal
School of Economic, Policy, and Political Science
In our project, students will work collaboratively to create engaging and visually captivating instructional materials for a textbook titled “Managing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Public Service Organizations: A Liberatory Justice Approach,” set to be published in June 2024. This project is a unique opportunity for students to apply their digital skills, creativity, and understanding of DEI principles to produce high-quality PowerPoint presentations, suggest podcasts, and other multimedia resources that enhance learning. By participating, students will gain practical experience in translating complex concepts into accessible and interactive materials. No specific prerequisites are required, but familiarity with DEI concepts and a strong interest in instructional design will be beneficial. Let’s collaborate!
Studying Guideline Creation (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Karen Huxtable-Jester
School of Behavioral & Brain Sciences
Did anyone ever teach you how to study? Are you still figuring it out? This group will prepare guidelines about how to learn. These will come from research the group reads on what learning science reveals about what works. The group will collaborate to decide how to communicate their findings and to whom and then will create this product. Possibilities include an infographic, social media content, podcast, video, or presentation. In addition to learning effective study strategies, students will learn about research methods and communicating research results to non-experts.
SPAU Communications Course Development (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Emily Touchstone
School of Behavioral & Brain Sciences
Students will work directly with me to develop a census-style, lower level, core curriculum course that satisfies the requirements for the UTD transcript and follows the rules set by the UT System. Communication courses that are currently available are not related to speech, language, and hearing science, the associated developmental processes and associated differences and the societal impacts those differences pose.
Pediatric Disorders Case Files (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Conrad Capili
School of Behavioral & Brain Sciences
Students of all disciplines are invited to help develop a series of case narratives to illustrate different perspectives on pediatric disorders. This series will be integrated into a longitudinal learning activity for undergraduate and graduate level courses centered on child health and well-being. Each collaborator will create a detailed fictional patient for learners to follow on a journey through diagnosis, accessing supportive resources, and gleaning practical insights. Participants will gain experience in educational design, creative writing, storytelling, online research skills, cultural sensitivity, clinical reasoning, and professional communication.
Energy Alternatives Board Game (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Stephanie Taylor
School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Comparing alternative energies is challenging, especially when they often come with different scales. The goal of this SWG is to compare different power plants, and work to design a simple board game so students could play it to get an idea of how upfront costs and perpetual costs and upkeep interplay into the question “which alternative energy is best?”
Software Engineering Course Materials Creation (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Srimathi Srinivasan
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Students will help to develop course materials for an undergraduate level course on Software Engineering. I want to develop the course more in a practical approach rather than a theoretical way of learning. Students will help me in the course design. Their experience in learning this course last semester with me and they can offer insight into discrepancies they saw in this course will help me make this course better. The students are willing to make the course interesting for future students to do this course based on what is relevant for them today in industry.
Political Donation Data Analysis (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Andrew Krajewski
School of Economic, Policy, & Political Science
I am working on a research project that examines campaign contributions to criminal justice elections. Montgomery County, PA provides campaign contribution reports on their website as PDFs. These reports detail the amount contributed, the recipient of the donation, and whether the donor is an individual, business, or Political Action Committee (PAC). Students will be trained to transcribe/quantify the information from the PDFs. Students will then help develop an activity that teaches students how to visualize and understand the structure of campaign finance networks.
Gaming in a Professional Setting (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Timothy Christopher
Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
Calling all gamers! This work group will enlist students to aid with analyzing the logistics of running a multi-session, multi-player, no-elimination game in a professional academic setting. The students will fill the roles of players participating in a short 4 session competition. The goal is to create a concise list of concepts and guidelines for designing games to be played for educational purposes in classroom settings.
Theatrical Play Critique (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Prof. Christine Postolos
Naveen Jindal School of Management
Students will participate in reading aloud and critiquing a draft full-length play to help the author improve it. We will have a fun read-through each week and develop the skill of articulating feedback about the play’s merits and opportunities.
Friend-Making Study Development (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Ben Porter
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Making friends and social groups can be an essential step in a student’s success at college. I have tried a method for encouraging students in my classes to get to know each other that I would like to conduct a study on. This SWG will aid in my development of that study and begin the process of getting approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to conduct the study.
Accommodations Incorporation Research (Fall 2024)
Faculty Member: Dr. Ben Porter
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Student needs for an equitable education vary drastically. I am interested in developing best practices to make student accommodations a norm instead of an exception. My goal for this project is to research the most common needs of students with accommodations, find methods for incorporating them into class and curricular design, and to find research indicating that including these techniques are beneficial to all students without reducing rigor or creating additional burden on faculty.