scholarly journals 252 Better Preparing Animal Science Students for Education Associated Careers

2020 ◽  
Vol 98 (Supplement_4) ◽  
pp. 186-186
Author(s):  
Taylor Barnes ◽  
Kirstin M Burnett ◽  
W Shawn Ramsey ◽  
Kathrin Dunlap
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
Large Animal ◽  
Animal Science ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Educational Career ◽  
Career Options ◽  
Educational Careers

Abstract An Animal Science degree prepares students for a broad range of career opportunities yet the two most discussed in the literature and assumed by society are in animal science industry or veterinary medicine. However, studies indicate that -60% of our students enter into education as a career path, yet animal science departments typically do not emphasize educational careers or provide opportunities for students to develop skills in methods relevant for animal science related teaching. To combat this lack of representation for educational career opportunities, our research university’s animal science department has acted in two ways:-Developed a laboratory teaching methods course that allows undergraduate students to serve as teaching assistants for an animal handling lab with support and supervision from the course and graduate student lab instructors-Performed a content analysis to identify the type, frequency, and way educational career paths are discussed and/or assessed in introductory animal science courses. These are the first steps in ensuring that students are as prepared for pursuit of a possible educational career at a level equal to that for industry or veterinary careers. Sustainability of animal science includes retaining students in educational careers and actively improving our educational practices within the discipline. These changes better prepare our undergraduate students to have more realistic job expectations and competence in teaching when they pursue graduate school or animal science related educational career options. The university animal science program also benefits, as the undergraduate teaching assistants improve the instructor-to-student ratio thus positively impacting safety and logistics of hands-on large animal labs while increasing one-on-one instruction time with students. These practices increase student engagement and learning. Additionally, the field of animal science will prosper from increased competence in pedagogical techniques providing a richer, more complete educational experience for our students both in and out of university settings.

scholarly journals Preparing for a Career in Aquatic Animal Medicine

EDIS ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 2004 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Francis-Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Cooperative Extension Service ◽  
Extension Service ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Large Animal ◽  
Aquatic Animal ◽  
Original Publication ◽  
University Of Florida ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Animal Medicine ◽  
Career Options

If your goal is to be an aquatic animal veterinarian, then obviously the first step is to put together a competitive packet for admission to a college of veterinary medicine. There are also many career opportunities that do not require a veterinary degree. Some suggestions for these career options and how to prepare for them are offered in this document. This document is VM146, one of a series of the Large Animal Clinical Sciences Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Original publication date January, 2004. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm111

scholarly journals Design Features of an Effective and Theoretically Grounded Training Program for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in the Life Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Seth K. Thompson ◽  
Julie Brown ◽  
Sehoya Cotner ◽  
Jonathan Andicoechea ◽  
FangFang Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Student Teaching ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
Monthly Basis ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Laboratory Courses ◽  
Additional Support

Research over the last decade has indicated that active learning and student-centered instruction lead to better learning outcomes in undergraduate biology courses than traditional methods such as lecturing. This shift in pedagogical approach has been applied to both high-enrollment lecture-based courses as well as smaller laboratory courses. In these laboratory courses, the primary instructor is often a graduate or undergraduate student teaching assistant. Such novice instructors often lack the pedagogical knowledge and experience to implement student-centered instructional practices such as inquiry effectively. Therefore, to fully realize the benefits of inquiry-based laboratories for undergraduate students, the instructors of these courses require support. In this paper, we present a design case for a theoretically and contextually grounded professional development program that provides pedagogical support for undergraduate teaching assistants of a college biology laboratory course. Four undergraduate teaching assistants participated in our 12-week program. These participants were assigned weekly readings, turned in periodic reflective writings, and met with an experienced teaching mentor (Thompson) on a monthly basis. As designers, we grounded our design in the current literature but also built-in flexibility to be responsive to participants’ needs throughout the experience. Participants found it challenging to reflect on pedagogical strategies early in their experience, but found the additional support provided by the program very useful as they developed. Finally, we discuss the participant feedback that is being incorporated into future designs of professional development programming.

scholarly journals 136 Reflections on the foundational scientific knowledge of undergraduate animal science students: a three-year study

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 79-79
Author(s):  
Lauren R Thomas ◽  
Jeremy G Powell ◽  
Elizabeth B Kegley ◽  
Kathleen Jogan
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
Experimental Unit ◽  
Student Knowledge ◽  
Animal Science ◽  
Muscle Foods ◽  
Assessment Scores ◽  
Percentage Points

Abstract In 2015, the University of Arkansas Department of Animal Science developed a strategy for assessing student-learning outcomes within its undergraduate teaching program. The first recognized outcome states that students will demonstrate foundational scientific knowledge in the general animal science disciplines of physiology, genetics, nutrition, muscle foods, and production animal management. Subsequently, a 58-item assessment tool was developed for direct assessment of student knowledge—focusing primarily on freshmen and senior students. Over the past 3 academic calendar years, 381 students (196 freshmen, 48 sophomores, 19 juniors, 113 seniors, 5 graduates) were assessed, either during an introduction to animal science course or by appointment with outgoing seniors majoring in animal science. Scores were categorized using demographic data collected at the beginning of the assessment tool. Comparison categories included academic class, major, and general student background (rural or urban). Data analysis were performed using the Glimmix procedure of SAS, with student serving as the experimental unit and significance set at P ≤ 0.05. Generally speaking, animal science majors performed better (P < 0.01) than students from other majors, and students with a rural background performed better (P < 0.01) than their urban-backgrounded peers. Overall, senior assessment scores averaged 23-percentage points greater (P < 0.01) than freshmen assessment scores, and the average scores for freshmen and seniors were 43% and 66% respectively. In regards to student performance within each discipline, there was an average improvement of 24 percentage points between freshmen and seniors in all of the measured disciplines except for muscle foods, which only saw a 10-percentage point improvement between the two classes. While the overall improvement in scores is indicative of increased student knowledge, the department would like to see greater improvement in all discipline scores for seniors majoring in animal science.

Intelligibility Rating of L2 Speech Pre- and Postintervention

1989 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Perlmutter
Keyword(s):  
International Students ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
International Teaching Assistants ◽  
State University ◽  
Green State ◽  
Bowling Green State University ◽  
International Teaching ◽  
Intelligibility Ratings

As a result of a recent law passed in Ohio, a program was designed to improve the oral intelligibility of International Teaching Assistants at Bowling Green State University. To evaluate the efficacy of the training, naive undergraduate students were asked to evaluate the pre- and postrecorded speech samples of the international students, both in terms of intelligibility of the sample and the identification of the topic of the monologue. Analysis showed a significant improvement in the intelligibility ratings between pre- and posttraining samples. Further, the average number of correct subject matter identifications was shown to increase, while the average number of incorrect judgments decreased significantly from pre- to posttraining evaluations.

Learning-Through-Teaching: Knowledge Changes in Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Fremouw ◽  
W. J. Millard ◽  
John W. Donahoe
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
Teaching Knowledge

scholarly journals Finding Research Topic and Its Effect on Research Learners’ Motivation: An Action Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-47
Author(s):  
Jigme Dorji
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Interest And Motivation

This paper reports the findings from an action research on effect of teaching how to find research topic to the undergraduate students’ interest and motivation in learning research. The action research employing mixed methods approach was conducted on 95 first year Bachelor of Bhutan and Himalayan Studies (BHS) students taking research methods course at the College of Language and Culture Studies, Royal University of Bhutan. Baseline data were collected using self-developed questionnaire (N=95), focus group interview (N=6) and four experts’ rating on students’ research topics. Intervention strategies to find research topic were adapted from Bui [1] and Lester and Lester Jr.’s [2] framework and implemented to enable students to speculate, frame and evaluate their research topic. After three weeks of intervention, a post-intervention data were collected employing same procedures and tools as the pre-survey data were collected. Further, to validate the findings, researcher added field notes from the observation during implementing the intervention. Findings showed that intervention strategies have made an impact on students’ ability to find research topic, which in turn indicated that students interest and motivation towards research learning augmented. Recommendations to fortify students’ research learning experience and need for future research are also provided. 

scholarly journals Covidaze Juggle: Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) with a Large Online Freshmen Course

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (S1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shadi Sadeghian ◽  
Jinny Kim ◽  
Jeremy Penn ◽  
Dominic Hass ◽  
Wenteng Hou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Assistants ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching
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