scholarly journals Learning from Competition: An Outcome-Based Introductory Activity for First-Year Biotechnology Undergraduates

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (7) ◽  
pp. 467-473
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Zhang ◽  
Ruifang Ye ◽  
Fengxian Hu ◽  
Yitao Zheng ◽  
Shuhong Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Knowledge Test ◽  
Outcome Based Education ◽  
Ongoing Effort ◽  
Dramatic Rise ◽  
Experimental Skills

In recent years, accreditation standards for international engineering education have led to a dramatic rise in the use of outcome-based education at universities. In this system, enticing new undergraduate students to science and engineering, although challenging, is the first important step toward building students' career competencies. An ongoing effort to attract students to biotechnology was initiated 13 years ago in the School of Biotechnology at the East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. We describe the design and organization of the Microbe Competition, a program attracting a total of nearly 6,500 students as of 2018. In the competition, students need to pass the microbiology knowledge test, provide a practical experiment proposal related to the topic of competition, and finish the experiment under the supervision of teachers before getting final prizes. The competition develops students' competencies in acquiring and applying knowledge, problem solving, teamwork, communication, and experimental skills. By investigating students' feedback, we have been continuously improving the quality of competition to attract more students from the biotechnology major. We hope that by sharing our experience, we can help educators at other universities organize similar introductory activities on their own campuses.

scholarly journals Understanding Barriers to Student Success: What Students Have to Say

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kuley ◽  
Sean Maw ◽  
Terry Fonstad
Keyword(s):  
Student Success ◽  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Self Directed Learning ◽  
Directed Learning ◽  
College Of Engineering ◽  
The University

This paper focuses on feedback received from a set of qualitative questions that were administered to undergraduate students in the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, as part of a larger mixed methods study. The larger study aims to identify what characteristics, if any, can predict or are related to student success; The “start-stop-continue” method was utilized to assess student perceptions about  their success in the college as a whole. The students were asked: Are there any specific things that you can think of that act/acted as barriers to your success in engineering (stop)? What could the college do/change to make first year more successful for engineering students (start)? Is there anything in your engineering degree so far that you feel is done well and helps students succeed (continue)? Students identified the quality of instruction early in their program as well as adjustment to college workloads and self-directed learning as the most significant barriers tostudent success.

scholarly journals New Physics Curriculum

2016 ◽  
pp. 17-21
Author(s):  
Lynn Moran
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Core Curriculum ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Undergraduate Teaching ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Problem Solving Skills ◽  
The University ◽  
Physics Curriculum

Developing the critical thinking and problem-solving skills of students as rapidly as possible is a key requirement in improving learning outcomes at every stage of their degree. The Department of Physics at the University of Liverpool has entirely redeveloped years 1 and 2 of the undergraduate degree with a focus on students becoming independent learners as early as possible. The aims are to better integrate the undergraduate teaching provision and to complete the Institute of Physics core curriculum in years 1 and 2, in order to focus on research led teaching and independent projects in years 3 and 4. This new programme, entitled New Physics, starts in Welcome Week with the Undergraduate Physics Olympics and continues through the Year 1 Project (Mission to Mars) in the first week of semester one. The aim is to set the standard for collaborative achievement and introduce students to the way that physicists think. Innovative problem solving classes incorporating active learning such as peerassessment,group learning and exemplars designed to improve these skills andenhance the quality of learning among its first-year students have been introduced.

scholarly journals The Results of Development of the Online Instruction with Design-based Thinking for the Construction of Creative Products

TEM Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1715-1720
Author(s):  
Narasak Phunaploy ◽  
Pinanta Chatwattana ◽  
Pallop Piriyasurawong
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Online Instruction ◽  
Educational Innovation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
Creative Products ◽  
High Level ◽  
Very High

This research is the development of the online instruction with design-based thinking for the construction of creative products. The population of this research included experts and the first year undergraduate students from the Department of Educational Innovation and Technology, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. According to the results, it is found that (1) the quality of the online lessons with design-based thinking is at a very high level, (2) the scores of learning achievement after learning the said online lessons are higher than those before learning these online lessons with a significance level of .01, (3) the scores of creative products created by the students after learning through the online lessons are at a very good level, and (4) the satisfaction toward the learning through online lessons with designbased thinking for the construction of creative products is at a very high level.

scholarly journals The Effects of Expert and Augmented Feedback on Learning a Complex Medical Skill

2020 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-784
Author(s):  
Dario Cecilio-Fernandes ◽  
Fokie Cnossen ◽  
Jenifer Coster ◽  
AD (Debbie) C. Jaarsma ◽  
René A. Tio
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Declarative Knowledge ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Biomedical Knowledge ◽  
Augmented Feedback ◽  
Knowledge Test ◽  
Initial Acquisition ◽  
Medical Undergraduate ◽  
Physical Skills

Many medical skills are complex due to their requirements for integration of declarative (biomedical) knowledge with perceptual–motor and perceptual–cognitive proficiency. While feedback generally helps learners guide their actions, it is unclear how feedback supports the integration of declarative knowledge with skills. Thus, we investigated the effect of expert and augmented feedback on acquisition and retention of a complex medical skill (acquiring a transthoracic echocardiogram) in a simulation study. We randomly assigned 36 medical undergraduate students to one of three feedback sources: Expert (EF), Augmented visual (HS), and Expert plus Help Screen (EF + HS). Participants practiced until reaching proficiency. Outcome measures (knowledge test and practical skill ratings on a 5-point scale), were gathered at initial acquisition and at retention after 11 days, the time needed to obtain the images and the quality of images obtained. We divided the knowledge test into three topics: names of the images, manipulation of the probe, and anatomy of the heart. At acquisition, immediately after training, EF group participants were faster at obtaining images than participants in the two other groups. On the retention test, there were no group differences for speed of obtaining images, but the EF + HS group scored significantly higher than the other two groups on image quality. Thus, expert feedback best assisted initial acquisition and combined augmented and expert feedback best assisted retention of this complex medical task. Expert assistance reduced learners’ cognitive load during initial practice, helping learners integrate declarative knowledge with physical skills.

Engagement in high- and low-rated argumentative essays: Interactions in Indonesian students’ writings

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-24
Author(s):  
Anis Handayani ◽  
Nur Arifah Drajati ◽  
N. Ngadiso
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Writing Quality ◽  
Explicit Teaching ◽  
Data Validity ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Persuasive Arguments

This study reports the use of engagement in high-rated and low-rated EFL undergraduate students’ argumentative essays. The engagement here refers to one of the aspects in interacting with the readers, which is called metadiscourse (Hyland, 2005a). The data in this study were ten highest-rated and ten lowest-rated argumentative essays written by first-year undergraduate students. The data were coded manually by two raters to maintain data validity. The results reveal that high-rated essays contain less engagement than low-rated ones. However, it also shows that the engagement in high-rated essays was more varied and grammatically sophisticated than those in low-rated essays. Furthermore, while this study reveals that the higher number of engagement used in argumentative essays does not always coincide with the improved quality of the writing, it implies that the writing quality and score do not depend on the number of engagement expressed but more on the ways students use the engagement effectively. Thus, the explicit teaching on how to use engagement effectively in persuasive writings may be useful for the students to build more persuasive arguments as well as to improve their writing quality.

scholarly journals Enhancing the Quality of Learning and Understanding of First Year Mathematics for Computer Science Related Majors

10.28945/2635 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Suraweera
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Traditional Classroom ◽  
Discrete Mathematics ◽  
First Year ◽  
Classroom Situation ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Mental Operations ◽  
Over Time

Most courses on Discrete Mathematics are designed to emphasize problem solving, in general. When the goal is to cover the content, the learning and understanding takes a second place. Over time, the students’ understanding will have large gaps of knowledge that leads to non-enjoyment of the course and a great deal of anxiety. Given the choice, most first year students would not do the Discrete Mathematics course. It is not an easy course to teach because of the opposing expectations of the instructor and students. However, as instructors, we all share a common goal: we would like our students to acquire the skills to perform complex mental operations so that they will be successful in the classroom as well as their future careers. In this paper, we present a way to enhance the learning and understanding of Discrete Mathematics whether it is offered in a distance learning mode or a traditional classroom situation.

DESIGN PROBLEM-SOLVING: UNDERSTANDING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ITERATIVE-BEHAVIOUR IN DESIGN

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danfulani Babangida Id ◽  
Khairul Anwar Mohamed Khaidzir
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Pearson Correlation Coefficient ◽  
University Of Technology ◽  
The Media

Different concepts and definitions associate iterative-behaviour with repetition. This study consider iterative-behaviour simply means as the act that involve repetition of activities to improve the evolving design. The research further investigate the significance of designer iterative behaviour in design using sketching as the media for design interaction. The retrospective protocol analysisof the video data have identified and measure designer iterative behaviour in design, through a sketching and scoring sessions by five (5) final year undergraduate students and five (5) design tutors, all from the Department of Architecture, University of Technology Malaysia. The design and score were qualitatively and quantitatively compared using close group discussion and the Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. The result shows that in design problemsolving, designer iterative-behaviours were not statistically significant in determining the quality of design.

scholarly journals "Working Lives": The use of auto/biography in the development of a sociological imagination

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Stephenson ◽  
John Stirling ◽  
David Wray
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
First Year ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Student Cohorts ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Personal Consciousness

This article critically evaluates the attempt of the authors to develop a sociological imagination within first-year undergraduate students studying the discipline of sociology at a British university. Through a sociological analysis of biography and autobiography (of both teachers and students), we attempted to create a quality of mind that would provide our students with the necessary sociological skills to critically interrogate different sociological forms, and allow them not simply to understand the subject as an academic discipline but also as a personally transformative experience. It was evident from the feedback from a number of student cohorts that the connection between sociology and the lived experience and personal consciousness had a profound and empowering impact on those who came to develop that quality of mind.

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