A Study on the Cooperative Learning Experience of Undergraduate Students Participating in Liberal Arts Class

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-164
Author(s):  
Youngsoon Kim ◽  
◽  
Hee Choi ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Martin-Visscher ◽  
Kristopher Ooms ◽  
Peter Mahaffy

As a tribute to the legacy of Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour, we report on an initiative that involves university undergraduate students directly and meaningfully in the articulation and implementation of student learning outcomes for their chemistry programs. Student learning outcomes describe what a student should know, do and value at the end of a learning experience. The initiative was carried out over several years at the King’s University in Edmonton, a small undergraduate liberal arts and science institution with a Chemical Institute of Canada accredited B.Sc. chemistry program. Senior students were involved in articulating their own learning outcomes for their chemistry program and mapping them onto the courses in the program. The resultant heat map provided an interesting visual tool to help the learning community assess strengths and gaps in coverage, as perceived by students. The authors then led a workshop at the Chemistry Education program of a Canadian Society for Chemistry national chemistry meeting to share experiences among Canadian chemistry programs on the diverse ways faculty and programs articulation, implementation, and assessment of student learning outcomes. We conclude with suggestions for steps that departments and programs can take to meaningfully implement student learning outcomes in the design, review, and modification of chemistry programs, including benchmarking those learning outcomes with international outcomes published as a result of an IUPAC project.


Author(s):  
Samuel Domínguez-Amarillo ◽  
Jesica Fernandez-Aguera ◽  
Patricia Fernandez-Aguera

Today’s buildings are evolving from structures comprising unchanging, static elements scantly able to interact with their surroundings, towards complex systemic compounds with an impact on the environs that entails more than mere anthropic alteration. In pursuit of energy efficiency and true sustainability, buildings must acquire the ability to interact as well as to generate synergies. The most prominent features of this approach are energy management and information flows which, intelligently designed, not only enhance buildings’ capabilities, but also introduce a significant change in their relationship with the surrounds (‘smart cities’) and its inhabitants. This new paradigm calls for revisiting undergraduate architectural instruction, adopting a more complex overview of energy use and management in the design process, regarding buildings as dynamic rather than static entities. The methodology focuses on creating learning environments that favour students’ participation in problem solving and assessment, encouraging teamwork based on case studies and stressing the connection between this new architecture, ICTs included, and social networks as participatory design tools. These ideas were implemented in a pilot learning experience conducted at the University of Seville for undergraduate students. The use of ICTs and the collaboration of non-academic experts were observed to further student promotion and projection beyond the academic environment and introduce them to the professional community.


Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie A. Medeiros ◽  
Jennifer Guzmán

Trends in higher education pedagogy increasingly point to the importance of transformational experiences as the capstone of liberal arts education. Practitioners of ethnography, the quintessential transformational experience of the social sciences, are well-positioned to take the lead in designing courses and term projects that afford undergraduate students opportunities to fundamentally reshape their understanding of the social world and their own involvement within it. Furthermore, in the United States, colleges and universities have become proponents of service learning as a critical component of a holistic educational experience. In this article, we describe how service learning can be incorporated into training students in ethnographic field methods as a means to transformational learning and to give them skills they can use beyond the classroom in a longer trajectory of civic participation. We discuss strategies, opportunities, and challenges associated with incorporating service learning into courses and programs training students in ethnographic field methods and propose five key components for successful ethnographic service learning projects. We share student insights about the transformational value of their experiences as well as introduce some ethical concerns that arise in ethnographic service-learning projects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (S3) ◽  
pp. 58-74
Author(s):  
Sandi Ferdiansyah ◽  
Supiastutik ◽  
Ria Angin

The present interview study reports on eight Thai undergraduate students’ experiences of online learning at three different Indonesian universities based in East Java, Indonesia. Semi-structured interviewing was designed based on the sociocultural framework proposed by Ma (2017) to elucidate the students’ voices of online learning experience. The data garnered from online interviewing were transcribed and interpreted using thematic content analysis. The study elicits three important data themes: the agility of the student participants to adapt online learning to suit their learning needs, the participants’ strategies to build learning autonomy, and the participants’ ability to sustain their learning motivation. This study stresses the important roles of such other agents as teachers, parents, and friends in providing international students with mental and emotional support to help them get through COVID-19 affected online learning.


Author(s):  
Jigme Dorji

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. 


2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Eric Weston ◽  
Catherine D. Stayton

The current scarcity of employment opportunities has increased the importance of the internship experience for graduating college students. However, the development of internship sites is fraught with both internal and external barriers. The goal of this article is to describe the development of an internship program in an urban-based liberal arts college. The article describes the: a) use of the Community Diffusion Model to develop partnerships with community sites, b) multilevel barriers to successful program development and maintenance, and c) strategies used to overcome the barriers. During a threeyear period, 110 students participated in the internship program, 59 undergraduates and 51 graduates. Both graduate and undergraduate students were predominantly female, aged 21 – 45. A total of 60 internship positions based in 31 community partner agencies have been developed. Student participation was highest in the direct service activities, and lowest in education activities. Organizational, individual, task-related, and relationship barriers affected the development and maintenance of partnerships. Organizational barriers proved to be the most difficult of these barriers to resolve satisfactorily, while task related barriers proved the most manageable. Establishing partnerships among stakeholders while anticipating multiple implementation barriers was the important lesson learned. Based upon our experiences, we offer recommendations for the development and maintenance of internship programs to colleges, community institutions/organizations, site and program directors, and policy makers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-433
Author(s):  
Cathy Cavanaugh ◽  
Ewa Gajer ◽  
John Mayberry ◽  
Brendan O’Connor ◽  
Jace Hargis

This qualitative evaluation explored how female undergraduate students developed an understanding of themselves and the broader world as a result of an adventure and service learning experience in Tanzania, Africa. The project built upon theoretical frameworks regarding meaningful learning—active, constructive, intentional, and authentic—and applied activity theory as a framework for interpreting outcomes. The study included multi-faceted examination of student perceptions of the effects of the year-long experience that culminated in a ten day trip to Tanzania, including a climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Students’ reflections on the impacts of the trip focused on wanting, doing, reflecting, and relating. Thus, the experience catalyzed change in students’ understanding of the world that strongly indicates a meaningful learning experience.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siti Khadijah Adam ◽  
Nur Atiqah Mazlan ◽  
Shivaprakash Selvakumar ◽  
Xian Hui Teh ◽  
Faridah Idris

INTRODUCTION: It is a well-known fact that assessment influences learning and study behaviour. Assessment affects what and how students learn, either positive or negative learning behaviour. This study was aimed to determine students’ perceived assessment experience and the comparison among different gender, ethnicity, and phase of the study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study. Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ) version 3.3 was distributed to 324 undergraduate medical students of Universiti Putra Malaysia. The AEQ score among different gender, ethnicity, and phase of the study was compared using independent t-test and one-way ANOVA. RESULTS: Female students were found to develop a surface approach to learning, learn new things from the assessment, and be satisfied more with the teaching compared to males. Chinese students tended to put higher effort into learning compared to Malay. Clinical students valued more the feedback received and had clearer goals and expectations for their work than preclinical students. However, preclinical students tended to put a higher quantity of effort, learn wider coverage of syllabus and develop a surface approach of learning than clinical students. The respondents commented that feedback is lacking and suggested having more feedback sessions with their teachers after assessment. CONCLUSION: There were different assessment experiences and learning found among different gender, race, and phase of the study. These may affect their academic performance and are probably due to the curriculum setting. Understanding student assessment experience and its impact helps the faculty to improve the assessment structure for a conducive assessment environment and meaningful learning experience for the students.


EAD em FOCO ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Theodoro ◽  
Gerlinde Agate Platais Brasil Teixeira ◽  
Claudia Marcia Borges Barreto

Descrevemos o processo de criação colaborativa de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem (AVA) de acordo com os princípios das metodologias ativas de ensino e a sua avaliação. O ambiente virtual foi usado no apoio ao ensino presencial. Participaram dessa experiência híbrida de aprendizagem estudantes da disciplina Imunobiologia, oferecida no primeiro ano de um curso tradicional de graduação em Medicina. Ao término da disciplina, foi aplicado um questionário para avaliar a facilidade de uso e a percepção dos estudantes sobre a qualidade do aprendizado adquirido. A maioria dos estudantes que avaliaram a intervenção pedagógica afirmou que o ambiente foi fácil de usar, atendeu às expectativas de apoio ao ensino presencial e as atividades didáticas foram importantes para o aprendizado de habilidades como reflexão, pesquisa e discussão. Portanto, o ambiente virtual desenvolvido foi bem-sucedido e bem-aceito pelos estudantes.Palavras-chave: Educação a distância, Moodle; Ensino de Imunologia, Mapa conceitual.? Evaluation of a Virtual Learning Environment of ImmunologyAbstractWe herein describe the process of collaborative creation and evaluation of a Virtual Learning Environment of Immunology according to the principles of active learning. The Web-based platform was used in support of face to face classroom teaching. First year Medicine undergraduate students attending Immunobiology? course participated in this blended learning experience. At the end of the course, a questionnaire was applied to evaluate the ease of use and the students' perception of the quality of the acquired learning. Most students assessed the educational intervention said that the environment was easy to use, supports the classroom teaching and the educational activities were important for learning skills such as reflection, research and discussion. Therefore, the developed virtual environment was successful and well accepted by the students. Keywords: Distance learning, Moodle, Immunology teaching, Concept map.


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