scholarly journals New Physics Curriculum

Author(s):  
Lynn Moran

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.

Author(s):  
Evgeniya N. Popova

The issue of adaptation of modern first-year students to the educational process at the university is one of the current pedagogical tasks. Successful adaptation significantly affects the quality of received education, the degree of formation of personal and professional qualities, contributes to the development of motivation, self-education, and self-development. The purpose of the research is to substantiate the criteria, indicators, and levels of adaptation of first-year students to the learning process at the university. The material for the study was the domestic scientific sources of studying the peculiarities of the adaptation process of students to educational activities in higher education. Research methods: analysis and generalization of psychological-pedagogical and educational-methodical literature on the research topic. We determine as the main criteria for the adaptation of first-year students to the university, the adaptive potential and professionally important qualities of students, consider these concepts, their structure, and their basic properties. On the basis of the analysis and generalization of the existing indicators of the implementation of the adaptive potential, we formulate the author's indicators for determining the level of its development. The degree of formation of professionally important qualities of students are low, medium, and high levels of development of emotional intelligence, negative communicative attitude, intellectual lability, and stress tolerance.


Author(s):  
Gray Kochhar-Lindgren

This chapter examines the emergence of the global artistic-entrepreneurial university, the increasing importance of interdisciplinary and innovative pedagogies, and how these new emphases are shaping institutional change. The first section analyzes the global university as an “assemblage,” a process that gathers ideas, materialities, digitized platforms, and human beings into a new form of higher education. Because of the impacts on higher education of the flows of capital, technology, people, and cultural practices in both the “East” and the “West,” this form of the university transcends regional and national boundaries as it builds networks of learning around the world. The second section of the chapter focuses on the increasing importance of interdisciplinarity and developing active and integrative pedagogies organized around fundamental skills and questions. In order to ground the discussion in particular sites, the authors use examples from the University of Hong Kong’s new Core Curriculum and from the University of Washington Bothell’s Discovery Core for first-year students. In the final section, the chapter addresses what the next steps might look like as institutions change themselves to fit a globalized context. This section returns to the idea of the global university as a “hub of an ecology of studio-labs” (Parks, 2005, p. 57) and suggest that the “managerial” university is transitioning into a more flexible model of the “artistic-entrepreneurial” university in order to prosper in an extremely competitive and generative global environment.


Author(s):  
Cyrus Shafai ◽  
Behzad Kordi

The teaching of electric circuit analysis traditionally involves problem solving to ensure understanding of analysis theorems, complemented by laboratory experience. When taught to first year Engineering students, this approach lacks a motivational component and presents difficulties due to the weaker mathematics and problem solving skills of first year students. This paper presents a laboratory-centered approach to introduce engineering students to electric devices and systems. Using open-ended design projects, students explore and construct different types of electrical systems. Laboratories are selected so as to develop student intuition in electrical concepts, scientific fundamentals, provide a historical background, and demonstrate systems-level design issues. Over the past three years in our Department, using this approach, increased student motivation and engagement has been observed, supported by a significant increase in Electrical and Computer Engineering enrollment.


10.28945/2635 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Suraweera

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 883-883
Author(s):  
Y. Sayin ◽  
M. Farimaz

IntroductionOne of the objectives of nursing education is helping nursing students acquire the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to deal with various problems.ObjectivesThe study is descriptive.AimsTo determine the “problem solving skills” of the 1st-year and 4th-year students.MethodsThe study is a descriptive one. The study sample comprised a total of 153 students in their 1st-year and 4th-year in Department of Nursing, Cumhuriyet University, Turkey. The research data were collected by means of the “Personal Information Form” developed in light of the relevant literature review and the “Problem Solving Inventory” which was developed by Heppner and Peterson (1982) and tested in Turkey in 1990 by Taylan in terms of fist validity-reliability properties.ResultsOf the first year students, 84.9% lived in a nuclear family, 61.6% lived in a city, 39.5% were first-born children. Of the fourth year students, 81.0% lived in a nuclear family, 67.2% lived in a city, 37.3% were first-born children. All of the students financial needs were met by their parents. There was no difference between the total “problem solving confidence” scores of the first year students (85.942 ± 16.649) and the fourth year students (81.866 ± 19.168) (p > 0.05). According to the sub-scales of the inventory, the first year students received higher scores than the fourth year students in “problem solving confidence”, “approach-avoidance behavior” and “personal control” (p > 0.05).ConclusionsThe education received by the students did not make a difference in the development of their problem solving skills.


1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stef Joosten ◽  
Klaas Van Den Berg ◽  
Gerrit Van Der Hoeven

AbstractIn the period 1986–1991, experiments have been carried out with an introductory course in computer programming, based on functional programming. Due to thorough educational design and evaluation, a successful course has been developed. This has led to a revision of the computer programming education in the first year of the computer science curriculum at the University of Twente.This article describes the approach, the aim of the computer programming course, the outline and subject matter of the course, and the evaluation. Educational research has been done to assess the quality of the course.


Author(s):  
Tahir Tahir ◽  
Murniati Murniati

This research is based on learning in tertiary institutions which requires more active, independent and creative learners. of the importance of using appropriate learning methods in mathematics learning at the university level. SCAMPER is a technique that can be used to spark creativity and help overcome challenges that might be encountered in the form of a list of general goals with ideas spurring questions. This research aims to develop students' problem solving skills using the SCAMPER method in terms of student motivation. The population in this study were all semester V students of mathematics education study programs, which were also the research samples. From the analysis of the data it was found that the SCAMPER method was better in developing students' problem solving abilities with an average increase of 0.52 compared to conventional methods with an average increase of 0.45. In addition there is a difference between improving students' problem solving abilities when viewed from their motivation. But there is no interaction between motivational factors and learning methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Grogan

This article reports on and discusses the experience of a contrapuntal approach to teaching poetry, explored during 2016 and 2017 in a series of introductory poetry lectures in the English 1 course at the University of Johannesburg. Drawing together two poems—Warsan Shire’s “Home” and W.H. Auden’s “Refugee Blues”—in a week of teaching in each year provided an opportunity for a comparison that encouraged students’ observations on poetic voice, racial identity, transhistorical and transcultural human experience, trauma and empathy. It also provided an opportunity to reflect on teaching practice within the context of decoloniality and to acknowledge the need for ongoing change and review in relation to it. In describing the contrapuntal teaching and study of these poems, and the different methods employed in the respective years of teaching them, I tentatively suggest that canonical Western and contemporary postcolonial poems may reflect on each other in unique and transformative ways. I further posit that poets and poems that engage students may open the way into initially “less relevant” yet ultimately rewarding poems, while remaining important objects of study in themselves.


2021 ◽  
pp. 112067212098252
Author(s):  
Ziqian Zhu ◽  
Yan He ◽  
Jiezheng Yang ◽  
Qiaoli Li ◽  
HuanHuan Cheng ◽  
...  

Purpose: To compare the quality of life of senior first-year students with normal vision and myopia, and to explore the risk factors related to quality of life in students with myopia. Methods: In this study, 1103 senior first-year students were enrolled in ten high schools. These students were divided according to the diopter degree, with 916 myopia students and 187 normal vision students. Visual function indexes, such as naked eye vision, were measured and recorded, and social demographic indexes and the National Eye Institute 25-Item Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25) was used. The differences in quality of life between the two groups were compared. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to explore the possible risk factors for quality of life in myopia students. Results: In the NEI VFQ-25, the total quality of life scores of myopia students (77.06 ± 15.66) were lower than those of normal vision students (85.49 ± 12.37). The difference was statistically significant ( p = 0.007). In the correlation analysis, the total scores of quality of life in myopia students were positively correlated with wearing glasses ( p = 0.049), and were negatively correlated with study time ( p = 0.029). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that study time, wearing glasses and age were risk factors affecting quality of life in myopia students. Conclusion: Our results show that senior first-year myopia students have lower quality of life scores than students with normal vision. Study time, wearing glasses and age are risk factors for quality of life in senior first-year myopia students.


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