Curing the Common Curriculum

Professional degree programs in higher education are increasingly under fire on matters of quality, proficiency, and cost. To address these issues and anticipated controversies, the authors of this chapter provide context to the process of developing a micro-credentialing system at the central university level at Florida International University (FIU) and how it was adapted at its medical school as an innovative tool for developing medical student skill sets. Through a use-case, the authors highlight examples of common challenges identified within professional degree programs, how they were addressed at FIU's Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine using the centralized micro-credentialing system, and the planning and implementation stages of a formalized micro-credential program in undergraduate medical education. Finally, the authors discuss the potential for micro-credentials to supplement or replace dual degree programs, enhance interdisciplinary collaboration, and influence the future of entrustable professional activities of professional practice in medical education.

Mining and Evaluation of Teaching Civics Courses Based on Apriori-TIDS Algorithm

The thinking course is an innovative move to implement the fundamental task of moral education and realize the whole process of education and all-round education in universities. The Apriori-TIDS algorithm proposed in this paper adopts the TID list of transaction identifiers to calculate the support count and generate the frequent item set of the Hou option set, and the whole frequency set generation process only needs to scan the transaction database once, which greatly improves the operation efficiency of the mining algorithm. The course is based on the three focus points of ideological and political education, such as “matters, times, and situations”, to explore the elements of ideological and political education hidden in the course, and to give the principles and criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of ideological and political teaching in the course, in order to make the professional degree course become the main channel to lead the ideological and political education of postgraduate courses and improve the effectiveness of the course in educating people.

The Principal's Strategy in Improving the Quality of Teacher Competence at Senior High School

The purpose of this study was to explore the competence and understand the principal's strategy in improving the quality of teacher competence at SMA Islam As Sakinah Sidoarjo, the obstacles faced by the principal in improving the quality of teachers, as well as the principal's strategy in overcoming the obstacles which appear in efforts to improve the quality of teachers at SMA Islam As Sakinah Sidoarjo. This study uses a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. The research subjects were determined purposively, they are the principal and teachers of SMA Islam As Sakinah Sidoarjo. Observation, interview and documentation are data collection techniques. Reduction data, display data, and conclusion are the steps of data analysis. To check the validity of the data using source triangulation and discussion with the supervising lecturer. The results of the study prove that the principal's strategies in improving the quality of teacher competence at SMA Islam As Sakinah Sidoarjo are: (1) further study of the S.2 professional degree, (2) activating teachers in increasing competence, (3) providing motivation, (4) maximizing the function of the school library, (5) conducting periodic supervision and (6) providing welfare benefits. The obstacles faced by principals in implementing strategies to improve the quality of teacher competence at SMA Islam As Sakinah Sidoarjo are the lack of interest and awareness of teachers, insight into thinking which still tends to be exclusive, lack of teacher supervision activities and several other external factors. While the solutions to overcome the obstacles which appear include providing motivation and good treatment, involving teachers in scientific activities and increasing the implementation of teacher supervision.

Massive open online courses for professional certificate programs? Perspectives on professional learners’ longitudinal participation patterns

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been integrated into higher education systems as an option for delivering online professional degree and certificate programs; however, concerns about whether employed professionals actively participate in MOOCs remain unresolved. Some researchers have described learners’ employment as the major cause of attrition from MOOCs, but research has not addressed how employed learners interact with MOOCs over time. Understanding employed professionals’ trajectory of participation patterns across course time is thus essential to improving the effectiveness of MOOCs. This study investigated the log data of learner participation to explore how attrition occurs in a professional MOOC, focusing on whether students’ employment status was associated with learner participation. The results revealed learners’ longitudinal participation patterns and confirmed the impact of sustained engagement on course performance. The study also found that employed learners were more likely than their peers without jobs to become cramming learners with initially infrequent engagement in a course but investing intensive time at the end for certificates. We discuss practical implications for designing and facilitating large-scale professional degree and certificate programs in higher education institutions. Implications for practice or policy: Educators can apply MOOCs with a lower weekly workload and a slower pace to support employees’ professional development. Educators should develop professional learners’ interests in the course topic to avoid only cramming for the course certificates. Educators may consider longitudinal patterns of learner participation when assessing learner performance.

Research on the Quality and Promotion Path of Master Degree Thesis

The quality of dissertations is the basic core of the development of professional degree postgraduate education. With the transformation of economic development mode and the steady progress of the construction of an innovative country, the demand for professional degree postgraduates in economic and social development has increased significantly. The result is that the number of significant growth and the quality is difficult to guarantee. The most prominent is that the quality of professional degree postgraduates represented by dissertations has declined to varying degrees. Through on-the-spot investigation, this paper concludes that there are four prominent problems in the quality of professional degree master 's degree thesis : the topic is not suitable, the research is not deep enough, the content is not innovative and the writing is not standardized. Therefore, it is possible to achieve the goal of improving the quality of professional degree master ' s degree papers only by strictly controlling the topic selection, adhering to the problem research orientation and implementing the basic attributes of innovation.

On specificity of the literary-jargonizing type of speech culture in newspaper texts

This article analyzes the newspaper texts from the perspective of specificity of manifestation of the literary jargonizing type of speech culture – one of the relevant tasks of modern speech studies, substantiated by the state of modern journalism and linguistic problems of mass media. This paper complements a range of linguistic research that determine the attributes of the types of speech culture. The object of this article is the journalistic speech of the popular weekly newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, the linguistic peculiarities of which (intentional inclusion in the texts of colloquialisms and jargon elements) are substantiated by the thematic orientation of publications. The subject of this article is the texts of articles written by the correspondent A. Meshkov in their ration with the specificity of manifestation of the markers of literary-jargonizing type of speech culture. Special attention is given to the peculiarities of creative style of the journalist, which allow tracing the goals of jargonization of the own speech. The analysis of speech culture of A. Meshkov is based on the anthropocentric approach, as well as linguostylistic, communicative and discursive methods of modern Russian studies. The conclusion is made that the literary-jargonizing type cannot have an unambiguous assessment, since it characterizes different types of the users of jargon speech. The novelty of the study consists in the attempt to extend the boundaries of literary-jargonizing type by determining two variations with the common and distinguishing features. Analysis of the articles authored by A. Meshkov allows attributing his speech culture to the second type of literary jargonization, which is characterized by appropriateness and expediency of using extraliterary linguistic units for delivering the author’s message, professional degree, experience, creative individuality, and unique style.

Continuing Education and Stratification at Midlife

We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainment are amplified or attenuated when we take a longer view of educational careers. We propose a model of staged advantage to understand how educational inequalities evolve over the life course. Distinct from cumulative advantage, staged advantage asserts that inequalities in education ebb and flow over the life course as the population at risk of making each educational transition changes along with the constraints they confront in seeking more education. Results based on data from the 2014 follow up of the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond offer partial support for our hypotheses. The educational attainment process was far from over for our respondents as they aged through their 30s and 40s: More than 6 of 10 continued their formal training during this period, and 4 of 10 earned an additional credential. Patterns of educational stratification at midlife became more pronounced in some ways as women pulled further ahead of men in their educational attainments and parental education (but not income), and high school academic achievement continued to shape educational trajectories at the bachelor’s degree level and beyond. However, African Americans gained on whites during this life phase through continued formal (largely academic) training and slightly greater conditional probabilities of graduate or professional degree attainment; social background fails to predict earning an associate’s degree. These results, showing educational changes and transitions far into adulthood, have implications for our understanding of the complex role of education in stratification processes.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of measurement properties of objective structured clinical examinations used in physical therapy licensure and a structured review of licensure practices in countries with well-developed regulation systems

Background The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a commonly used tool internationally to assess clinical competency. Physical therapy (PT) licensure processes vary internationally. The OSCE is the tool used in Canada to assess clinical competency for PT graduates seeking licensure. Previous studies that examined the measurement properties of OSCEs present contradictory results. Objectives The first objective was to investigate the reliability and validity of OSCEs when administered to PTs during their education or as part of a licensure process. The second objective was to conduct a structured review to report PT educational and licensing components and policies in 17 countries with well-developed PT regulation systems. Methods An electronic search was performed in four databases from inception to 31st March 2021 to identify relevant articles. Two reviewers performed the critical appraisal of the included studies using a validated quality assessment tool. We deployed a random effects meta-analysis on reliability and validity estimates of OSCEs and examined sources of heterogeneity with univariate meta-regressions. We searched websites of professional regulatory bodies and associations for data on educational and licencing components and policies. Educational and licensing components across countries were synthesized descriptively. Results A pooled estimate of Cronbach’s alpha of 0.55, (95% CI: 0.41, 0.67) was determined for OSCEs. The pooled estimate of Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) between assessors was 0.77 (95% CI: 0.70, 0.83). The pooled estimate of Pearson Correlation between multiple OSCE stations’ scores was 0.27 (95% CI: 0.15, 0.39); and between each station score and the total score was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.61, 0.79). The pooled estimates for kappa Coefficients were 0.75 (95% CI: 0.58, 0.86) and 0.84, (95% CI: 0.72, 0.91) for intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the standardised patient respectively. From the 17 included countries, Canada (excluding Quebec) was the only country that required both a clinical and written competency exam following graduation from an accredited PT program. Two countries (USA, UAE) required a written competency exam. The remaining 14 countries did not require an additional competency examination after completion of degree requirements from an accredited program. Conclusions We found weak evidence that OSCE examinations items are internally consistent when used to assess PTs. Canada (excluding Quebec) is the only country out of 17 implementing a national clinical competency examination for their PT graduates to achieve licensure after completing professional degree requirements.