Anatomical self-efficacy of undergraduate students improves during a fully online biology course with at-home dissections

Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and college administrators expect this trend to continue or accelerate. Despite the growing popularity of online education, one major critique in the sciences is that students are not trained in the hands-on skills they may need for the workforce, graduate school, or professional school. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended that medical schools evaluate applicants on their motor skills and observation skills, yet many online biology programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop these skills. In on-campus biology programs, students commonly develop these skills through hands-on animal dissections, but educators have struggled with how to teach dissections in an online environment. We designed a fully online undergraduate biology course that includes at-home, hands-on dissections of eight vertebrate specimens. Over three course offerings, we evaluated changes in four student outcomes: anatomical self-efficacy, confidence in laboratory skills, perceptions of support, and concerns about dissections. Here, we describe how we implemented at-home dissections in the online course and show that students taking the course gained anatomical self-efficacy and confidence in multiple laboratory skills. Based on open-ended responses, the students perceived that their experiences with the at-home dissections facilitated these gains. These results demonstrate that at-home, hands-on laboratories are a viable approach for teaching practical skills to students in fully online courses. We encourage science instructors to introduce at-home laboratories into their online courses, and we provide recommendations for instructors interested in implementing at-home laboratories.

https://stratfordjournals.org/journals/index.php/Journal-of-Information-and-Techn/article/view/81018102t5028

New advancements especially in the field of information technology has actually brought new scientific gains to humans however it ought to be noted that the entry of new scientific and technological areas will constantly require to have ethical issues and restrictions. The purpose of the study was to analyze the ethical issues in computer as an instrument to technology growth in China. The study was literature review based. The participants of the study contained 20 computer system experts. 10 of them were graduates of computer education and educational technologies divisions, who worked as computer science instructors in China. Structured interviews were conducted with participants to identify their point of views concerning research study questions. Unauthorized access to the systems which is hacking is done utilizing different and new techniques and is increasing each day. Computer ethics has long been taken into consideration by the scientists. Interviews were organized separately with each participant in time slots and places they determined. The study concluded that computer ethics with a reference to personal privacy, accuracy, building and availability; investigated the beginnings of these issues; growth of internet and computer technology globally has resulted in the growth of new types of global criminal offense specifically Internet associated. The research suggested that the government of China should develop and apply a minimum set of directing rules of conduct that would certainly help with effective communications and reliable commerce via making use of electronic medium and to make certain the precision of data, in addition to shielding it from unauthorized accessibility or unintentional disclosure to improper people. Keywords: Ethical Issues, Computer, Technological Growth, China

Ethical Issues Associated with Computer as an Instrument to Technological Growth in China

New advancements especially in the field of information technology has actually brought new scientific gains to humans however it ought to be noted that the entry of new scientific and technological areas will constantly require to have ethical issues and restrictions. The purpose of the study was to analyze the ethical issues in computer as an instrument to technology growth in China. The study was literature review based. The participants of the study contained 20 computer system experts. 10 of them were graduates of computer education and educational technologies divisions, who worked as computer science instructors in China. Structured interviews were conducted with participants to identify their point of views concerning research study questions. Unauthorized access to the systems which is hacking is done utilizing different and new techniques and is increasing each day. Computer ethics has long been taken into consideration by the scientists. Interviews were organized separately with each participant in time slots and places they determined. The study concluded that computer ethics with a reference to personal privacy, accuracy, building and availability; investigated the beginnings of these issues; growth of internet and computer technology globally has resulted in the growth of new types of global criminal offense specifically Internet associated. The research suggested that the government of China should develop and apply a minimum set of directing rules of conduct that would certainly help with effective communications and reliable commerce via making use of electronic medium and to make certain the precision of data, in addition to shielding it from unauthorized accessibility or unintentional disclosure to improper people.

The “State” of Active Learning in the Atmospheric Sciences: Strategies Instructors Use and Directions for Future Research

Extensive research within STEM fields has demonstrated that active learning leads to greater educational success for students relative to traditional lecture methods. While studies have explored active learning use across various STEM fields, minimal research has focused specifically on the atmospheric sciences. A baseline knowledge of the use of active learning in this field is vital for determining instructional effectiveness and can identify areas for improvement.The goal of this study is to provide a baseline regarding the state of active learning within the atmospheric sciences, including understanding what active learning strategies are most widely used, their frequency of use, and who is using them. Atmospheric science instructors were invited to participate in an online survey to provide information about their active learning use in the classroom and resources used to learn more about active learning strategies. Survey results indicate that case studies are the most popular high-use active learning strategy across all levels of instruction, though how they are implemented within the classroom is not clear. New atmospheric science instructors, instructors beyond the typical 5 year tenure mark, and female instructors exhibit the highest number of unique active learning strategies. Future work stresses the need for a larger sample size and more direct classroom observation of instructors using active learning.

Gender Differences in Student Comfort Voluntarily Asking and Answering Questions in Large-Enrollment College Science Courses

Allowing students to ask and answer questions is a common practice employed by college science instructors. However, recent literature has identified that women participate in whole-class discussions less often than men. One hypothesized reason for this gender gap is that women may be less comfortable participating.

Investigating Computer Science Instructors Behavioral Intention to Adopt the Flipped Classroom Applying an Extended UTAUT Model: The Role of Age, Gender, and Experience

The Flipped classroom has been applied widely in teaching computing courses. This paper aims to explore the impact of the moderating factors from the instructors’ perspectives. The study presents the findings obtained from semi-structured interviews with fourteen flipped classroom practitioners. This article investigated three potential moderators, age, gender, and experience. The results show that age and gender do not have strong evidence on their impact on the factors that could influence the instructor's adoption decision. However, some indicators by practitioners refer to experience as a possible moderator that might have impacted the factors that could influence computer science instructors to adopt the flipped classroom.

Promoting Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Speech Science Courses

Purpose Speech conveys information about a speaker's identity—their age, gender, size, health, region of origin, language learning background, sexual orientation, and race—through a variety of acoustic cues. This review of the production and perception of extralinguistic information about speaker identity is intended to help instructors promote cultural and linguistic competence in basic anatomy and physiology, phonetics, and speech science courses through the understanding of indexical information in speech. Conclusions In assisting our students to recognize the anatomical/physiological and learned social and cultural speech features associated with the expression of personal identity, basic science instructors contribute to heightened awareness of listener expectations, stereotypes, and prejudices by future speech-language pathologists and audiologists so that they are better equipped to avoid misdiagnosis of speech differences and disorders, under referral or over referral of clients from vulnerable populations, and discriminatory practices leading to health disparities in clinical services and research.

Correlational Study of Student Perceptions of their Undergraduate Laboratory Environment with respect to Gender and Major

The science laboratory learning environment has been a distinctive area in science education since the 19th century. Unfortunately, students are generally not aware of what science instructors expect from laboratory experiences, and far too often, the undergraduate science laboratory curriculum lacks explicit, well-defined goals. Science instructors assume that they have created their laboratory curriculum in such a way as to reflect an ideal science instructional laboratory, but students may not recognize this. What previous studies do not indicate is the extent to which students understand the laboratory goals for instruction as intended by the instructors. This study, therefore, using a quantitative design, examined undergraduate science major (biology, chemistry, and physics) and non-major students’, and female and male perceptions of their science instructional laboratory with respect to instructors’ goals for the laboratory. Data was collected via the Student Perceptions of the College Instructional Laboratory Survey (SPCILS) at a Midwestern University in the USA. The findings suggest that, on the whole, students perceive their instructional labs much as intended by their instructors. Female and male students were just as likely to view their instructional laboratories as intended by the instructors. Moreover, the study found no differences between science majors and non-majors. This study provides baseline data for future qualitative studies about how major and gender might be impacting students’ laboratory experiences in ways beyond what was measured on this survey. Our research was done at a teaching-oriented, midsized university. It would thus be appropriate for similar investigations to be carried out at a research-oriented university.

Defining Science Literacy in General Education Courses for Undergraduate Non-Science Majors

This article describes a project focused on identifying science instructors’ conceptions of science literacy and using these conceptions to develop a brief science literacy student self-assessment (SCILIT). We present the rationale and process we used to elicit instructors’ conceptions of science literacy, crafted in a meaningful way with input by faculty and graduate student science experts. Next, we explain how we developed a novel student SCILIT self-assessment based on those expert conceptions. We describe our initial efforts using SCILIT in undergraduate general education science courses to explore students’ self-perceived science literacy. We discuss the use of SCILIT self-assessment to assess potential progression of students’ self-rated science literacy over the course of an academic term, and how this student self-assessment relates to instructor ratings of academic proficiency and science literacy. Finally, we reflect on the use of SCILIT self-assessment to guide instruction and assessment in general education science courses for non-science majors.