This interactive, cross-disciplinary research explores face-to-face and online strategies for faculty to deploy in the classroom that encourage connections beyond forced engagement methodologies commonly used. Concentration is on methods of connecting that are “out of the mainstream” and benefit both students and faculty. Findings indicate that the more students feel as a valued participant of the learning community, the more they engage in the class activities.
This interactive, cross-disciplinary research explores face-to-face and online strategies for faculty to deploy in the classroom that encourage connections beyond forced engagement methodologies commonly used. Concentration is on methods of connecting that are “out of the mainstream” and benefit both students and faculty. Findings indicate that the more students feel as a valued participant of the learning community, the more they engage in the class activities.
The aim of the study is to reveal the implementation of a partnership framework at Saudi kindergartens in accordance to the Epstein’s Model which is considered from the perceptions of Kindergartens’ female teachers. Analytical descriptive methodology was employed, and the study sample included 48 public kindergartens’ teachers and 44 private kindergartens’ teachers in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. The study tools included a questionnaire that was related to the six fields of Epstein’s Model including; parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with community. The results revealed that implementation of a partnership framework at Saudi kindergartens in accordance to the Epstein’s Model were overall average. There were no statistically significant differences between the means of implementing partnership’s frameworks in Saudi Arabian kindergartens with its six fields, which attributed to the specific type of Kindergarten (Public – Private). The significant recommendation of the study is formulating partnerships between community institutions and kindergartens to arrange recreational, educational and social programs after school hours, which would be beneficial for children and their families.
This interactive, cross-disciplinary research explores face-to-face and online strategies for faculty to deploy in the classroom that encourage connections beyond forced engagement methodologies commonly used. Concentration is on methods of connecting that are “out of the mainstream” and benefit both students and faculty. Findings indicate that the more students feel as a valued participant of the learning community, the more they engage in the class activities.
The article reviews challenges facing colleges including the need for actions to address new circumstances of educating college students and preparing them for productive roles following graduation. These challenges are balanced by resources colleges are developing to facilitate college-to-career transitioning to first destinations following graduation. In a review of support services offered by colleges the article identifies innovative programs that show potential for improved career support for students. Sources, including surveys of students and employers, published writing by leaders in education, and reported data from colleges, provide a present view of career support functions and suggest patterns of evolution. Colleges are strengthening their support to student’s department by department, but programs and activities across-departments need to be integrated to improve services for students. Leveraging synergies among campus support functions improves services to students. The use of student support case managers may eliminate the silos among college support functions. Designing programs around students and bridging gaps among support services can deliver more relevant and timely results. The article introduces the voices of students expressed in an upper division business course Management Theory and Practice. The actual words of students were acquired as byproducts of class assignments and course evaluations. Collecting these indirectly rather that as the focal point of student input lends a candid perspective. The comments interject both students’ requests for assistance and their appreciation for the support they received.
Enhancing students' critical thinking capabilities stands as the top goal of undergraduate education, according to faculty from many universities. We assessed the change in critical thinking skills with a sample of 176 students enrolled at either the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB) or Colorado College (CC) by employing the Critical-thinking Assessment Test (CAT) developed with collaboration and support from the National Science Foundation. Students' critical thinking progress was compared by assaying skills during the first and last weeks of the term in classes that expressly emphasized: (1) critical thinking, or (2) civic engagement, or (3) where, according to the class instructors, neither was a point of major emphasis. CAT scores improved significantly for students at both institutions, in different categories of class types, and over the dramatically different lengths of terms (3.5 weeks at CC vs 15 weeks at UCB). Our research contributes to an understanding of changes in critical thinking as part of the undergraduate experience. We demonstrate that the CAT instrument can be an effective tool for assessing critical thinking skills across very different institutions of higher education.
This active learning exercise demonstrates the fundamental problem in economics that resources are scarce, while wants are relatively infinite. Students are exposed to four mechanisms for rationing scare resources: markets, queue, coupons, and lottery. An Apple iPad® pre-loaded with music, videos, and games is used as the good to be rationed. The uncertain value of the good allows for differences in willingness to pay. Students are guided through an exercise that highlights the efficiency/equity tradeoffs in different allocation mechanisms by observing who gets the iPad in each round and whether any secondary market transactions occur to change the allocation.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to ascertain the effect of Problem Based Learning (PBL) on student oral communication competency gains. Methods: Eighty students from two consecutive undergraduate Kinesiology courses (Spring semesters, 2014-15) formed into 29 small groups and were studied. Oral communication competency was assessed using a customized rubric and digital recordings of student presentations. Changes to oral communication competency across time were tested using a dependent t-test; a < .05. Results: Significant inter-rater agreement was found at both time points for oral communication rating, and student groups demonstrated significant oral communication gains across time. Conclusions: Collaborative learning was shown to improve students’ oral communication competency. Future study is required to determine the influence of student motivation and goal orientation on oral communication competency, in relation to the various phases of knowledge creation occurring within student groups.
Higher education in Taiwan is facing competition and challenges from the macro environment of globalization. Taiwan’s key policy direction is enhancing university quality in order to respond to these future trends. Universities’ international competitiveness relies on not only faculty members’ teaching quality, but also their research performance. Faculty members’ research performance strongly affects a university’s reputation, funding generation, and attraction of international and local students. Reviewing the higher education development in Taiwan, although policymakers have continued to promote the benefits of differentiating universities, few studies care how environmental factors of different types of universities affect faculty members’ research performance. Currently, fewer studies focus on the influence of environmental factors on professors’ research performance. In addition, few studies have explored the structural inequalities between universities. This research contains two sequential research methods—namely, analytic hierarchy process and questionnaire survey—to accomplish the following purposes: exploring related literature; determining key indicators of environmental factors; comparing the relative weights of key indicators in Taiwan; comparing the cognitive evaluation of environmental factors perceived by university professors at four different types of universities in Taiwan; and comparing the cognitive evaluation of environmental factors perceived by university professors in Taiwan.
It is well-established that motivation is a critical component of one’s best performance of a task. A primary model in the field of motivation is the self-determination theory (SDT). The three pillars of SDT include competency, autonomy, and relatedness; when supported these have been shown to improve the quality, consistency, and persistence of one’s effort at a task. It is the purpose of this article to examine relevant SDT research, and utilize relatable trans-disciplinary findings in support of the discussion of a novel course development technique that maximizes student engagement in the higher education environment—the assessment menu
More than ever before, today’s colleges and universities are employing innovative and mutually-beneficial ways to meet the needs of students. Due to increasing competition and changing demographics, institutions benefit from attracting more students as higher enrollments generate greater revenue; these additional tuition and fees are crucial as costs continue to rise and state funding declines. Alternative course delivery modalities provide flexibility that can enable more students to obtain access to a postsecondary education as well as appeal to those with different learning styles or who are looking for a less traditional college experience. In recent years, online programs have grown significantly when compared to the traditional face-to-face (F2F) environment. While both deliveries have their own advantages and thus supporters, each has its own disadvantages as well. As a result, blended or hybrid classes, which include features of both F2F and distance courses, are becoming more common. This article describes a study in which two sections of an F2F tax course offered students access to recorded lectures, and reports the results of a survey designed to ascertain student usage and perceptions of the value of this supplemental material.
This article presents a problem-based learning (PBL) model for teaching a college U.S. history survey course (U.S. history since 1890) designed to promote postformal thinking skills and identify and explain thinking systems inherent in adult complex problem-solving. We also present the results of a study in which the outcomes of the PBL model were compared to the outcomes of the same course taught with traditional lecture and discussion. The PBL model was more effective in scaffolding learning so that students recognize and practice postformal thinking dynamics and in facilitating self-reported student perceptions of increased course engagement and content relevance. We offer recommendations for implementing PBL in social science survey courses.
In this paper we evaluate effectiveness of course delivery mode on three dimensions: values, networking opportunities and learning. While students and their future employers are two important customers for the business program, we focus on the perception of students regarding the effectiveness of course delivery mode on program performance. The three dimensions are evaluated based on a questionnaire survey administered to business program students at several universities. We present the results of statistical analysis and draw conclusions based on the results.
Motivating students to come prepared to class is often a futile exercise. The consequences are magnified as more instructors adopt the flipped classroom teaching model, in which students are expected to come to class with some knowledge of the material. This paper analyzed the implementation of a pedagogical tool that addresses this problem: multimedia pre-lectures. We tested the efficacy of pre-lectures on students with no prior exposure to college or AP-level economics using a controlled clinical experiment, focusing on introductory economics concepts. Students who had access to pre-lecture materials scored significantly higher on comprehension and retention than those with access only to textbooks.
The aim of this study is to determine whether the approaches to learning and age are significantly correlated to grade point average (GPA) in early childhood education students. In addition, another purpose of this study is to determine whether approaches to learning and age predicted students’ GPAs in the Early Childhood Education Department. The sampling of the study consists of 166 students in total (158 female and 8 male; 86 junior and 80 senior) who studied at Georgia Southern University in the United States of America College of Education, Teaching and Learning Department’s Early Childhood Education program. The research model is a prediction study. The data in this study was collected using the Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) and a personal information form. The findings were as follow: there was a positive relationship between students’ GPAs and the deep approach. There was a negative relationship between GPAs and the surface approach. There was no significant relationship between GPAs and approaches to the total score of learning. While there were no significant relationships between students’ ages and deep motivation and surface motivation strategies, an association was found between age and approaches to total scores of learning total . The approaches to total score of learning were not significant predictors of GPA.
The competition for jobs in the 21st century is increasingly being driven by defining postsecondary learning in light of new and complex environments. To succeed, students must be prepared with knowledge to compete in these environments. Historically, higher education has defined these requirements in their own terms, often through learning outcomes specific to a course, degree or discipline. Given the recent attention toward the accountability of postsecondary education in the United States, a challenge facing our colleges and universities is defining the learning in a common language that is transparent and easily understood by all stakeholders regardless of a degree. The Lumina Foundation’s (2011) Degree Qualification Profile (DQP) is one way to accomplish this through five learning areas. This article will discuss how one institution adopted the DQP in the School of Professional Studies and quantified the five learning areas and meaning of its degrees. This study will discuss how three programs (undergraduate and graduate) identified and categorized the five learning areas of the DQP in the degrees, quantified the results, and used them in the assessment process for continuous improvement.
In 2014 Wesley College adopted a unified undergraduate program of evidence-based high-impact teaching practices. Through foundation and federal and state grant support, the college completely revised its academic core curriculum and strengthened its academic support structures by including a comprehensive early alert system for at-risk students. In this core, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty developed fresh manifestations of integrated concept-based introductory courses and revised upper-division STEM courses around student-centered learning. STEM majors can participate in specifically designed paid undergraduate research experiences in directed research elective courses. Such a college-wide multi-tiered approach results in institutional cultural change.
The impact of teacher observations in alignment with professional development (PD) on teacher efficacy was quantified for 292 schools in 110 districts within 27 U.S. States. Teacher observations conducted by school leaders or designated internal coaches were coordinated with PD offerings aligned with intended teacher improvements. The PD involved throughout was an online, on-demand system teachers accessed as convenient with a range of PD assistance regarding teaching techniques and participative teacher/user interactive communities for collaboratively posting and downloading PD-related materials. Results indicate that systemic teacher observations, coupled with aligned PD, resulted in significantly improved student achievement in reading and math on standardized assessments.
Student engagement is an essential element for learning. Active learning has been consistently shown to increase student engagement and hence learning. Hands-on activities are one of the many active learning approaches. These activities vary from structured laboratory experiments on one end of the spectrum to virtual gaming environments and to for example building a solar car on the other end. Active learning has also been credited for developing critical thinking skills that promote metacognition. We have used virtual and real environments to promote student engagement and provide opportunities for developing a deeper understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. Several learning modules have been developed utilizing Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) with autonomous flight capabilities and a flight simulation environment . In this paper we explain three modules. Based on a survey, students reported positve impact of these modules and of the opportunity to assemble the UAS.
