This study examines students’ reflections on how concepts covered in a marketing course are applied to the broader liberal arts curriculum. The objective was to demonstrate when given a chance with an Interdisciplinary Reflection Assignment, students can articulate interdisciplinary relevance. The study collected sample data from six classes over three years. The assignment embodies the areas of metacognition, reflection, and integration of interdisciplinary knowledge.A content analysis approach was utilized to review both quantitative and qualitative data. Students’ comments are categorized as follows: 32 in “Humanities & Fine Arts”; 31 in “Natural Sciences & Mathematics”; 93 in “Social Sciences & History”; 6 in “Professional Studies” (College, 2019). The assignment results strongly suggest that, when asked, students can articulate the integration of a business marketing course with other liberal arts subject areas. Thus, demonstrating business has a legitimate place in the liberal arts curriculum. This study contributes to education literature by providing a specific pedagogical example that can be easily replicated by other educators at other higher education institutions. The assignment offers added value to enhance student learning and appreciation of how marketing concepts integrate with other academic disciplines.
A modification in emphasis in an upper business course from a professor-centered approach to a student-centered focus demonstrated the use of possibilities to enrich a lecture course format to increase student engagement while also facilitating student readiness to enter the workforce. A proliferation of college teaching formats has emerged, including online learning, video teaching alternatives, and interactive learning outside the classroom. These rival formats offer new ways to engage students and ease them into future positions in organizations, yet the lecture format continues to be a choice preferred by many educational institutions. The transition to a course aligned with student needs and interests entailed numerous modifications in classroom conduct, curriculum, and student learning experiences. Certain changes appeared obvious along with other adjustments that, although profound, were subtle. This study identified factors associated with this transition along with their effects on students. Findings were based on input and evaluations by students. Three main factors were prominent in implementing the modifications: (a) augmenting the positioning of the professor as the unilateral classroom authority by adding the role of professor as agent of service to the students; (b) enriching content and assignments that immersed students in the course subjects, but often focused on the workplace environment; and (c) collecting initial input about student learning goals and requiring student feedback from each class meeting. Pre-post surveys completed by students assessed changes in their confidence on factors they associated with effectiveness in their careers.
In learning new skills, it is necessary that students receive some information (feedback), that tells them if they are on the right track. The strategies, tactics or means through which teachers provide feedback to pupils after assessments are, however, a source of concern. Thus, this study aimed at assessing test feedback strategies/tactics adopted by primary school teachers in Anambra State, Nigeria. This study is a descriptive survey conducted in Anambra State, a south-eastern State in Nigeria. The sample of the study consisted of 500 teachers drawn from 1054 public primary schools in the state. The study tested two hypotheses and answered two research questions. The instrument used for collecting data is a researcher-developed questionnaire, titled “Test Feedback Strategy Assessment Questionnaire” (TFSAQ). Mean, standard deviation and t-test were adopted to analyze the data collected. The study revealed that teachers majorly gave feedbacks in writing or print form which included handwritten comments on students’ assessed work, written numeric scores, grades, averages or positions, etc. They also gave face-to-face feedbacks to whole classes, individual students and small groups of students. Most of the teachers did not use electronic feedbacks. The feedbacks were of fairly good quality. The school location and the level of a class taught had no significant influence on teachers’ responses. As a result of the findings, the researcher recommended among other things that teachers should be given more training especially on electronic feedback strategies as well as ways of improving the qualities of their test feedbacks.
The issue of attendance policies has been studied by higher education professionals for nearly a century. Prior research has shown a strong statistical link between class attendance and student grades. The aim of our research project is to gauge the attitudes and policies of business school professors in an AACSB accredited school on this topic. An online survey was conducted during the early Fall 2018 semester. Results suggest the vast majority of respondents institute an attendance policy in their classes. Respondents taught courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and are a diverse set of faculty as indicated by academic rank, age, gender and level of education.
This study aims to investigate the relationship between dramatic play and self-regulation in preschool age. The descriptive correlational methodology is utilized using three tools: dramatic play questionnaire, self-regulation scale (Head, Toes, Knees, and Shoulders), and children’s interviews. The sample of the study consists of 60 children aged 4-6 years. Quantitative analysis is done using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The interviews with children are qualitatively analyzed calculating frequency, and percentage of coded data. The findings reveal a significant positive correlation between dramatic play and self-regulation. Besides, it is found that self-regulation could be predicted through the dimension of interactions with others during dramatic play. The study also proves a defect in the quality of dramatic play in terms of social interaction, symbolism, and themes and roles practiced by children. In the light of these results, the researchers suggest that mothers and teachers’ awareness of the importance of quality dramatic play should be enhanced, to enable them to allow and plan for quality play. Also, allowing flexibility in preschool programs could support teachers’ efforts in enhancing play engagement and development. Finally, this study has facilitated further research in the Arabian region, since it highlighted a valid, cross-cultural tool for measuring self-regulation in the Arabic language.
This research explored the relationship between total-trait emotional intelligence and academic stress among college students at a small, private college. Student total-trait emotional intelligence (TTEI) and university stress scores were significantly correlated. Measures of TTEI and USS are useful for student intervention to impact issues such as attrition. To increase retention, small private colleges benefit significantly from knowing students’ level of academic stress and emotional intelligence. Identifying specific factors and mitigating the adverse effects of these factors allows small colleges the opportunity to provide additional services for students.
Effective alternative high schools service the whole child - academically, socially, emotionally, and developmentally. It is critical to address the needs of the child through wrap-around support services that include Building Positive Relationships, Providing Supportive Safety Nets at School, Offering Counseling Services, Having a Food and Toiletry Pantry, Laundry Service and Bus Pass Bank and Focusing on Post-secondary Plans. A clear focus on these five wrap-around support areas will assist at-risk and wounded students to earn their high school diplomas - and level the students’ playing fields with an emphasis on building productive futures in college, military and/or career.
Fluency in reading is crucial for comprehension of the written word. Traditionally we concentrate on fluency once a child is a proficient reader. However, fluency is a skill that can be successfully addressed with beginning readers. This article presents practical strategies to help beginning readers become fluent readers. Of course, these strategies are effective with proficient readers, however, the earlier we begin to use them, the sooner children will internalize the concept of fluency and practice it. These strategies are also effective with second language learners.
In many social science college courses, professors cover a wide variety of topics that may act as triggers for victims of trauma in both traditional and online courses. At the same time, we may also encounter students who suffer trauma during their college experience. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of creating a safe and empowering environment in college classrooms regardless of what subjects we teach. Safe environments and the relationships we build with our students play a vital role in student success by understanding the importance of being trauma-informed.
National, state, and local educational agencies identify teacher retention as an issue of continuous importance and concern. This report addresses the issue of teacher retention through the lens of administrative effectiveness and involvement, as well as teachers’ intrinsic motivations. Relevant findings include structural framing of the educational environment, student behaviors, school district demands for improvement, and teacher perspectives on administrative support. The report iterates that teacher retention does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, and that each school division and individual school must work purposefully to devise plans to retain its most effective teachers.
Through a Disney perspective, this author discusses how students can use creative strategies to cope with learning disabilities in secondary, post-secondary and even graduate levels of academic achievement. In particular, the paper will be presenting how the author, who has an infinity for “everything Disney”, chose to use both Disney Characters and Disney Song titles from movies and television shows, as a creative strategy in the organization of her master’s research thesis. The research study entitled “Why is it so hard to go a good thing? The Paradox and Dilemma of Parental Advocacy within the Individual Education Planning Process” took a qualitative, phenomenological approach to investigate the experiences of parental advocacy and to seek out macro/micro factors that may have contributed to positive or negative outcomes within the IEP process. The author used Disney song titles as an adaptive tool not only to help in the organization of the findings of the research, but also to help illuminate the phenomenological existential themes that were revealed through the analysis. The paper hopes to demonstrate that through the use of creative strategies in otherwise conventional academic expectations, students experiencing disabilities may increase the potential of achieving academic success.
Researchers have long established that people who believe they are attractive have higher self-esteem (Aronson & Linder, 1965). Recent studies show that students with higher self-esteem have less speaking apprehension (Elfering & Grebner, 2012). Teachers in higher education can help students rethink their attractiveness in an attempt to help boost their self-esteem through an in-class activity that demonstrates Flashed Face Distortion Effect. This improved self-appraisal can reduce speaking apprehension in any class that includes a public presentation element. This interpretive qualitative research presents a novel single-class activity that can be useful in any course that includes a public presentation element. The objective of the activity is to lower student speaking apprehension when they publically present.
This study evolved from a previous study that examined the perceptions of the importance of specific traits to success in the accounting profession by both accounting professionals in the United States and internationally. That study found that the international subjects valued some soft skills, such as creativity, as being more important to success than did the subjects in the United States. Because of the importance of soft skills to success in the accounting profession worldwide, I sought to determine if teaching methodology in the accounting classroom in the United States could affect the perceptions of students regarding the importance of traits to success in the accounting profession. Three particular new methodologies were added to the accounting courses in which the study was run; a team debate, a writing assignment justifying an impairment decision in an unclear situation, and a team presentation in which creativity was a very significant percentage of the final grade. The results revealed that the traits of persuasiveness, good oral communication skills, good marketing skills, and creativity were ranked significantly more important by the student subjects at the end of the semester term than they were at the beginning of the semester term. Based on these results, accounting educators need to experiment to find methodologies that relate to their specific accounting courses that will help students realize the importance of soft skills for professional success in accounting.
This paper explores teaching and learning applications at the intersection between Universal Design for Learning, Assistive Technology, and mainstream educational technology. Informed by the SETT framework in which the technology choice is informed by student, environment, and task (Dell, Newton, & Petroff, 2017; Zabala, 2005), this paper is designed for a learner-profile consistent with learners who need concrete and visual approaches to optimize receptive and expressive communication. The visual and interactive approaches shared here include Universal Design, graphic organizers, and comic strip creations, and may appeal to teachers of students on the autism spectrum as well as others who are responsive to visual supports. While it is not possible to predict the exact nature of the environment and tasks at hand for these students, the paper leaves those decisions in the hands of the readers. Approaches and suggestions shared here reflect practitioner experience, findings from the literature, and data from a 2016 course, in which a small number of diverse students reinforced the concept that UDL approaches increased their engagement and success.
An adequate supply of a high quality labor force is crucial for national economic and social well-being; consequently, nations worldwide have placed significant emphasis on university graduate employability. Nonetheless, in Taiwan, a mismatch between knowledge acquired in universities and competences required by the job market has dramatically encumbered the supply of a high quality labor force. Thus, this research endeavored to determine the major career services that should be offered in higher educational institutions to alleviate the aforementioned human resource problems.The analytic hierarchy process was adopted as the major instrument for calculating the relative importance of each career service task, and 169 university alumni working in four major career fields participated in this research. The results indicated that participants from different career fields and who graduated from different colleges at different times have very different opinions of job service requests; therefore, universities should seriously consider the differences among students and provide the necessary services for each student in line with his/her particular requests. Moreover, although almost all participants agreed that sharpening students’ job-search and interview skills was crucial in assisting students to find their first jobs, this service was extremely insufficient in universities, and universities thus have to place particular emphasis on this task in the future.
Based on the reform movements over the past two decades, it is evident that while effective teachers are critical to student learning, not all teachers are coming to the profession highly qualified. Policy and research continue to highlight the need to reorganize and refocus teacher preparation programs to produce higher quality teachers ready to meet the demands of the classroom from day one of employment. This study focuses on the enhancement of traditional preparation programs in public Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) as this continues to be the context for which most teacher candidates come to the profession. Using a six-group, four measure mixed-methods design, the objective of the study is to determine the impact California Teaching Fellows Foundation (CTFF), a pre-service teaching and learning opportunity for future teacher candidates, has on developing higher caliber teachers prepared in a traditional University-based teacher preparation setting. Through the use of an online survey, interviews, and focus groups, the relationship of CTFF participation to teacher efficacy before, during, and after traditional preparation participation is examined and explored from the perspective of teacher and supervisor. Unexpected findings show that CTFF participation has a relationship to decreased Teacher Efficacy for teacher candidates and CTFF is not creating a significant pipeline to teaching as proposed, leading to questions for further study.
Mainland China and Taiwan have a homogenous macroculture, but a heterogenous microculture. To understand the acculturation of students from mainland China to Taiwan, the present study applies Berry’s(1997) two-dimensional model of acculturation, together with the concept of cultural types as its analytical framework, using focus group interviews to analyze different directions of acculturation among students from mainland China in Taiwan. The results show that regarding personal values, due to Taiwan’s restrictions on students from mainland China and the fact that they must eventually return to their place of origin, the acculturation of students from mainland China mainly takes the “separation/segregation” mode. Regarding peer selection, due to differences between individuals in their interpersonal choices, they may adopt “separation/segregation” or “integration” modes. Regarding the period of residence in Taiwan, as students from mainland China spend longer in Taiwan, they tend more towards “integration.” However, when teachers show greater contempt for the culture of mainland China, the acculturation of students from mainland China tends toward the “separation/segregation” mode.
Students’ bullying and harassment have been shown to be a problem and more schools around the world are starting to address them. Although much of the attention and research has focused on middle-school students, addressing bullying and harassment in universities is important and makes the object of the present research. We provide an overview of how student versus student bullying and harassment are reported, monitored, and dealt with at Canadian educational institutions. Specifically, we identify schools where there is information and policies regarding students’ persecution; we describe how colleges help and what advice they offer; we discuss frameworks used to tackle it; as well, we present other initiatives aiming to prevent it. We also attempt to evaluate measures by linking them with incidence figures. This review may guide future initiatives to tackle intimidation with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of university environment.
Stories live to be told to others, Dan McAdams (2008) writes: Life stories therefore are continually made and remade in social relationships and in the overall social context provided by culture. As psychosocial constructions, life stories reflect the values, norms, and power differentials inherent in societies, wherein they have their constitutive meanings. The construction of coherent life stories is an especially challenging problem for adults living in contemporary modern (and postmodern) societies, wherein selves are viewed as reflexive projects imbued with complexity and depth, ever changing yet demanding a coherent framing. This paper considers the memoir as a kind of life story, to be explored through selected memoirists, researchers, and scholars by focusing on the relationship between identity construction, memory, history, and imagination. Narrative structure, as well as the compelling experiences and ideas detailed in memoirs, will be analyzed to arrive at a better understanding of issues related to the creative process.
Background: Takotsubo Syndrome is a condition that causes impairment in cardiac function in the absence of significant causative coronary artery disease. Takotsubo Syndrome is most commonly reported in older women, has identical presenting symptoms to acute coronary syndrome (ACS),but differs in cause, management and outcomes. Ongoing symptoms and recurrence of Takotsubo Syndrome are not uncommon but little support is available for these women. Aims: This study compares (1) educational support and (2) participation rates in outpatient cardiac rehabilitation for women with Takotsubo Syndrome or acute coronary syndrome, and (3) ascertains whether or not they perceived similar benefits from these strategies. Methods: 23 women with Takotsubo Syndrome and 23 age-matched women with acute coronary syndrome were mailed a structured questionnaire based on cardiac rehabilitation (CR) components. Findings: The questionnaire response rate was 48% (n=11) for the Takotsubo Syndrome group and 30% (n=7) for the acute coronary syndrome group. 18% (n=2) of the women with Takotsubo Syndrome and 71% (n=5) of the women with acute coronary syndrome attended cardiac rehabilitation, with all attendees perceiving that it was beneficial in aiding their recovery. Of the nine women with Takotsubo Syndrome that did not attend cardiac rehabilitation, 67% (n=6) perceived that it would have been helpful in aiding their recovery. Women with Takotsubo Syndrome were less likely to receive educational support about their condition, particularly stress management and participate in CR compared with women with ACS, despite perceiving that elements of CR would have been helpful in aiding their recovery. Conclusions: Women with ACS had higher CR participation rates than those with Takotsubo Syndrome, and were more likely to receive educational support, particularly following hospital discharge. The majority of women with Takotsubo Syndrome were not exposed to educational support in their recovery, suggesting a role for CR tailored to the needs of these women. Nurses can take practical steps to address these gaps by providing emotional support and education for women with Takotsubo Syndrome in stress management to enhance their quality of life and reduce potential recurrence.
