Classroom Lectures Research Articles

Efficacy of flipped classroom teaching on the cognitive domain in second-year physiotherapy students

Introduction: Flipped learning is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, often online, outside the classroom. It moves activities, including those that may have conventionally been considered homework, into the classroom. With the availability of resources but restrictions on time, flipped learning can replace or be an adjunct to conventional classroom teaching as per the need. Objectives: (1) Comparison of the MCQ test scores pre- and postflipped learning classroom. (2) Analyze the feedback of the students on flipped learning through structured questionnaire. Materials and Methods: This study included 36 second-year students from TMV's Lokmanya Medical College of Physiotherapy. After approval from the Institutional Ethical Committee, written consent was obtained from the participants. The study material was mailed to all the participants. Flipped classroom instructional strategy was employed with videos of “Gait-Kinetics and Kinematics” that were uploaded. Two classroom lectures were conducted for in-depth exploration and problem-solving done. Pre- and postMCQ test administered and feedback was taken. Results: A significant improvement was seen in the MCQ test score post two flipped learning sessions (P < 0.001). The feedback questionnaire analysis established that flipped classroom technique is an effective teaching method. Conclusion: Flipped classroom teaching is an effective teaching method in bringing about a change in the cognitive domain of second-year physiotherapy students.

ScoolAR: An Educational Platform to Improve Students’ Learning Through Virtual Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) applications has been investigated in several domains. As such, their application in educational settings has witnessed to a growing interest by the research community. Teachers can be assisted by AR/VR, in a way that students can strength the learning outcomes, gained during the classroom lecture. However, despite their potential has been widely assessed, there still exists a bottleneck preventing a widespread adoption in the education domain: the lack of easy to use platforms enabling teachers and students to become producers of AR/VR experiences. This paper fills this gap, by proposing a novel platform named ScoolAR, developed for didactic purposes. ScoolAR allows to create AR/VR applications without any programming skills. Up to now, there is no evidence in the state-of-art of a didactic tool that allows to create AR/VR applications without programming skills. From such premises, ScoolAR has been developed to overcome these limitations and to enable an autonomous content creation system and thus boosting more engagement and awareness in the exploitation of AR and VR applications in everyday educational scenarios. Beside describing the architectural framework of the proposed platform, this paper presents the results of experiments conducted in a real didactic scenario. Considering two group of students, the first group was assisted with the ScoolAR framework, the second one conducted the study phase with frontal lecture. The test performed proved that the first group outperformed the second one on all metrics of evaluation. Thus, the combined effort between common didactic activities and technological innovation permits to achieve superior results in terms of both knowledge and competences, especially for those disciplines (e.g. Cultural Heritage and History of Architecture and more) where the transversal learning is fundamental.

“Hazamaru Kobo” in KOSEN :

In 2019, the multipurpose workshop “Hazamaru Kobo” having two booths was established in the facility. Various kinds of equipment were implemented for creative extracurricular activity for the KOSEN student. The workshop has been managed by technical staffs, and students who have beforehand taken the instruction course to use the workshop safety can utilize the workshop with their strong interests in manufacturing. In order to make sure the effectiveness of the workshop for the creative manufacturing, we interviewed students who used the “Hazamaru Kobo” in the social implementation education class. It was found that KOSEN students have been using the workshop as one of the opportunities to feel the importance of manufacturing with their own idea. Actually, it was also found that “Hazamaru Kobo” is a promising workshop to proceed our social implementation education. It is therefore expected that the extracurricular activity for the self-learning in “Hazamaru Kobo” will lead to the development of innovative human resources that cannot be achieved by classroom lectures alone.

Lecture quality assessment based on the audience reactions using machine learning and neural networks

Abstract The assessment of the academic behavior and lecture quality in educational environments is of great interest and importance. This assessment has generally been done through external observers or questionnaires. Recently some attempts have been made to solve this problem with intelligent systems. In this paper, we try to solve this problem with the help of machine learning and neural networks. A dataset of lectures in real classrooms is collected. Four methods based on extracting spatio-temporal features from the videos and classifying them using different classifiers to measure the audience's attention and consequently, lecture quality are presented. Features are extracted from sequences of each person's face frames using machine vision algorithms or neural networks. Among the proposed methods, using 3D convolutional neural networks resulted in the best accuracy of 82% and the best improvement comparing to the majority baseline accuracy of 53%.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on learning of the undergraduate and postgraduate dental students

Background: More than 95% of all countries worldwide reported infections with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 described as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Therefore, most countries put physical distancing measures (e.g., closing of public, cultural, and educational institutions) in place to decelerate the infection rate. Consequently, dental education at universities worldwide is strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study was done to know the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on dental education.Materials and Methods: A self-designed, structured, online questionnaire of 22 close-ended questions was generated and distributed among the undergraduates and postgraduate dental students in Bangalore city. A total of 450 forms were sent through online by messages, WhatsApp, and emails. Online consent was obtained before participation in the study and it was mandatory to answer all questions. Data obtained were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics, and significant proportions were available. The level of significance was considered as P ≤≤≤ 5.Results: The study showed that in this pandemic, 73.4% of the students feel e-learning as a boon for learning dental students, but 87.1% of students feel classroom lectures are more interactive compared to online lectures. About 12.4% of the students felt difficult to access the Internet for online classes, whereas 87.6% of students had access. Students feel understanding clinical procedures is difficult through e-learning; hence, 83.6% of students search web for better understanding. Almost 92.5% of the students feel they are lacking clinical experience due to online classes.Conclusion: COVID-19 has definitely affected the world; similarly, it has affected the clinical practice of dental students in dental schools. As education continues through e-learning, still, few students are deprived of education due to access to the Internet.

Effects of Program to Promote Obesity Prevention Behaviors on Pre-Schoolers: Focused on Kindergartener in Korea

This study aimed to develop a program to promote obesity prevention behaviors for pre-schoolers and to confirm the effectiveness of the program in Korea. The program comprised 8 sessions for 4 weeks including combined classroom lectures and physical activities. A non-equivalent control group pre-post test study design was used, and seventy two children, aged 5 to 6 years (experimental group: 33, control group: 39) and their parents participated in the study. To examine the effectiveness of the program, children's knowledge, intake of sugar-added beverages and fruits & vegetables, time of outdoor play and screen time, and parental self-efficacy were measured. Data were analyzed with SPSS/WIN ver. 22.0 and R 4.0.2, using descriptive analysis, chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, the independent t-test, and Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results showed that the experimental group reported significantly increased knowledge (p < .001) and longer time of outdoor play on weekends (p = .033). However, there were no significant differences in the intake of sugar-added beverages and fruits & vegetables, screen time, and parental self-efficacy in the two groups. This study confirms the applicability of an obesity prevention intervention at kindergartens in Korea. The results can be used as basic data for the study of childhood obesity prevention in Korea.

Training in community psychiatry

Training in community psychiatry is an essential aspect of psychiatric education in Europe. Community psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the prevention and treatment of mental illness in the community, with an emphasis on promoting recovery and social inclusion. Training in community psychiatry in Europe typically involves a combination of didactic and clinical experiences, including classroom lectures, group discussions, and supervised practice in community-based mental health services. The curriculum covers topics such as community mental health policy, community-based care, social determinants of mental health, and recovery-oriented approaches to care. The training also emphasizes the importance of inter professional collaboration and the need to work closely with other healthcare professionals, service users, and family members. Overall, training in community psychiatry in Europe is designed to equip psychiatrists with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to provide high-quality, person-centered care to individuals with mental illness in the community.

E-LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT IN MEDICAL INTERNS IN ANESTHESIOLOGY AND INTENSIVE CARE DURING PANDEMIC COVID-19

The continuous technology development and speed at which information can be spread, contribute to the development of distance learning for medical professionals, which during COVID-19 pandemic have become even more urgent. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of online learning implementation for a second year interns in «Anesthesiology and intensive care» due to COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As from March to June the Department of surgery, anesthesiology and intensive care at Bohomolets National Medical University shifted away from traditional teaching and assessment to distance learning, which affected examination of interns. The effectiveness of teaching and assessment were evaluated by Interns and Professors through Google Forms. The final exam results in 2018, 2019 and 2020 were also compared. The key finding of the study was acceptance of distance learning by Interns as effective in gaining theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The extent of Interns’ knowledge compared to the previous years was considered by our professors as unchanged or higher. Unlike the majority of professors, who believed that traditional classroom lectures are more appropriate and effective, the Interns preferred online learning activities, which in their vision were much more convenient.

Bringing Social Justice into the Statistics Classroom

Social justice is an American Psychological Association (APA) ethical principal which is often taught in content courses (e.g. social psychology, developmental psychology, introductory psychology) but rarely covered in psychological statistics courses. This is problematic, as psychology students may assume that bias is not an issue when implementing statistical tests and interpreting their results if social justice topics are not incorporated into statistics classrooms. The current study evaluated student’s attitudes toward a social justice lecture in a statistics classroom ( N = 100 students). Results show students had more favorable attitudes toward social justice and agreed it was important to cover in statistics classrooms. Future research should extend this work by seeking to replicate these findings and evaluating additional pedagogical tools to incorporate social justice into the statistics classroom.

Educational Robot Arm Platform

A robot is a complex machine that involves the conjunction of many technologies working harmoniously together to provide to the final user, a nice interface to interact. The kind of problems needed to be solved to have a robotic arm involves overcoming lateral loads, power consumption, solution of kinematics equations, etc. Peter Corke’s Robotics Toolbox [1] is a computer library useful to design, model, visualize and simulate a robot and it is widely utilized in the present study. This paper describes the design process and construction of a 4-DOF robotic arm, involving CAD, CAM, electronics, and Matlab’s Robotics Toolbox to solve kinematics. It constitutes a low-cost platform, in a process of permanent improvement, for the study of laboratory courses of design, manufacturing, electronics and robotics, essentials for many engineering curriculums. The platform provides the student with hands-on experience that consolidates classroom lectures.

TO EXPLORE THE ASSOCIATION OF SYMPTOMS OF OCULAR AND GENERALASTHENOPIA IN CHILDREN OF THE AGE GROUP OF 2 - 18 YEARS DURING COVID19 PANDEMIC WITH THE DURATION OF SCREEN TIME, AS REPORTED BY PARENTS AND FIND OUT WAYS TO MITIGATE THE SAME

Aim : To explore the association of symptoms of ocular and general aesthenopia in children of the age group of 2 – 18 years during COVID19 pandemic with the duration of screen time, as reported by parents and find out ways to mitigate the same. Setting and design: E-survey duly approved by Institutional review board, was conducted wherein the questionnaire was sent to multiple forums randomly across the country via google forms Methods and Material: Data was automatically stored on submitting questionnaire by user from where information was collected and inferences were made. Result: 1000 questionnaires were sent out of which we received responses. There were a significant number of children who were facing difficulties to cope up with higher screen time due to transition of classroom lectures to online lectures during COVID-19 pandemic. The study revealed that 49.7% used mobile phones as their primary device for online classes as well as entertainment purposes and 24.1 % children used overall screen time of more than 4 hours. About 11.6% complained of redness of eyes, 10.2% of burning sensation and 11.9% of watering on prolonged usage of electronic devices. Systemic complaints include sleep disturbances in 24.6%, irritability in 23.4%, tiredness in 13.1 %. Conclusion: Use of technology is part and parcel of our daily lifestyle. It has evolved to become a necessity rather than a mere choice; especially during the COVID-19 pandemic scenario specifically affecting school going children with the shift of classroom teaching to online lectures increasing the already high screen time. Suggestions to mitigate and reduce the impact of the same have been considered as well.

Biosensors Show Promise as a Measure of Student Engagement in a Large Introductory Biology Course.

This study measured student engagement in real time through the use of skin biosensors, specifically galvanic skin response (GSR), in a large undergraduate lecture classroom. The study was conducted during an intervention in an introductory-level biology course (N = 420) in which one section of the course was taught with active-learning approaches and the other with traditional didactic teaching. GSR results were aligned and correlated with the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM, or COPUS, and student self-reflections on their own engagement. Results showed that the active-learning section spent more time working in groups, resulting in GSR measures that trended higher and self-reported engagement, while showing indications of higher content learning gains compared with the traditional lecture section. Comparisons between COPUS scores and GSR readings indicate that engagement increased during group work and decreased during listening activities. Throughout a class period, GSR activity of the active-learning group showed increased trends compared with baseline measures, while the traditional lecture group showed decreased trends. Results indicate that GSR is a promising measure of real-time student engagement in the undergraduate classroom, bringing a new technique to discipline-based education researchers who aim to better measure student engagement; however, some limitations exist for broad-scale implementation.

Teaching bioscience to nursing students-What works?

AimTo compare the effects of flipped classroom and traditional auditorium lectures, on nursing students’ examination results in bioscience.DesignAn educational intervention study.MethodsAll the first‐year students in the bachelor programme (N = 493) were entered into a database and randomly assigned to the intervention or the control group in a course in bioscience. The outcome measures are the proportion of students who passed the examination, and the distribution of grades from A to E. Chi‐square tests and Mann–Whitney Wilcoxon test were used. The odds to pass versus fail were modelled using binary logistic regression.ResultsThe proportion of students who did not pass the final examination was very similar in the intervention and the control groups, 21.4% and 23.6% (p = .574). Our data did not reveal any statistically significant differences concerning the distribution of grades (p = .691). Students with biology and/or natural science had higher odds for passing.

Changing classrooms bring new questions: environmental influences, self-efficacy, and academic achievement

In recent years, considerable attention has been given to how the physical structure of active learning classrooms affects academic performance, but little is known about how these spaces influence learners’ personal capability beliefs. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students’ beliefs and performance varied in two physical learning environments. Students (N = 372) enrolled in an entry-level undergraduate statistics course at a large public university that was taught in either a technology-enhanced, group-configured classroom or a traditional, forward-facing lecture classroom. Using surveys administered during the first and last week of the semester, students evaluated the importance of the learning environment and their self-efficacy for regulating their learning (e.g. focus, motivation) and for doing statistics. Between-groups analyses revealed that students in the two settings rated the importance of the physical environment similarly. Self-efficacy for self-regulation decreased across the semester in both settings. Within-group analyses showed that statistics self-efficacy decreased in the technology-enhanced classroom but increased in the traditional classroom. Statistics self-efficacy significantly predicted course grades in both classroom types. The effect of classroom environment on self-efficacy was moderated by student gender. This research provides initial insights about how physical classroom environments are related to personal capability beliefs in undergraduate education.

Veterinary Student Knowledge and Attitudes about Swine Change after Lectures and a Farm Visit.

Veterinary schools are facing the challenge of increasing animal welfare (AW) training while also attracting future practitioners to livestock medicine. Both objectives may be better achieved through farm visits early in veterinary training. First year veterinary students at the University of Minnesota (n = 103) were surveyed during the Spring 2019 Professional Development II course to document their knowledge, attitudes, and values relative to pigs, AW, and the industry before and after classroom and online lectures and a visit to a farrow-to-wean farm. Quantitative (Kruskal-Wallis, Kendall tau-c and Chi-Square) and qualitative (content analysis) analyses were used to identify shifts in knowledge and attitudes and associations with demographics and use of the AW values of biological functioning, affective state, and natural living. Most students were female (85.4%), from urban/suburban backgrounds (68.9%), and did not wish to work with livestock (66.0%). Knowledge scores (p <.05) and attitudes toward pigs (p = .0152) improved after visiting the farm. Satisfaction with AW on most commercial farms shifted after the farm visit (p = .0003), with those valuing biological functioning becoming more satisfied (p = .0342). In contrast, students who visited the farm when enrichment was provided were more dissatisfied compared to those who toured the farm without enrichment (p = .0490). Those referencing natural living (p = .0047) rated the toured farm as a poorer steward of welfare. Students' AW concerns included behavioral restriction in individual stalls and injury and lameness in group pens. Farm visits are an important tool in veterinary education, but may result in segmentation in student knowledge and attitudes relative to livestock welfare.

DNA sequencing of anatomy lab cadavers to provide hands-on precision medicine introduction to medical students

BackgroundMedical treatment informed by Precision Medicine is becoming a standard practice for many diseases, and patients are curious about the consequences of genomic variants in their genome. However, most medical students’ understanding of Precision Medicine derives from classroom lectures. This format does little to foster an understanding for the potential and limitations of Precision Medicine. To close this gap, we implemented a hands-on Precision Medicine training program utilizing exome sequencing to prepare a clinical genetic report of cadavers studied in the anatomy lab. The program reinforces Precision Medicine related learning objectives for the Genetics curriculum.MethodsPre-embalmed blood samples and embalmed tissue were obtained from cadavers (donors) used in the anatomy lab. DNA was isolated and sequenced and illustrative genetic reports provided to the students. The reports were used to facilitate discussion with students on the implications of pathogenic genomic variants and the potential correlation of these variants in each “donor” with any anatomical anomalies identified during cadaver dissection.ResultsIn 75% of cases, analysis of whole exome sequencing data identified a variant associated with increased risk for a disease/abnormal condition noted in the donor’s cause of death or in the students’ anatomical findings. This provided students with real-world examples of the potential relationship between genomic variants and disease risk. Our students also noted that diseases associated with 92% of the pathogenic variants identified were not related to the anatomical findings, demonstrating the limitations of Precision Medicine.ConclusionWith this study, we have established protocols and classroom procedures incorporating hands-on Precision Medicine training in the medical student curriculum and a template for other medical educators interested in enhancing their Precision Medicine training program. The program engaged students in discovering variants that were associated with the pathophysiology of the cadaver they were studying, which led to more exposure and understanding of the potential risks and benefits of genomic medicine.

A pilot study examining the impact of collaborative mind mapping strategy in a flipped classroom: learning achievement, self-efficacy, motivation, and students’ acceptance

Appropriate collaborative learning support is necessary for group learning in a flipped classroom setting, especially in the out-of-class learning phase. This study involved a collaborative mind mapping strategy to engage learners in group activities in the flipped classroom setting. A pilot experiment was conducted to examine the effect of such a strategy on students’ learning achievement, self-efficacy, motivation, and acceptance of mind mapping in a news photography course. Specifically, this study compared the effects of two mind mapping strategies (collaborative vs. individual) combined with instructional methods (flipped classroom vs. conventional) on students’ learning outcomes. A 2 × 2 mixed-factorial experiment design was used, with the mind mapping strategies as the within-subjects factors and the instructional methods as the between-subjects factors. Ninety-two sophomores enrolled in this course were randomly assigned to either flipped classroom or conventional lecturing. Both method groups used collaborative and individual mind mapping. Results revealed that the combination of a collaborative mind mapping strategy and a flipped classroom significantly improved students’ learning achievement and self-efficacy. In addition, flipped classroom students had a more positive attitude toward accepting and using collaborative mind mapping than those in the individual mind mapping condition. These implications provided instructional designers guidance to apply collaborative mind mapping into a flipped classroom and suggested that designers should focus on improving students’ motivation by integrating other strategies.

Research on the Effectiveness of Educational Internship——A Case Study on Primary Education Major

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes of teaching ability of pre-service teachers during their internship. Methods: The pre-service teachers were divided into experimental group and control group, and the video of each class was recorded, encoded and scored by experts from primary schools, and SPSS was used to analyze the data. Results: The teaching ability of the pre-service teachers in the primary school Chinese subject had a significant improvement in the six weeks of teaching practice. The teaching ability of the pre-service teachers in the primary school mathematics discipline had no significant improvement in the six weeks of teaching practice; there is no significant difference in the teaching ability of pre-service teachers who have experienced six classroom lectures and 18 classroom lectures. Conclusion: Educational universities should attach importance to the role of educational internship in promoting the development of pre-service teachers' teaching ability and increase the internship time. Instructors should pay attention to the cultivation of pre-service teachers' teaching reflection ability and give feedback and guidance in time.

National Survey to Describe the Current Patterns of Procedural Sedation Practices Among Pediatric Emergency Medicine Practitioners in the United States.

Pediatric procedural sedation (PPS) is used to maintain children's safety, comfort, and cooperation during emergency department procedures. Our objective was to gather data describing PPS practice across the United States to highlight the variations in practice and adherence to National Guidelines. We performed a nationwide survey of PPS practitioners using a secure web-based software program. A link to the survey was sent to all subscribers of a pediatric emergency medicine listserv. We collected participant demographics, their PPS approach for personnel, monitoring, equipment, postsedation observation, and side effects, as well as providers' medication preferences for 3 common PPS scenarios. We received 211 completed surveys from 34 States. There were 20.6% respondents that were based in New York, 83.4% were pediatric emergency medicine attendings, and 91.7% were based in the United States teaching hospitals. Our participants learned PPS by various methods, most commonly: observation of at least 10 PPS (29.9%); self-study (24.8%); and classroom lectures (24.5%). Seventy-seven percent of our participants reported no body mass index cutoff to do PPS. There were 31.5% of our participants that observe children after PPS up to 1 hour, 30.1% up to 2 hours. There were 67.7% of the PPS providers that were a separate person from the practitioner doing the procedure, and 98.2% required a separate trained nurse to be present for monitoring. There were 92.6% of PPS providers that measure end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2) during the sedation. Most PPS providers reported having no reversal agents (71.4%) and no defibrillator (65.9%) at bedside. For the abscess drainage scenario, 22% of participants preferred local anesthetic alone, and 22.5% preferred utilizing local anesthetic in combination with intravenous ketamine. For a forearm fracture reduction scenario, 62.8% of participants would choose intravenous ketamine alone. For the laceration repair scenario, the most favored drug combination was local anesthesia + intranasal midazolam by 39.8% of participants. Our study demonstrates a wide variability in several aspects of PPS and low adherence to national PPS guidelines.

Comprehensive English Assessment System Based on Mobile APPs

Comprehensive English is a professional basic course for English majors, with the most class hours and the highest credits. It can be said to be the most important course in English majors. However, the procedural assessment in the previous comprehensive English assessment system, that is, the usual assessment, was largely determined based on the subjective impression of teachers. However, with the emergence of various English learning apps, students’ learning methods and content have changed a lot. With major changes, the previous assessment system has not been able to play its due role. Designing a reasonable comprehensive English assessment system based on mobile APP is the unshirkable responsibility of comprehensive English teachers. Carefully and reasonably designed comprehensive English assessment system can promote students to improve learning efficiency, reduce classroom lecture time, improve teaching effect, and play a vital role in cultivating qualified English professionals.