Core Courses Research Articles

Construction of Transportation Economics Course Incorporating Carbon Reduction Concept

The impact of carbon emissions on the environment is becoming increasingly severe. The transportation industry is an important pillar of the national economy and also generates a large amount of carbon emissions. Therefore, it is necessary to provide education on energy conservation and emission reduction to future transportation practitioners in higher education. This article takes "Transportation Economics" as an example to analyze the new approach of curriculum construction based on the concept of carbon reduction in the core courses of transportation majors, and introduces the innovative teaching methods and content of the "Transportation Economics" course based on the concept of carbon reduction.

Design and evaluation of Enthralled: A higher education conversation game based on Euripides’ Bacchae

This article presents the design, goals, and evaluation of Enthralled following the 2022 playtesting in three undergraduate Liberal Arts core courses. Enthralled draws on ancient Greek myths and the classical tragedy Bacchae by Euripides. As an immersive pedagogical intervention, Enthralled promotes group collaboration and rewards consideration of diverse viewpoints and cultural values. Participants vote on the motivations of dramatic characters, which allows for a deeper understanding of their preconceptions and implicit biases and offers the opportunity for self-reflection and dialogue. The game toolkit includes an original deck of cards, a role-playing script, a character sheet, ballots, a hints-and-clues deck, instructions for players and moderators, and scoring materials. The third version of Enthralled exceeded our entertainment efficacy, playability, and usability goals and contributed positively to the learning outcomes of the courses. Minor game improvements and a course-tailored implementation toolkit are the next steps for scaling this project.

Optimizing faculty resource allocation in higher education: A mathematical model for strategic planning

This paper introduces a new mathematical model aimed at improving how faculty resources are allocated in higher education institutions. The model takes into account the complexities of student enrollment, teaching quality, and program offerings. It provides a structured method to estimate faculty needs, including both Ph.D. holders teaching core courses and teaching assistants or lecturers managing practical courses, labs, and related tasks. By considering factors such as class sizes, faculty workloads, and student enrollment patterns, the model offers useful insights for academic planning. Two case studies from Hafr Al Batin University illustrate the model's practical value and flexibility. These examples show how the model can support informed decision-making, helping to maintain a balance between student numbers and teaching quality. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of data-driven planning in the changing field of higher education, suggesting future research directions, and positioning the model as a key tool for improving the management and administration of higher education. The main goal is to ensure a high-quality education for students while making efficient use of resources.

Geography Core Courses and the Cultivation of Compound Talents: Exploring Innovative Paths

As an interdisciplinary and comprehensive science, geography plays a crucial role in cultivating innovative and interdisciplinary talents through its core courses. This paper analyzes the current state of geography core courses and explores how to optimize curriculum design, enhance practical teaching, and introduce innovative teaching methods to better meet societal demands for compound talents. Through data analysis and chart presentation, this paper further demonstrates the effectiveness and necessity of reform measures and discusses potential challenges in implementation, proposing corresponding countermeasures.

Using Strategic Games to Illustrate Environmental Policy Concepts for Undergraduates

A growing body of literature highlights the benefits of using classroom games to help students understand policy concepts. In practice, however, instructors often use games as ad-hoc activities to increase student engagement, rather than as an integrated way to consolidate student understanding of core course topics. The goal of this paper is to help instructors design and systematically integrate games into their undergraduate policy courses. Drawing on our experiences as instructors and researchers, we describe how we developed a sequence of games to help undergraduate students understand three of the core concepts in environmental policy, and how we integrated them into our undergraduate courses on environmental policy. We then provide a basic framework for instructors who are interested in designing games that illustrate core policy concepts by simulating real-world policy interactions.

Analysis of Reform in Hybrid Teaching for University Landscape Engineering

Since the establishment of the landscape architecture program in the 1950s, landscape engineering has consistently been the core and distinctive course of the program. It is closely related to courses such as landscape planning and design, as well as landscape architecture design, collectively forming the core curriculum system of the landscape architecture program. Landscape engineering, typically serving as the foundation, becomes a required course for landscape architecture majors after incorporating content related to landscape design. It holds a crucial position in talent cultivation. Through the study of this course, students can gain a comprehensive understanding of the achievements in landscape engineering, become well-versed in contemporary theoretical knowledge in the field, and develop strong practical skills, thus evolving into high-quality talents that meet industry requirements.

Improving undergraduate education in immunology through assessment of interdisciplinary scientific knowledge.

The interdisciplinary nature of immunology can make studying not only engaging but also challenging, as understanding immunologic processes and immune system components requires foundational knowledge from severalscience disciplines. The University of Alabama at Birmingham has aunique, 4-year, Undergraduate Immunology Program (UIP) that provides a comprehensive curriculum in immunology that includes five core courses starting in the second year, at which point, students are in the process of completing basic science sequences. For this study, students in courses across the UIP curriculum were asked to identify basic science topics that relate to four immunology concepts. In addition, students were surveyed on their confidence in understanding each of the basic science topics and were asked to identify the course in which they felt that they had fully learned the topic. Data from this study did not demonstrate a change in students' interdisciplinary science competency from the second to fourth year. Importantly, students reported that they fully understood 11 out of 12 basic science concepts in courses offered in their first and second years, with confidence in basic science topics significantly improving from the second to third year. The lack of demonstrated improvement in interdisciplinary understanding across the curriculum may be attributed to the fact that students are able to integrate basic science topics with foundational immunologic concepts as early as their second year. Importantly, these findings suggest that the integration or review of basic science topics in an immunology course may improve students' comprehension of foundational immunology concepts and interdisciplinary science competency.

Context of English Common Core course 2023 at the University of Panama

Context of English Common Core course 2023 at the University of Panama

Incorporating Electrochemistry and Battery Technology in an Undergraduate Materials Science Course

Electrochemical devices and systems are ubiquitous in many engineering disciplines, yet basic electrochemistry principles are rarely covered in the typical undergraduate engineering curriculum. This presents a barrier for young engineers aspiring to make contributions to this fast-growing field, as well as primary investigators in electrochemical engineering at undergraduate-only institutions. In the field of mechanical engineering, one of the oldest and arguably the broadest engineering disciplines, energy storage and conversion are covered in depth at the undergraduate level. However, electrochemical energy storage and conversion are only briefly glanced, if at all. As part of curriculum development in a new undergraduate mechanical engineering program, electrochemistry fundamentals, with a focus on applications to battery technology, were deliberately incorporated into a second-year materials science course.Undergraduate materials science courses typically focus on general process-structure-property relationships of different engineering materials, and this course is no different. Instead of covering only traditional materials, significant time is also devoted to battery materials, which are very relevant and poised for exponential growth in this era of electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. The course includes instruction on basic electrochemical principles, a survey of functional materials used in common electrochemical devices and their properties, as well as a short lab project where students are guided through the steps of constructing a simple coin-cell lithium-ion battery, arguably the most dominant of all battery chemistries. Classroom discussion also includes the environmental impacts of sourcing raw battery materials and end-of-life disposal practices, which, given current projections, will lead to a substantial sustainability problem as the battery market grows with electric vehicle uptake. Emerging battery technologies that seek to address the challenges of the current generation of batteries are also introduced. Students are also asked to give a short presentation after researching additional topics in the field that are of interest to them. Overall, the course aims to help modernize the undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum by incorporating electrochemistry principles and battery technology into a core course.

The Application of Online and Offline Hybrid Mode in Pharmacology Laboratory Teaching: A Case Study of the "Insulin Overdose Response and Rescue Experiment"

Pharmacology, as a core course for Pharmaceutical Engineering students, is a basic medical course, which is usually composed of "theoretical courses" and "experimental courses". Pharmacology experiments are a visual validation of the theoretical knowledge learned in the classroom. Through practical operation and observation of experimental results, we can have a deeper understanding of the concepts of drug mechanism of action, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. In order to meet diversified learning needs, optimize the utilization of teaching resources, and promote independent learning and collaboration ability, online and offline blended teaching is the mainstream teaching mode in the "Internet+" era, which provides a suitable environment and starting point for the ideological and political construction of the curriculum and the practice of the goal of cultivating people with virtue. It is especially necessary to conduct online and offline teaching methods for pharmacology experiments. This article uses the example of "insulin overdose reaction and rescue experiment" to demonstrate the blended teaching mode of online and offline teaching. It attempts to start with the necessity of strengthening students' innovative practical ability cultivation in pharmacology experiment teaching, analyze the problems exposed in current pharmacology experiment teaching in detail, and propose optimization measures such as effectively integrating teaching resources, designing different experimental projects, innovating experiment teaching mode, and emphasizing students' innovative practice based on the mastered situation, in order to provide reference for the blended teaching mode of pharmacology experiment online and offline.

미동북부 지역 대학교의 교양 음악교과 운영현황 분석 -예일 대학교, 존스 홉킨스 대학교, 컬럼비아 대학교, 바너드 대학교를 중심으로-

This study aims to analyze the operation status of liberal arts music education courses at universities in the Northeastern United States and draw implications for South Korea. The study investigated the liberal arts curricula and music courses listed on the official websites of Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and Barnard College. Across all universities, a total of 106 liberal arts courses were offered from the spring of 2023 to the spring of 2024. The research findings are as follows: First, liberal arts music education courses focused more on theoretical lectures rather than practical lessons, regardless of the scale or educational content of music majors. Second, all types of liberal arts music courses were distribution requirements. Columbia University had both core and distribution requirement courses. Additionally, advanced courses were offered based on students’ musical background knowledge. Third, the category names of liberal arts music courses were related to ‘Humanities’ or ‘Humanities & Arts’. Fourth, the courses were classified into music courses (theory 76.93%, performance 24.53%) and convergence courses (theory 5.66%, performance 1.89%). Fifth, the content of the courses, if theoretical, covered various fields of musicology, while practical courses provided actual musical experiences such as composition and stage performance. They included classical music, jazz, popular music, and ethnic music from certain period. Integrated courses included subjects related to popular culture studies, theater, and literature. Based on these findings, the study suggests improving the liberal arts music education infrastructure of domestic universities, expanding core or distribution requirements, designating specific categories related to music or humanities, and developing courses of various topics and difficulties.

Professional development sessions increased teacher knowledge and confidence to include agriculture in core curricular courses

AbstractAgricultural systems are complex and can be used as examples to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts. However, inclusion of agriculture in core STEM courses is often limited. Three professional development sessions for K‐12 teachers were offered in 2021–2022 (hybrid or remote sessions) and repeated in 2022–2023 (in‐person sessions) to highlight ways that agricultural plant production systems could be incorporated into core courses like biology, environmental science, chemistry, and math. Teacher participants asked how knowledge level and confidence were influencing their inclusion of agriculture into STEM courses before and after the sessions, and gains in knowledge on content‐based questions were also evaluated. Response rates in Year 1 ranged from 8.0% to 38.5%, and usable response rates in Year 2 ranged from 47% to 68%. The availability of lessons or activities and teacher content knowledge both increased teacher likelihood to incorporate in three sessions. However, the additional time needed to incorporate new lessons was identified as affecting the likelihood to incorporate materials after the Year 1 ecology session. Teacher confidence to incorporate agricultural lessons or activities into their courses increased in four of the sessions, though teachers became more aware that limited resources are available to help increase adoption. Awareness of how agriculture can be used to meet learning standards also improved teacher confidence in four sessions. Average score on knowledge‐based questions increased in all six sessions, but was only significant for two sessions. These sessions were successful at increasing teacher knowledge and confidence to incorporate agriculture into STEM courses.

Unexcused Absences and Failures: Dissecting the Variability in Course Credit Policies and Freshman Course Failure

This policy analysis examines the implementation of A.C.A. 6-18-222, a statewide policy in Arkansas that addresses unexcused absences and the subsequent consequences for course credit among students. Utilizing anonymized student-level data from the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, which includes a total of 65,651 freshmen, the study investigates the variability in policy implementation across districts. It also examines the differing language used to dictate the consequences of exceeding unexcused absence thresholds. Our multivariate logistic regression models demonstrate that students eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch (FRL) are notably more likely to fail a course after surpassing their district's absence threshold. Moreover, the data reveal that upon reaching this threshold, students are significantly more likely to fail core courses as opposed to non-core courses. These findings illuminate the variations in local policy implementation and their impact on student academic outcomes, emphasizing the importance of uniform policy enforcement to ensure equitable educational opportunities.

Technology-empowered Blended Learning: A Case Study of Contemporary American Society and Culture Course

Under the background of integration of technology and higher education, this paper probes the question whether technology can advance liberal education, especial the critical thinking capability required by liberal education, in English major. The paper first identifies English major as a part of the humanity and social science disciplines, in which liberal education is essential and indispensable. Since liberal education emphasizes the capability of critical thinking, the paper then asks whether the integration of technology can promote the student’s critical thinking and therefore facilitate liberal education. The paper then applies the eight principles of critical thinking (TERRIFIC Principles) to evaluate the blended teaching of Contemporary American Culture and Society (CACS), a core course of English major at the Faculty of English Language and Culture, GDUFS. After examining the textbook, syllabus, program setting, teaching practice and assessment of CACS, it is found that blended online and offline teaching is better at developing the student’s capability of critical thinking than traditional offline teaching. The paper concludes that technology-empowered learning is conducive to liberal education.

Research on the Design of Blended Teaching of "Food Physical and Chemical Inspection" Course

The blended teaching mode is a cutting-edge teaching approach in current higher vocational education. Compared with traditional teaching methods, it has advantages such as rich teaching resources, intuitive teaching methods, no time and space constraints, and strong student classroom participation. These advantages effectively stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning and improve classroom teaching effectiveness. This paper takes the core course "Food Physical and Chemical Inspection" of the higher vocational food inspection and testing technology major as an example. Based on online classrooms and simulation training platforms, a complete blended teaching design case is designed, covering pre-class preparation, in-class tutoring, post-class summarization, and reflection evaluation. Practice has proven that the blended teaching mode of online and offline fully utilizes teaching time inside and outside the classroom, mobilizes students' enthusiasm and initiative, and achieves the expected teaching objectives.

Students’ Perception toward Microteaching Class in Relation with Internship Program

Microteaching is one of the core courses required by English Language Education students before undertaking an internship program. To be a professional teacher, a teacher must have 4 competencies those are pedagogical competence, personality competence, social competence, and professional competence. Thus, microteaching is needed for students-teachers to help them improve their teaching skills. The purpose of this study is to highlight the students’ perception of microteaching courses on specific topics such as students’ experiences in improving their teaching skills through feedback given by their lecturer and friends, the importance of microteaching for students, and students' need during the process of the microteaching class. The research subjects were 35 undergraduate English Language Education students (2018 cohort) who have taken microteaching courses and internship programs. This research used a qualitative descriptive method using explorative case study. The instruments for the data collection were questionnaires and interviews. The result showed positive attitudes towards the microteaching course. This research discovers the usefulness of microteaching classes in 3 aspects which are enriching students' knowledge before they teach in a real situation in an internship program, improving teaching skills to be implemented in their internship program, and helping students get the basic knowledge from the lecturer for developing lesson plans and learning media. Moreover, it builds student-teachers’ self-confidence and increases teaching skills in peer-teaching.

Curriculum Reform Practices in “Cosmetic Product Formulation Design and Preparation Technology” Under the Perspective of Integration of Industry, Education, and Research

With the upgrading of industries, the cosmetics industry has posed new requirements for technical talents. As a professional core course in cosmetic technology, “Cosmetic Product Formulation Design and Preparation Technology” serves as the foundation for cultivating students’ abilities in cosmetic development and preparation. To foster high-quality skilled talents capable of adapting to the rapid growth of color cosmetics and to better promote the deep integration of scientific and technological industries with curriculum teaching, the teacher team embarked on active explorations and practical teaching research for curriculum teaching reform from four dimensions: strengthening top-level design, enriching teaching content, optimizing teaching design, and reforming assessment methods. These efforts have enhanced students’ comprehensive vocational qualities and innovative consciousness, contributing to the teaching reform in higher vocational colleges under the integration of industry, education, and research.

Preparing Social Workers to Promote Environmental Justice: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT To contribute to best practices in educating social work students on environmental justice, we report the results of a study evaluating a module that was incorporated into the course Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE). A mixed-methods design was used to examine student attitudes toward environmental justice. Participants were 61 Master of Social Work students from three cohorts. The students provided pre- and posttest responses to the Climate Change Attitude Survey. Students also offered 33 comments in response to an open-ended question about views on climate change. Overall, findings revealed increases in beliefs that climate change is negatively affecting the environment and that this change has a disproportionately negative effect on populations served by social workers. Feedback indicated students viewed the module as contributing to their learning. Results suggest that integrating environmental justice content into core courses like HBSE is a promising approach to strengthening environmental justice education in social work.

Inverted Classroom Teaching of Physiology in Basic Medical Education: Bibliometric Visual Analysis.

Over the last decade, there has been growing interest in inverted classroom teaching (ICT) and its various forms within the education sector. Physiology is a core course that bridges basic and clinical medicine, and ICT in physiology has been sporadically practiced to different extents globally. However, students' and teachers' responses and feedback to ICT in physiology are diverse, and the effectiveness of a modified ICT model integrated into regular teaching practice in physiology courses is difficult to assess objectively and quantitatively. This study aimed to explore the current status and development direction of ICT in physiology in basic medical education using bibliometric visual analysis of the related literature. A bibliometric analysis of the ICT-related literature in physiology published between 2000 and 2023 was performed using CiteSpace, a bibliometric visualization tool, based on the Web of Science database. Moreover, an in-depth review was performed to summarize the application of ICT in physiology courses worldwide, along with identification of research hot spots and development trends. A total of 42 studies were included for this bibliometric analysis, with the year 2013 marking the commencement of the field. University staff and doctors working at affiliated hospitals represent the core authors of this field, with several research teams forming cooperative relationships and developing research networks. The development of ICT in physiology could be divided into several stages: the introduction stage (2013-2014), extensive practice stage (2015-2019), and modification and growth stage (2020-2023). Gopalan C is the author with the highest citation count of 5 cited publications and has published 14 relevant papers since 2016, with a significant surge from 2019 to 2022. Author collaboration is generally limited in this field, and most academic work has been conducted in independent teams, with minimal cross-team communication. Authors from the United States published the highest number of papers related to ICT in physiology (18 in total, accounting for over 43% of the total papers), and their intermediary centrality was 0.24, indicating strong connections both within the country and internationally. Chinese authors ranked second, publishing 8 papers in the field, although their intermediary centrality was only 0.02, suggesting limited international influence and lower overall research quality. The topics of ICT in physiology research have been multifaceted, covering active learning, autonomous learning, student performance, teaching effect, blended teaching, and others. This bibliometric analysis and literature review provides a comprehensive overview of the history, development process, and future direction of the field of ICT in physiology. These findings can help to strengthen academic exchange and cooperation internationally, while promoting the diversification and effectiveness of ICT in physiology through building academic communities to jointly train emerging medical talents.

Embedded Technology Teaching Research and Practice under the Model of Integrated Discipline Competition Project

Embedded technology and application, as the core course of the electronic communication major, is an important professional course for students to engage in embedded software and hardware development in the future. Given the difficulty of embedded courses in theory and the high requirement of practical ability, this paper takes the title of the National Electronic Design Competition for College Students as the content of embedded course research project, carries on the innovation and reorganization of embedded course content, integrates multidisciplinary knowledge, and enhances students’ understanding ability and practical ability from the perspective of practice. At the same time, the use of modern information education resources, the introduction of online video teaching resources, and the use of learning platforms allow supervision of students’ learning progress and effect. The teaching practice shows that this teaching model, which integrates competition topics into theoretical learning and project practice, effectively promotes students’ interest in participating in discipline competitions and enhances their recognition of majors and professions.