Course For Graduate Students Research Articles

An Integrated IGCC-CSS Design Course for Graduate Students in Petroleum Engineering

AbstractA new graduate course on CO2 Capture and Uses was offered for the first time at Texas A&M, Pet. Eng., in Fall 2008. A multidisciplinary team of instructors from the Pet. Eng. & Chem. Eng. departments was assembled to ensure the appropriate expertise.The objective of the course is to let the students understand the need for / potential of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) & Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

An Integrated IGCC-CSS Design Course for Graduate Students in Petroleum Engineering

A new graduate course on CO2 Capture and Uses was offered for the first time at Texas A&M, Pet. Eng., in Fall 2008. A multidisciplinary team of instructors from the Pet. Eng. & Chem. Eng. departments was assembled to ensure the appropriate expertise.The objective of the course is to let the students understand the need for / potential of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) & Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).

The Evolution of Teaching Bayesian Statistics to Nonstatisticians

We discuss the development of a course in Bayesian statistics that began as an offering to statistics graduate students, evolved into a course for graduate students in other departments, then was modified into an international workshop. The evolution of the course followed shifts in Bayesian statistics in the broader community, as software became available that made it easier to implement Bayesian methods. In addition to the shift from theory to hands-on computation, there was a shift from using noninformative priors as we learned how to elicit realistic priors from subject-matter experts. The course and workshop can serve as an example to others who are targeting a specific, non-statistics audience.

Nanocourses: A Short Course Format as an Educational Tool in a Biological Sciences Graduate Curriculum

Traditional courses for graduate students in the biological sciences typically span a semester, are organized around the fundamental concepts of a single discipline, and are aimed at the needs of incoming students. Such courses demand significant time commitment from both faculty and course participants; thus, they are avoided by a subset of the academic science community. Course length and the high barrier to course development are inhibitory to the creation of new courses, especially in emerging areas of biology that may not merit a full-semester approach. Here, we describe the implementation of a new, graduate-level course format, created to allow for rapid development of courses, provide meaningful educational experiences for both junior and senior graduate students and other members of our community, and increase the breadth of faculty involvement in teaching. These courses are greatly abbreviated, and thus termed "nanocourses." Based on experience from the first three semesters, nanocourses seem to accomplish the initial goals that we set. Importantly, nanocourses engaged students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and others, thus providing a new mechanism to educate our community in response to rapid advances in biology. In our view, nanocourses are a useful tool that can supplement graduate-level curricula in varied ways.

Teaching Qualitative Research

Explicitly qualitative research has never before been so popular in human geography, and this article hopes to encourage more graduate students and faculty members to undertake the teaching of qualitative geography. The article describes one such course for graduate students, highlighting its challenges and rewards, and focusing on exercises undertaken by the students that encourage them to explore various qualitative approaches, techniques, strategies and theoretical perspectives including archival research, interviewing, transcription, participant observation, writing field notes, analytic memos, coding data and thinking/writing reflexively.

Cultural Competence in the Master's Curriculum—A Course Exemplar

This article focuses on the teaching-learning strategies for integration of cultural competence in the first clinical core course in Primary Care of the Middle Aged and Older Adult, a required course for graduate students enrolled in the Adult Health Nurse Practitioner Program, Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program, and the Family Health Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Multiple teaching-learning strategies for the first clinical course consisted of preliminary online self-assessment, clinical case scenarios, critique of multicultural clinical vignettes, and cultural assessment of the clinical agency. In the outcomes of these teaching-learning strategies, it was shown, through the use of reflective diaries of nurse practitioner students and course evaluations, that the multiple strategic approaches were effective for cultural competence integration within each of the nurse practitioner programs.

Research article abstracts in applied linguistics and educational technology: a study of linguistic realizations of rhetorical structure and authorial stance

The abstract found at the beginning of most journal articles has increasingly become an essential part of the article. It tends to be the first part of the article to be read and, to some extent, it `sells' the article. Acquiring the skills of writing an abstract is therefore important to novice writers to enter the discourse community of their discipline. Based on 30 abstracts from three journals, the present study aims at exploring not only the rhetorical moves of abstracts in the fields of applied linguistics and educational technology, but also the linguistic realizations of moves and authorial stance in different abstract moves. The results show that there are three obligatory moves in abstracts in these two disciplines — Presenting the research, Describing the methodology, and Summarizing the results. The results also indicate that a combination of certain linguistic features such as grammatical subjects, verb tense and voice can help distinguish moves in the abstract. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for graduate students, especially students from non-English backgrounds.

Quantitative Models of Mammalian Cell Signaling Pathways

This teaching resource provides lecture notes and slides for a class on mathematical modeling of mammalian signaling pathways. This lecture was part of the course . Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students. and focused on quantitative modeling. The lecture describes how different types of mathematical representations are applied to different signaling systems to provide insight into how a signaling system controls cell behavior. The development of an ordinary differential equation.based model for a bistable switch and the predictions that can be obtained from the model are described. The lecture concludes with a description of how models can be tested experimentally and modified when the details of the models and the resultant predictive behavior are not confirmed by experimentation.

A web-based listening methodology for studying relative clause acquisition

This paper addresses the comprehension of relative clauses in audio prompts using online listening exercises implemented in a classroom. Reaction time to short and long sentences containing subject and object relative clauses was assessed in subjects attending an intensive ESL course for graduate students. The results indicate the possibility that learners shift resources when processing more syntactically complex audio prompts, such as those with object relatives. This shift from a discrete measure such as accuracy to a continuous variable like reaction time accommodates theoretical frameworks which do not rely on categorical paradigms of learning.

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In preparation for the introduction of advanced problem-based learning (PBL) at higher levels of the 6-year curriculum of pharmaceutical education which began in April 2006,we conducted a PBL trial in the clinical pharmacy course for graduate students (n=16).There was 1 case of Typical Type PBL and four cases of Question Type PBL.The results of a questionnaire survey concerning the PBL lectures indicated a high level of satisfaction for many students and in the“general evaluation”of the self-assessment by students,they gave high scores to both Typical Type PBL and Question Type PBL.The data obtained were subjected to Customer Satisfaction (CS) analysis which is generally used for market surveys.When applied to the self assessment,CS analysis uncovered problems that would have been overlooked by conventional statistical analysis such as those in mean assessment values.The use of Customer Satisfaction analysis in this way enabled us to infer that the combined use of Typical Type PBL and Question Type PBL was effective in self learning by students.

Publishing in Scientific and Engineering Contexts: A Course for Graduate Students

Based on feedback from graduate students, from science and engineering faculty who teach graduate students, and from surveys about the skills graduate students need, the authors have designed and taught a graduate-level course in academic publishing. This article describes the need for the course and the theory behind its design, outlines the course content, and presents assessment data from the first three course iterations. The findings indicate that this course has increased students' awareness of the role of rhetorical and discourse knowledge as well as their level of confidence in their ability to write and publish professional work. Further, findings from interviews with faculty advisors yield insight into the benefits of the course for students, advisors, disciplinary programs, and cross-curricular initiatives

Usability and effectiveness evaluation of a course‐advising chat bot

AbstractThis research compares the usability and efficiency of a course‐advising chat bot with menu driven FAQs (frequently asked questions). Based on a survey and user interviews, a text‐based FAQ system was created and compared with a chat bot that was developed to address library and information science (LIS) graduate student course and program related questions. The students conducted tasks with both the chat bot and FAQ systems. The usability and effectiveness of the functionality and user‐interface of both systems is assessed.

The Course on Homosexuality at Fudan University: Make a “Hole” to “Borrow” Light from Humanities and Social Sciences for Public Health Education in Mainland China

ABSTRACT In the Fall Semester of 2003, an accredited course for graduate students, entitled “Homosexual Health Social Sciences,” was launched at the School of Public Health of Fudan University, located in Shanghai, China. Using participant observation, in-depth interview and document review, this article details the experiences and strategies in establishing the first course on homosexuality in China. Moving beyond biopsychosocial medical mode, the course was designed from the perspectives of humanities and social sciences in the context of HIV/AIDS. Although only a few graduate students enrolled in the course, attendance of the lectures averaged 100 persons, and it has had deep socio-cultural impacts on university students, the gay community and the domestic and international mass media because of its pioneering practice and its teachers' eminent effects.

Development of a Neuroscience-oriented “Methods” Course for Graduate Students of Pharmacology and Toxicology

To provide graduate students in pharmacology/toxicology exposure to, and cross-training in, a variety of relevant laboratory skills, the Duquesne University School of Pharmacy developed a "methods" course as part of the core curriculum. Because some of the participating departmental faculty are neuroscientists, this course often applied cutting-edge techniques to neuroscience-based systems, including experiments with brain G protein-coupled receptors. Techniques covered by the course include animal handling and behavioral testing, bacterial and mammalian cell culture, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, western blotting, receptor binding of radioligands, plasmid DNA amplification and purification, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, gel electrophoresis, and UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. The course also encompasses research aspects such as experimental design and record keeping, statistical analysis, and scientific writing. Students were evaluated via laboratory reports and examinations, and students in turn evaluated the course using a detailed exit survey. This course introduces the graduate student to many more techniques and approaches than can be provided by the traditional graduate "rotation" format alone and should serve as a template for graduate programs in many basic research disciplines.

Cytokine Receptors and Jak-STAT Signaling

This Teaching Resource provides lecture notes and slides for a class covering interferons, their receptors, and Jak-STAT signaling and is part of the course "Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students." The lecture begins with a discussion of the different families of cytokines and their receptors and then proceeds to describe how cytokine receptor interactions lead to the activation of different members of the STAT family of transcription factors.

Assembly and Organization of Macromolecular Complexes

This Teaching Resource provides lecture notes and slides for a class covering the roles of scaffold proteins in signal transduction and is part of the course "Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students." The lecture includes an overview of scaffold proteins in signal integration and focuses on the following scaffold proteins: A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs), WAVE-1, and proteins that contain PDZ domains.

On Becoming a Better Problem-Solving Teacher

How can teachers know if their teaching is as effective as they think it is? How will they know if they are infusing problem solving appropriately into their curriculum? I was given the opportunity to mull over these questions when I was asked to design a problem-solving course for graduate students. In this article I present the experiences of three teachers. As I studied their learning, I found myself examining my own teaching of problem solving and wondered, “How effective am I in helping teachers understand problem solving as presented in the NCTM Process Standards?” (NCTM 2000).

Regulation of Protein Translation

This Teaching Resource provides a summary and slides derived from a lecture on protein translation and is part of the course "Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students." The lecture begins with a discussion of the various components that perform the translation process and then proceeds to describe the initiation, scanning, and ribosomal entry processes. The lecture concludes with the signaling mechanisms underlying translation regulation.

Imaging Signal Transduction in Living Cells with Fluorescent Proteins

Until recently, studies in this field of signal transduction have involved the "what" and "when" of signaling. Who talks to whom and for how long? With the advent of genetically encoded fluorescent proteins, it has become possible to monitor signaling events in living cells in real time. This has added the dimension of "where" to the study of cellular signaling. This lecture, which is a part of "Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students," provides a survey of how green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged probes for signaling events have been used to elucidate new pathways, to describe the kinetics of signaling events at the single-cell level, and to reveal upon which subcellular compartments these events take place. Some of the findings confirm previous ones using biochemical techniques, and others have been surprising. Examples include those utilizing protein localization, relocalization, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). The design of FRET probes is described. The detection of small guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) signaling in living cells is used as an example to explore the creative and diverse ways investigators have developed to look at this system.

Regulation of Complexes by Cytoskeletal Elements: Integrins Serve as Force Transducers Linking Mechanical Stimuli and Biochemical Signals

This Teaching Resource provides a summary and slides derived from a lecture on the integrin family members and the downstream signaling pathways they activate; it is part of the course "Cell Signaling Systems: A Course for Graduate Students." The lecture focuses on the capacity of integrins to serve as mechanotransducers, with particular emphasis on signaling mechanisms downstream of integrins.