Experience In Course Research Articles

Nurse lecturers' experiences of working with people with lived experience: A phenomenological study.

Involving people with lived experience in United Kingdom healthcare courses is a government directive and professional body recommendation, yet involvement remains non-standardised with minimal guidance. Previous literature has largely ignored the experiences of Nurse lecturer's in this work, yet they provide vital resources in promoting, sustaining and developing the involvement of people with lived experience. To explore adult nurse lecturers' experiences of working with people with lived experience in two higher educational institution settings. A qualitative descriptive phenomenology study was undertaken. This study took place in two universities in the East of England. Using purposive sampling nine pre-registration adult nurse lecturers working with people with lived experience were recruited. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using an adaptation of Colaizzi's method. Three main themes were identified: Filling the gaps; Muddling along; and Challenges and facilitators. These describe the lifeworld of nurse lecturers working with people with lived experience. Nurse lecturers strove to embed people with lived experience into nurse education, which was a challenging process but led to positive outcomes. Nurse lecturers illustrated how working with people with lived experience affected their teaching, professional values and understanding. Findings highlight the need for nurse lecturers to be at the forefront of discussions, emphasising their integral role in ongoing discussions about service user involvement in nurse education. Pre-registration nursing lecturers include people with lived experience in their courses to expand students' understanding of lived experience. Participating lecturers highlighted a snapshot of their multiple, and often 'hidden,' roles when working with people with lived experience. Representations of power, human rights and partnership working illustrate important aspects of this work affecting people with lived experience, students and lecturers. Participants wanted to move from tokenistic inclusion of people with lived experience, to a wider cultural/organisational involvement. The intrinsic value of including people with lived experience in courses for professional practice and organisational values were highlighted. Findings are applicable for those who design and develop healthcare courses and can inform future curriculum development.

Improving the learning experience in an undergraduate course on microbial metabolism by using an illustrated story.

In the classroom, metabolism is often approached and received as a mundane exercise in memorization. Teaching metabolism also faces the challenge of negative perceptions that can impede learning. We sought to improve the learning experience in an undergraduate lecture course on microbial metabolism by implementing an illustrated story that follows an Escherichia coli cell during a cholera outbreak. Feedback from students, compiled over four semesters of relatively minimal intervention, suggests that attitudes improved. Most students also thought that storytelling helped them learn. Exam scores suggested that the story could have had a positive performance impact for some questions that required students to apply correct details to specific situations. Our results suggest that a story could improve the learning experience in a course on a traditionally unpopular topic by both improving emotional responses to the subject matter and by providing a familiar framework upon which to contextualize details.

AI, Visualization and Leadership: A Nexus for Deeper Impact

Visualizing Meaning and Purpose, an innovative experiential course, blends Appreciative Inquiry, visual thinking and leadership. Our unique design, created by a visual practitioner and leadership faculty member, empowered students to apply their learning directly to real-life leadership challenges. We invite you to get a glimpse of the course and its impact, and ask yourself: How might visualization amplify and deepen my impact as an AI practitioner and leader?

“Chemistry in the Art Gallery” – Student-Teacher Perspectives on Developing and Delivering an Experiential Course Module at McMaster University

“Chemistry in the Art Gallery” – Student-Teacher Perspectives on Developing and Delivering an Experiential Course Module at McMaster University

Pedagogical Pigs: Experiential Learning for Boundary Crossing

Preparing college students with the skills to engage in multidisciplinary problem solving, especially as it relates to the wicked problems of agriculture, has been called for by scholars for nearly two decades (UNFAO, 2006; Boyer, 1998; NRC 1998). Our nation’s Land Grants, with the mission to provide practical education, and particularly campus-based farms, play an important role in addressing this challenge (Parr, 2007, Evans, 2023). Toward this end, we conducted a project at Michigan State University’s Student Organic Farm in response to a call from MSU’s Hub for Innovation in Teaching and Learning for cross-disciplinary curricula that addresses grand global challenges. In 2021, a team of five faculty designed and taught an experiential course focused solely on the care and management of two sows and their litters. Students from five colleges and over 15 different majors toured the MSU Swine Farm, met with a campus chef, and sold the piglets to a local farmer. Data collected includes student reading responses, video reflections, and an oral final examination. Key findings from qualitative data analysis reveal that students gained boundary crossing skills from the shared responsibility of working in a team to care for animals, developing problem solving skills in an agricultural context with their professors and peers through innovative pedagogy, and learning agricultural skills from farm stories shared by the senior faculty.

New Approach and Integration for The Introduction of Dynamic Systems : Methodology, Models, And Relations

Introduction: This article is the result of the research “Analysis of the dynamic systems component of the engineering programs in control and automation and technology in industrial electronics,” developed at the Francisco José de Caldas District University in the years 2022-2023. Problem: The document addresses the lack of a clear and comprehensive structure in the analysis of linear dynamic systems, as well as the absence of an innovative approach to addressing these topics in traditional courses, which hinders their understanding and application in different disciplines. Objective: The objective is to present a novel approach to analyzing linear dynamic systems, providing a complete framework of concepts, relationships, and important tools in this analysis, as well as a literature review based on over seventeen years of experience in courses and studies of this kind. Methodology: A journey of concepts is proposed from signals and systems, through modeling with methods such as black box, white box, gray box, to linear analysis based on examples with calculation of differential equations, state representation, transfer function, and block diagrams. Results: The document aggregates and articulates all the concepts of dynamic systems, along with the relationships and tools used, offering a more practical and intuitive approach to understanding the material. Conclusion: The document provides a comprehensive and articulated view of key concepts in the analysis of linear dynamic systems, highlighting an innovative approach that facilitates their understanding. Its main contribution is to aggregate and articulate these concepts, along with the tools and relationships used, to offer a more practical and clear approach for their study. Originality: The originality lies in proposing a novel and structured approach to analyzing linear dynamic systems, addressing the lack of clarity and completeness in traditional approaches. Limitations: Although the document proposes a novel approach, it does not delve into specific aspects of some topics covered, which could limit the detailed understanding of certain concepts. Deepening: The document could delve into the practical application of the proposed concepts and tools in real cases of dynamic systems, as well as into the comparison with traditional approaches to highlight the differences and advantages of the proposed new approach.

Exploring underlying factors for variations in digital upskilling

This study aims to analyse the impact of demographic and educational factors on in digital upskilling. We address the relationship between digital skills, critical thinking skills and the student learning experience in courses with embedded upskilling programs. Statistical analysis and exploratory research are used to analyse the data collected by the digital fitness app developed by a global company leading digital talent transformation. Our research identified the following demographic indicators that have influenced individuals’ digital upskilling: Gender, Race, Residency, Pell-eligibility, Age, in addition to six academic indicators including department, major, class level, first-time freshman, High School GPA and ACT score. Discussion of findings and future research directions would lead to novel research articles focusing on longitudinal studies to assess digital skills. Also, this study shows the need for a new assessment tool to expand the scope and the sample size of the study. This article provides a valuable guidance for policy makers, higher-education institutions, educators, students, and employers, who are looking for digital talent or skill sets needed for digital transformation. The main contribution lays in data collection and analysis. This is the first study using a globally accepted digital talent assessment tool to collect data at a minority serving institution.

Students’ and lecturers’ experiences in courses provided for the English thesis defense examinations

Thesis Defense Examination (TDE) is an assessment that most undergraduate students around the world have to pass in order to graduate from universities. Some students can pass the examination satisfactorily, while others fail due to their poor performance. In the EFL general context, the issue of poor performance of undergraduate students in the TDE conducted in English is a piece of common knowledge among lecturers as the examiners and students as the examinees. Within the Indonesian context, this study aims at investigating students and lecturers’ experiences in Research Methodology (RM) (focusing on written competence) and Seminar on ELT (SoELT) (focusing on oral competence) courses, where the case was taken from the English Education Department of a public university located in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. By using a purposive sampling technique, we involved five students who have passed RM and SoELT, two lecturers who teach RM, and two lecturers who teach SoELT as the participants in this qualitative research. Interviews were employed to gather the data to address the investigation. We consulted Hyland (2004) for the analysis of the teaching and learning of written competence, and Alptekin (2002) to analyze the teaching and learning of oral competence in classroom activities. The results of the analysis show that there are matches and mismatches between what was experienced by the students and what the lecturers experienced. We also found that some activities in the courses hindered students from being competent in their performance in TDE.

Implementation of Virtual Interactive Cases for Pharmacy Education: A Single-Center Experience.

Patient case simulation software are described in pharmacy education literature as useful tools to improve skills in patient assessment (including medication history-taking and physical assessment), clinical reasoning and communication, and are typically well-received by students and instructors. The virtual interactive case (VIC) system is a web-based software developed to deliver deliberate practice opportunities in simulated patient encounters across a spectrum of clinical topics. This article describes the implementation and utilization of VIC in the undergraduate curriculum at one Canadian pharmacy school. Methods: At our facility, the use of VIC was integrated across the training spectrum in the curriculum, including core and elective didactic courses and practice labs, experiential learning, interprofessional education, and continuing education. Its use was evaluated through student and instructor surveys and qualitative student interviews). VIC is easy to navigate and created a positive and realistic learning environment. Students identified that it enhanced their ability to identify relevant patient information, accurately simulated hospital pharmacy practice and thereby helped them to prepare for their upcoming experiential courses. The use of VIC has expanded beyond its original intended purpose for individual student practice to become a valuable addition to pharmacy undergraduate education. Future plans include ongoing development of cases and exploration of further uses of VIC within the didactic curriculum, for remediation in experiential courses, and for pharmacist continuing education.

Experiences of a communication-skills course for care partners of people living with dementia, empowered conversations: A qualitative framework analysis.

Our aims were to examine whether an experiential course for care partners of people living with dementia, Empowered Conversations (EC), was acceptable to participants and to explore participants' perceptions of the impact of the course upon their communicative interactions. EC is based on an integrative model derived from psychological and linguistic theory and empirical evidence. EC is based on mentalisation theory, perceptual control theory and linguistic theory (The Communicative Impact Model). Qualitative data were collected via 28 semistructured interviews. Framework analysis was used to analyse data. Three superordinate themes, 'improved communication', 'improved well-being' and 'support through others' were identified. Twenty-seven out of the 28 participants described feeling that they were able to better connect with the person living with dementia that they were supporting through attending EC. The findings indicated that EC was acceptable and beneficial to care partners. Care partners developed a range of strategies and understandings that enabled them to communicate better with the person they were supporting, enhanced well-being and relationships, as well as developing social networks. This is the first qualitative study to examine a psychosocial intervention for care partners of people living with dementia using a non-CBT framework and indicates that perceived control could influence how care partners respond to stress and difficulties.

Teaching a Canadian Experiential Course in Religion and Spirituality for Undergraduates in Addiction Counseling and Health Sciences: A Social Constructivist Framework.

Religion and spirituality (RS) are integral to counseling and health but their incorporation into the curricula of these professions is still lacking. Limited literature is available on how to effectively teach such courses. This article presents a promising experiential, interactive model for an RS course designed for undergraduate students pursuing careers in addictions counseling, therapeutic recreation, and public health. An online course conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic adopted a social constructivist framework that encompassed four key components in its design and delivery: assessing prior knowledge, creating cognitive dissonance, applying new knowledge with feedback, reflecting on learning. Students' feedback in the course indicated their broadened understanding of the plurality of RS orientations and their acquisition of foundational skills with an increased confidence in bringing RS conversations into their practice. This article provides a conceptual and practical framework for educators to develop an RS course for a diverse representation of students and encourages further evaluation of the proposed model to assess its impact on learning outcomes.

“What makes discovery college different?” a co-produced analysis of student experiences of discovery college

Background Recovery colleges are an education-based approach to supporting mental health recovery that incorporate the voice of both lived and living experience, and experience by training in their design, production, and delivery. Aims To understand students’ experiences of attending a youth-focused ‘discovery college’ course. Specifically, to see whether students were satisfied with the course, whether the learning goals of the courses were met, and what students felt makes discovery college different. Methods A mixed methods design analysed quantitative data on students’ ratings of the course and their learning goals. A co-produced thematic analysis, incorporating the voice of lived and living experience, was also conducted on students’ responses to the question “what makes discovery college different?” Results Overall, students rated their experience with the course very positively, and mostly met the learning goals of courses. The co-produced thematic analysis revealed students valued the incorporation of lived and living experience in courses, the lack of power imbalance between teachers and students, and felt it was a safe space to share and learn. Conclusions Findings support the delivery of the recovery college model within a youth setting, and highlights this as a useful initiative in engaging people from a range of perspectives in education about mental health.

Design Thinking in the Executive MBA

This article describes the redesign of a Strategic Vision course in an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program in the United States, and the subsequent use of design thinking as a critical problem-solving tool in the program itself. Using Design Thinking as the curricular framework, this experiential course aims to introduce business executives to solving business challenges through design thinking methodologies. Over eight weeks, student teams work with external project partners to produce creative business solutions to current and complex organizational challenges. Teams are introduced to Design Thinking and practice steps in the Design Thinking process by applying them to a real-life business challenge. Here, we describe the genesis of the course redesign, iterations on its content, and the feedback it has received from students, faculty, and project partners, in the hope that it will contribute to the curation of new design frameworks in higher education.

Effects of Blended Learning on Pharmacy Student Learning Satisfaction and Learning Platform Preferences in a Team-based Learning Pharmacy Experiential Course: A Pilot Study

Effects of Blended Learning on Pharmacy Student Learning Satisfaction and Learning Platform Preferences in a Team-based Learning Pharmacy Experiential Course: A Pilot Study

Exploring students’ perceptions of self-assessment in the context of problem solving in STEM

Central goals of higher education in STEM domains include learning of problem solving and self-assessment skills. To achieve these goals, we propose a novel self-assessment method called the Solve-Correct-Assess-Negotiate (SCAN) method of assessing problem solving that includes both formative and summative elements. We study students’ learning experiences in courses involving different methods of assessing problem solving (Course 1 including teacher-led assessment, Ntrad = 53; Course 2 including SCAN method, NSCAN = 56) and specifically associations between these learning experiences and students' perceptions of the SCAN method. We found that the students relied on teacher-led assessment more than the self-assessment. The perceived utility of the self-assessment was positively associated with a deeper approach to learning in Course 2 than in Course 1. Students who found the self-assessment less beneficial also perceived less support from the learning environment. Our findings suggest that the successful implementation of novel self-assessment-based practices for problem-solving requires personalized support for self-assessment, teachers’ awareness of the different perceptions that students have towards these practices, and discussion among teachers and students on the rationale, utility, and reliability of the different practices.

Empathy, a Hallmark of Equality: Shaping Fearlessness Into Transformative Decision-Making and Teaching

Abstract Whether acting as lawyers, activists, judges, policy makers or academics, there is a void in our equality agendas. This void has enabled the contemporary state to rationalise inequality through the propagation of fear. How can we talk about equality if we do not talk about the current crisis of fear? What shapes our contemporary fears? How might we surpass them? Two contemporary narratives, both from judges, offer the possibility of prevailing over certain kinds of fear to meet equality outcomes. With everything to lose in hostile political circumstances, Justice Attaee’s fearlessness materialises from her lived experiences of inequality from where empathy naturally flows for the benefit of women’s equality against the hostile tide of both Afghan politics and global betrayal. Having never walked ‘in the shoes’ of lgbtqia+ persons, fearlessness for Justice Venkatesh, a deeply conservative judge, is put to the test. Taking on the social fears of himself and others, he cultivates the skill of empathy through the rare and unconventional choice of experiential immersion. Both justices serve as examples for creating inclusive experiential courses on empathy and social context within legal/judicial education institutes and practice, where the lives of those most impacted become central to such learning.

The extremely overconfident and extremely dissatisfied: a case study of an introductory macroeconomics college course

ABSTRACT In this paper, I first provide additional evidence of the prevalence and severity of the problem of student grade overconfidence. I do so by documenting the level of overconfidence that exists in an introductory macroeconomics course. In this course, 75% of the 614 students earned a grade that was below what they expected. I also find that students who expect that their actual grade will fall significantly below their original expected grade are dramatically more likely to report that they had the worst overall experience in this course relative to their experiences in all other concurrent courses.

The Hogsback Project

At the University of Montana Western, we emphasize making experiential learning the focus of our institution. We feel that students profit from research experiences that connect courses across disciplines, especially in the general education curriculum. The Hogsback project was designed toengage students in the cycle of research by investigating how individual worker behaviors of the western harvester ant, Pogonomrymex occidentalis, affect their environment. To facilitate implementation, professors incorporated the Hogsback research into existing course structures and projects. We established a student-run journal, called The Hogsback Journal, for research to be disseminated to involved participants. To date, 536 students, thirty-four classes and twelve professors have been involved in the research. Students have participated in a wide variety of fieldsincluding soil science, statistics, mathematical modeling, ecology, biology, and geology. Paper submissions to The Hogsback Journal far exceeded expectations with fifty in fall 2021, fifty-nine in spring 2022, and fifty-six in fall 2022, becoming the hub through which research is disseminated. Based on the Hogsback project, we present a multidisciplinary approach to creating experiential course projects that we call HUB research that applies outside of STEM disciplines. We demonstrate how to implement a HUB research project using existing courses and structure of the block. Once established, a HUB research project serves as a central organizing feature for research that students can participate in to fulfill the educational goals of their courses. HUB architecture allows students to engage in successive courses giving them a more sophisticated understanding and perspective from different disciplines. Research is driven by an inquiry-based research cycle. As it evolves at block-accelerated speed, HUB research is a powerful engine for multidisciplinary research.

Comparing Student Learning in Face-to-Face Versus Online Sections of an Information Technology Course

<bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</b> The recent COVID-19 pandemic forced most universities into online course delivery. As such, the rapid expansion of online learning and the prospect of its permanent increase for many institutions have sharpened the issue of the efficacy of remotely delivered courses. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Literature review:</b> Past studies have compared face-to-face (FTF) courses with online courses, with mixed results. However, the broad understanding is that efficacy differs based on the subject area. Educators frequently view theory-based courses as being better suited to online teaching than hands-on or experiential courses. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research question:</b> Can information technology courses—especially those that are more experiential and technical—be supported through online learning given the extent of differences in efficacy between online and face-to-face experiential, technical courses? <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Research methodology:</b> We compared multiple sections of an experiential IT Outsourcing class over several quarters in two course delivery modes. The two modes were FTF delivery and online synchronous delivery. Students in each course section responded to two surveys where they rated their knowledge of different topics at the start and end of the course. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</b> Online students reported greater increases in learning on average across all measured items. Self-reported knowledge gains were significantly greater in five items, mostly in soft skills and project management knowledge. The only significantly improved technical IT skill was in using software for virtual meetings. <bold xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusions and implications for education:</b> We conclude that universities should embrace teaching experiential IT-based courses virtually, as it is possible to obtain greater improvements in self-efficacy, counter to much existing research. This is especially the case as instructional technology improves.

Building a Model for Integrative Computational Social Science Research

Universities are increasingly interested in providing courses that equip students with data science skills and engage experiential learning, particularly in the social sciences. However, these courses can be costly to implement and time-consuming for instructors to develop. This article describes an integrative learning model for teaching computational social science skills to undergraduate students. There are three elements to the model: content delivery through collaborative learning, skill development in an applied lab setting, and student mentorship. I apply this model to an experiential course where undergraduate students learn to create and conduct a national public opinion poll. The model addresses the need for university classes that equip undergraduate students with computational social science skills, and provides a pathway for training student researchers as teaching assistants for future courses. This model builds the research capacity of faculty, graduate assistants, and undergraduates, invests in data science by providing an infrastructure for the collection of large scale data over time, and integrates experiences inside and outside of the classroom. This model is replicable at other institutions and will be of benefit to programs seeking to implement best practices and maximize learning effectiveness through research integration.