Freshman-level Course Research Articles

Science Fiction in the Engineering Classroom to Help Teach Basic Concepts and Promote the Profession

AbstractAlthough science fiction has appeared in science and physics education for many years, the genre has not been widely used to augment engineering education. Considering the potential for science fiction to help illustrate many common engineering concepts, while at the same time challenging the students to think about the many possibilities of design and technology, this exclusion represents a loss of a valuable resource. In order to begin utilizing this valuable resource, a new freshman‐level course was developed that uses science fiction films and literature to illustrate and teach basic engineering concepts. Central to the course delivery is “poking fun” at the disobedience of the laws of nature and misuse of engineering while at the same time teaching the correct behaviors. By illustrating basic engineering concepts in this fashion, students can hopefully develop lasting mental pictures of the way things function and the complexities of design. These images can in turn, help the students with core mechanics classes such as statics and dynamics, as well as help the creative design process. Moreover, by highlighting the valuable role engineering plays in transferring science theory to usable technology, the discussions may also help create a positive image of the profession that could aid recruitment and retention. Finally, the genre can also be used to illustrate the implications of technology and society, along with the many ethical considerations of engineering.

Combining cooperative learning and peer instruction in introductory computer science

CPSC 120, Principles of Computer Science I, is a first semester freshmen level course for computer science majors. Over a three semester comparison period, this course had an average WDF rate of 56% (i.e. percentage of students receiving a grade of “D” or “F”, or withdrawing from the course). In two sections of this course, two strategies, peer instruction and cooperative learning, were combined to lower the WDF rate for both sections to an average of 32.5%. The improvement was even more dramatic for the female students in the classes, who improved from a 53% WDF rate to a WDF rate of only 15%.

Reaching the masses: marketing a library instruction course to incoming freshmen

Using simple promotional strategies, Central Missouri State University has increased the number of students enrolled in a 2-hour credit course in Information Resources. The redesign of this freshman-level course in Information Literacy and the strategies for marketing the course are explained. The evidence supports the conclusion that marketing the course results in higher enrollment figures.

A New Approach to Teaching Membrane Potentials

Many of the students in my beginning biology classes have limited or no previous biology background. Frequently, many of these students are nonscience majors, with the majority of them pursuing business-related majors. One of the most important challenges I face as a biology teacher is using real-world examples to explain a biological principle. Taking material from a biology textbook and presenting it in terms easily grasped by beginning students is difficult. The use of analogies frequently helps to simplify the explanation of difficult concepts. One principle that beginning students often find particularly vexing is the concept of transmembrane potentials, especially the conditions that contribute to the resting membrane potential and the action potential. These concepts of transmembrane potentials are the foundation upon which any subsequent discussion of neurophysiology and nervous system function will be based. I approach the transmembrane potential from the viewpoint of a checking account. This approach allows me to introduce this concept without intimidating the students. I use the same analogy, with different levels of complexity, in my freshmanlevel and junior-level courses. Nearly everyone has a checking account and is at least somewhat familiar with balancing it. Thus, to explain membrane potentials to nonscience majors, I build an analogy between maintaining a checking account and maintaining a cell's homeostasis. Since by convention the transmembrane potential is measured using the inside of the cell as the reference point, the inside of a cell is portrayed as a checking account. A semipermeable plasma

Lessons of a Decade

Summary In 1987, a new two-semester freshmen-level course in World Civilizations was piloted at Washington State University. Included within the course was a library component offering the question analysis that seemed appropriate to a richly historical, interdisciplinary course. The authors involved with the course from the very beginning, discuss their decade of work on the World Civ project in terms of the project's successes and unrealized hopes, its collegial component, and its growth and adaptation over the years (including examples of library assignments). As a university-wide project, World Civilizations was a forerunner of other projects nationwide and an outstanding example of librarians collaborating with teaching faculty to promote instruction.

Using Alternative Algorithms with Preservice Teachers

During their undergraduate program, preservice elementary teachers are expected not only to become generalists across a wide range of school subjects but also to develop pedagogical knowledge of the developmental and social needs of children. We have developed a twosemester freshman-level mathematics-content course that attempts to address multiple needs of preservice teachers. The goals of this course are to help preservice teachers (a) deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts; (b) restructure their attitudes toward, and beliefs about, the nature of mathematics and how it is learned; (c) investigate pedagogical issues; and (d) experience mathematics learning within a reformbased environment. These goals are interrelated and reflect the complexity of the nature of the knowledge and disposition, both mathematical and pedagogical, that preservice teachers are expected to develop.

Integrating Geographic Learning and Basic Skills: An In-Class Cooperative Activity

An in-class activity is presented which is designed to improve students' basic math, reading, and reasoning skills while at the same time involving them in the application and understanding of geographic concepts. The activity is appropriate for a freshman-level course in human geography but should also be suitable for use in high schools or community colleges. The activity, which involves applying the concepts of natural increase of population, net migration, physiological and agricultural densities as well as urbanization, is completed by pairs or groups of students working cooperatively. The article begins by discussing the context within which the activity developed, its role in the curriculum, and the teaching challenges faced. It goes on to describe the development of the activity, its implementation in the classroom, the advantages of the cooperative in-class approach, and the learning outcomes obtained. Finally, the activity is provided in a form ready for use in the classroom.

Discovering New Knowledge Through Collaborative Learning in Groups

We have adopted three principles in freshman-level courses and honors seminars designed for non-science majors in which we also use group learning as a pedagogical tool. We assign authentic learning tasks, elicit collaboration between students, and instill a sense of healthy skepticism about (that is, uncertainty in) the process of gaining new knowledge and also about the “new” knowledge. We expect that group-learning will motivate students to (a) ask and answer questions, (b) replace combative competition with compassionate cooperation, and (c) reject the notion of absolute true-false duality in knowledge. Our experiments with learning include (a) collaborative writing projects with an aim to publish, (b) collaborative decision-making on science policy to produce a consensus report, and c) exploration of natural processes that make up earth-systems science. We have successfully used these strategies in small seminar classes (<20 students) but were unable to adopt similar group-learning strategies in larg...

Design and teamwork: a must for freshmen

This paper presents the philosophy, content, and operation of a freshman-level course designed to introduce the basic principles of problem solving and decision making while the students are engaged in a semester-long design project. One of the major components of this course is the incorporation of teamwork into every facet of student activity.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Learning through a “real world” experience

Here's one way to incorporate experiential learning into a freshman-level course. The course is designed around a business-group experience, whereby student-conceived and student-managed companies practice management principles by actually producing goods or services for a real market

Computer instruction as part of a course on analytic medicine for first-year students.

The Medical University of South Carolina integrated instruction in information science and computer technology into a required freshman-level course. Analytic and Community Medicine. The advantages of this placement in the curriculum are two-fold. First, the course provides an opportunity to integrate computer methodology with clinically relevant topics such as medical decision-making. This integration enhances the students' view of the computer as a useful tool that can aid the physician in the practice of medicine. Course organizers are convinced that the success of the first offering is attributable to this integration. Second, the instruction comes early in the medical education process and allows the concepts learned to be utilized throughout the students' medical school careers. The degree to which these concepts and methods are actually utilized by students will depend upon the degree of reinforcement of these ideas in the clinical years and residency. Thus, faculty members must act as role models who not only acknowledge the importance of mastering the use of computers in medicine but also manifest those skills.

A Course: The Politics of Europe

One of the major disadvantages of teaching in a small, liberal-arts college with no political science major is that it is very difficult to move any course above the introductory level. Even courses which are intended for juniors and seniors must include an introductory element since a significant number of the students are not likely to have taken the introductory level classes. It does no good to establish prerequisites since this would only produce some combination of three unpalatable consequences: too many juniors and seniors taking freshman level courses; good students looking for an upper-division elective might be discouraged from taking a political science course; or, a discouragingly small enrollment in the upper-level political science courses.A way to avoid this problem is to combine basic concepts of political science with advanced material.

Attitudes of heterosexual students toward homosexual behavior.

137 female and 53 male heterosexual college students enrolled in a required freshman level course were surveyed to determine their attitudes toward homosexual behavior. Generally negative attitudes were expressed. Less negative attitudes were expressed by females and those expressing liberal attitudes toward other sexual behaviors. Participation in selected sexual activities and class in school were also significant correlates of attitudes toward homosexual behavior but the direction of the relationship is not clear.

Articulation

Arguments are presented supporting a freshman-level course to assist students entering a post-secondary computer science program to acquire the very basic fundamentals of the subject that may not have been available to them during their secondary school experience. We believe that most colleges, universities, and community colleges have increased the rigor of their versions of the Curriculum 78 course CS 1 to the extent that prerequisite knowledge and skills would be very helpful to a large number of students. While it is suggested that these fundamentals can best be learned in a pre-college setting, for those students lacking such a background (currently the vast majority), it is argued that an articulation course must be available. It is strongly suggested that an excellent prescription for the necessary course materials is given in the ACM ES 3 report by Rogers and Austing (7). It must be noted that many colleges currently offer and require an equivalent course or courses.

Teaching German to Voice Students

Prior to the introduction of 1333, German for the Performing Arts, into the curriculum of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Oklahoma, voice students had to enroll in the usual beginning courses, all sections of which were-and still are-taught by graduate assistants. Voice instructors were dissatisfied with the results and found it necessary to offer remedial diction courses of their own devising. As a long-time student of voice and a tenor manque I frequently attended and occasionally participated in the School of Music's weekly voice laboratory, where student attendance and participation are required. Having heard many students perform arias, lieder and chansons d'art in woefully inept and French, I decided to approach colleagues in the voice section of the School of Music and suggest that a freshman-level course designed specifically for their students be offered. The suggestion was enthusiastically accepted and I have taught the course in alternate semesters since 1978. A similar French course will soon

Students Can be Motivated

ABSTRACTA study was conducted with freshman level versus senior level courses to determine what factors stimulated student motivation. Relevancy, interest in the subject, grades, and performance of the instructor were found to be most important. University‐wide course‐instructor ratings of 589 courses demonstrated that specific instructor attributes were primarily correlated with student satisfaction levels of both course and instructor.