Junior-level Course Research Articles

A core course in computer theory: design and implementation issues

This paper describes the design and implementation of a junior-level course in formal languages and automata theory which satisfies CSAB guidelines for the computer science core curriculum in the area of theoretical foundations of computer science. The optimal prerequisites for such a course, as well as its impact on advanced computer science courses, are discussed. Several suggestions on how to present the subject matter in such a formal languages course, which has traditionally been considered too difficult to be taught below the senior level, are also discussed.

Spreadsheet illustration of engineering economics

The author describes the use of an electronic spreadsheet on a desktop PC with a liquid crystal display projector for the illustration of the determination of product cost. This material is used in a junior-level laboratory course in electrical engineering. Both the spreadsheet template and underlying concepts are discussed. >

Strategies and struggles of incorporating acoustics in undergraduate curriculum

This paper relates the philosophy of the authors concerning the introducing of integration of basic acoustical principles into junior and senior level courses. The curriculum presents basic instruction in sound measurement, the effects of noise on human performance, and acoustical control in a junior level course and reinforces these concepts plus additional instruction in acoustics in a senior level course. The paper explains the strategy and reasoning of this approach, relating both strengths and weaknesses.

Learning through Writing in an Engineering Course

In the fall 1982 semester, engineering report writing was integrated into the structure of a junior-level electrical engineering course at Howard University. The required homework consisted of engineering reports instead of the traditional textbook problem sets. A follow-up analysis of grades on examinations, on reports, and in later courses showed that 1) student understanding of engineering subject matter was not compromised by the course structure; 2) writing skills improved over the course of the semester; and 3) the correlation of student writing skills to problem solving skills was approximately 0.5.

Mind, Messages, and Madness: Gregory Bateson Makes a Paradigm for American Culture Studies

In the winter quarter of 1979 I was teaching a junior-level American Studies core course that introduced our students to comparative culture study. Many of the students had taken one or two classes from me already; but I decided, nevertheless, to begin the course with an essay that would say again in a new way exactly what are the characteristics of interdisciplinary thinking. I had begun other courses in this way but not with much success. Faced with student puzzlement and confusion about what made American Studies different from disciplinary study about America, I had had to resort to naming examples for students to emulate. What we lacked was a way totalk aboutinterdisciplinary thinking, especially a way that was accessible to undergraduates. I had read and appreciated the previous summer an essay inThe CoEvolution Quarterly; so I decided to try beginning the course with that brief, breezily discursive piece. I was a bit nervous about deciding so. Gregory Bateson's essay “The Pattern Which Connects” reads much like a story and is based on a talk for a general audience in 1977. But Bateson could be “maddeningly obscure” in his writing and speaking. (I recalled my total awe and bewilderment when, sometime in 1972 or 1973, I had my only experience listening to a Bateson public lecture.) My only earlier experience teaching Bateson—two essays fromSteps to an Ecology of Mind—had been a miserable failure. My worry was that “The Pattern Which Connects” would be total gibberish to the students—not an auspicious beginning for a course.

Crisis Response Model

For a number of years the Cal Poly Political Science Department has team taught a course with ROTC staff in National Strategies. This juniorlevel course is taken by both military science and political science students. Because of the diversity in their academic backgrounds, students taking this class need a written exercise that will give each participant experience in preparing the kinds of position papers that are required in government and the military. This exercise has been devised to provide students with such an experience. We believe that this Crisis Response exercise can be used in almost any international affairs class where there is a desire to emphasize clear, precise analysis in an area studies setting.

Congruent Validity of the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule

The results in this study indicated that for a sample of 141 college students in a junior level course in education the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) was significantly related to the six Class I scales of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), which collectively have been interpretated as measures of poise, ascendancy, and self-assurance. The combination of scales best predicting scores on the RAS contained five of the six Class I scales of the CPI. This finding provided additional evidence of the validity of the RAS in assessing assertiveness and lent support to its use for identifying potential clients who might benefit from assertive training procedures.

An intermediate course on computer systems

This is a report describing an undergraduate junior level and introductory graduate course on computer systems and some of our experiences in teaching it. The course has been taught since 1971 at Georgia Institute of Technology to graduates and undergraduates as well as at Appalachian State University to undergraduates only. It provides a link between programming courses and systems implementation courses.

Correlates of Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness: Gordon's Survey of Interpersonal Values

The relationship between undergraduates' perceptions of the interpersonal values of their professor and their ratings of his teaching effectiveness was assessed. Students' perceptions of their professor's interpersonal values were elicited by having the students complete Gordon's Survey of Interpersonal Values (Gordon, 1960) as they thought the professor himself would complete it. This technique represented a departure, suggested and defended by Gordon (1972), from the typical use of the survey in which the individual completes the instrument for himself. The 64 males and 20 females enrolled in a juniorlevel course in accounting rated the professor's teaching effectiveness on a five-point scale. Thirty-rwo of the students had taken a course from this professor in the preceding semester. The survey measures the relative importance an individual places on six types of interpersonal relationships: Support-rece~ving encouragement from other people, being treated with understanding; Conformity-doing what is accepted and proper, folloa~ing regulations closely; Recognition-being considered important, achieving recognition; Independence-being free to make one's own decisions, being able to do things in one's own way; Benevolence-doing things for other people, being generous; Leadershiphaving authority over others, being in a position of leadership or power. When all subjects were considered, none of the six Pearson correlations between value scores and ratings of effectiveness was significant (p > .OS). However, when the subjects wtre partitioned by sex, correlations berween ratings of effectiveness and Conformity (-.54) and Independence (.48) were significant for females. In addition, for Recognition, Independence, Benevolence and Leadership, the correlations for males and females were in opposite directions, and one such difference (Independence) was significant (p < .01)TWhen the subjects were partitioned according to whether they had taken the prior course from this professor, correlations berween ratings of effectiveness and Recognition (-.40) and Beoevolence (.40) were significant (p < .05) for the group with prior exposure to the professor. The correlation involving Recognition (.38) was also significant (p < .01) for the group with no prior exposure but was in the opposite direction. In addition, correlations involving Independence and Benevolence were in opposite directions, and two of chese three differences (Recognition and Benevolence) were significant (p < 111 .U 1 ) . While these differences in value correlates of ratings of teaching effecuveness between the two sets of subgroups are interesting, these results must be considered preIi~ninary.' These data suggest perceived interpersonal values are more highly related to female students' ratings of a male professor's teaching effectiveness than to male students' ratings and are more highly related to the ratings of those students with some prior exposure to the professor than to ratings of students with none. Future researchers may wish to consider these variables in invesrigarions of factors related to ratings of teaching effectiveness.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CEQ RATINGS AND INSTRUCTOR'S RANK, CLASS SIZE, AND COURSE LEVEL

A study was conducted to determine if the tendency for faculty members of higher rank to receive the highest ratings on the Illinois Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ) remained when variables such as class size and course level were taken into account. The relationship between CEQ ratings and instructor's rank, class size, and level of course was examined by means of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Dependent variables were the six subscales of the CEQ. As hypothesized there were no significant differences in ratings assigned by students in small (1‐20 students), medium (21‐40 students), and large (over 40 students) classes, or received by teaching assistants, instructors, and assistant, associate, and full professors. Highly significant differences, however, were found in ratings assigned by students in freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate level courses. In addition, significant size by level and size by rank interaction effects were found. Discriminant functions computed for effects found to be significant yielded information concerning the extent and direction of these significant differences.

Linear Collisions

A discussion of linear collisions between two or three objects is presented. This presentation has proved to be very effective in a junior-level course in analytical mechanics. The theoretical discussion uses a geometrical approach that treats elastic and inelastic collisions from a unified point of view. This approach gives the student a physical "feeling" for the effect of imposing varying amounts of inelasticity on a two- or three-body collision. Momentum and energy constraints are used to delimit the region, in the space of final velocities, that contains all possible solutions. Experiments with a linear air track demonstrate how changing the interparticle forces produces widely differing final states og motion.

Physics Courses in the New Arizona Engineering Curriculum

To facilitate the adoption of a common core curriculum in the Schools of Engineering and of Mining at the University of Arizona, the general physics course for engineers has been dropped. The physical foundation for engineering is taught in a new series of courses in the Civil, Mechanical, Electrical Engineering, and Physics Departments as part of the common core. The Physics Department teaches atomic, molecular, nuclear, and solid-state physics in a seven-unit junior-level course. There are grounds for a re-examination of the role of physics in engineering education and perhaps for extensive changes. It is suggested, however, that the role is, and should remain, vital, in the interests of science, of engineering, and of education.