Professional Foundation Course Research Articles

Supporting graduate students’ skills with simulated experiences in a professional foundation course

The population’s health depends on a well-educated nursing workforce that includes graduate-prepared nurses. However, the nation’s demand for graduate nurses in advanced practice, teaching, and research roles surpasses the supply. Graduate nursing educators can support student success by creating positive learning experiences for students at the beginning of their study programs. Initially, we created a pilot writing orientation, which was implemented for new students. Although the results of the pilot study showed significance with paired t-tests (p < .000; Cohen’s d = 1.21), the writing skills were not applied in long-term coursework. Therefore, a seven-week course was created to provide students with small-scale assignments, preparing them for complex future graduate coursework. The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the skills learned in the course using student (n = 15) and faculty (n = 9) focus groups. A qualitative design using thematic analysis showed the following student themes: tools to improve scholarly writing, magnitude and feasibility of the project, graduate-level writing and professional presentations, clear expectations of achieving program requirements, and professional development using a digital e-portfolio. Faculty focus groups compared the skills of students who had completed the course and those who had not. Faculty themes included stronger writing skills despite the variation, resource availability, tool use, APA format skills, and writing synthesis skills development. Overall, the participants’ perspectives shared positive feedback with insightful suggestions for future course improvement.

The Analysis of Training Issues on Learning Engagement: The Case of Mongolia

Our research focuses on how to support and implement active learning methods used in learning activities. Effective learning activities vary from person to person, as individuals have different learning styles and preferences. However, we studied the methods that tend to be effective for many people. Through our research work, in providing participants with the basic understanding and imagination of professional foundation, professional, and specialization courses, coachers supported the use of methods such as dialogue, learning from real examples, posing problems, solving problems, role playing, and encouraging participation rather than using traditional coaching methods.

Research on the Teaching of Circuit Analysis Courses in Higher Vocational School

Fundamentals of circuit analysis is an important professional foundation course for electronics majors, the author has explored from the organization and arrangement of course content, teaching methods and means, assessment methods, experimental teaching and other aspects, and received good results.

Construction and Teaching Reform of “Research foundation of Computer Science” Course based on OBE Concept

The research foundation of computer science is a compulsory professional foundation course for master's students of computer science and technology and related disciplines and majors. Due to the extensive content of this course, covering four topics: advanced computer architecture, Internet of Things technology, network and information security, and algorithm design and analysis, students feel that it is difficult to master scientific learning methods and lack the goal and initiative of learning. This article is guided by the OBE concept and explores and practices the teaching reform of computer graduate courses in the context of the construction of new engineering disciplines, starting from five key links: setting teaching objectives, designing teaching content, reforming teaching modes, establishing teaching evaluation mechanisms.

Veterinary Students' Sense of Belonging: Growing Community with Small Group Academic Enhancement.

A student's sense of belonging to a university is associated with success in academic setting, happiness, and satisfaction. It is therefore unsurprising that universities commonly strive to improve student measures of belonging especially considering its negative correlation with attrition rates. This study documents the implementation and assessment of a new curricular intervention at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine (RUSVM) and measures associated changes in students' feeling of belonging to the university and accountability for their success. Specifically, small, group, faculty-guided weekly discussion sessions were introduced to the Veterinary Professional Foundation (VPF) course to complement a series of updated didactic only lectures. Voluntary surveys ("belonging to the university scale" [1] and the "personal accountability in education scale" [2]) were utilized to document student attitudes and feelings surrounding these variables. Likert scores from a control group of students who completed the VPF course prior to the curricular change were compared to the intervention group who engaged in the weekly guided discussion sessions via a Wilcoxon test. The intervention group reported significantly improved feelings of belonging to the university (p-values ranging from 0.008 to 0.027). Minimal change was noted between groups associated with accountability. The addition of weekly small group meetings has proven valuable at RUSVM in improving student sense of belonging to the university. Further research is indicated to determine if accountability may be improved over a longer period of monitoring with continued interventions.

Research on BIM Course System and Ideological and Political Essentials of Cost Engineering Major

The era of information technology has dawned on the construction industry, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) is one of the necessary engineering skills for those engaged in civil engineering professions at present and those who will engage in these professions in the future. Therefore, top universities have begun exploring ways to increase BIM-related teaching content in the curriculum system. In this paper, we discuss the integration of BIM in an in-depth manner with regard to the four course modules offered by cost engineering majors (professional foundation course, professional core course, industry-oriented course, and professional practical course) and analyze the construction of BIM curriculum ideology and politics system, the setting of teaching objectives, and the key points of curriculum ideology and politics.

Analysis of Teaching Reform of Online Payment and Settlement Courses in Higher Vocational Colleges and Universities

Higher vocational colleges and universities are the main place to cultivate technical talents and bear the important responsibility to cultivate talents with high quality and high technology. With the popularity of the Internet, online payment and settlement have brought greater convenience to people's daily life. At present, more than 90% of higher vocational colleges and universities in China that offer e-commerce majors take Online Payment and Settlement as their professional foundation course. Through learning this course, higher vocational students understand and master the basic knowledge of online payment and settlement, which lays a good foundation for the subsequent learning of other courses in e-commerce and promotes the career development of higher vocational students at the same time. Therefore, teachers in higher vocational institutions should explore the course of Online Payment and Settlement in-depth, innovate teaching methods and promote the teaching reform of this course, so as to improve the teaching quality and teaching effect of the course.

Design of Biochemistry PBL teaching cases suitable for engineering education

Engineering education is an important part of China's higher education. With the deepening of the connotation of new engineering talents training, it is timely to carry out the curriculum reform in all directions and improve the quality of engineering talents. In order to highlight the characteristics of fostering new engineering talents, specialized courses and practical courses are becoming the focus of curriculum teaching reform. However to this end, it is urgent to explore how to strengthen fostering talents with engineering characteristics in the professional foundation courses. Taking the biochemistry course as an example, problem-based learning teaching methods were employed, appropriate teaching cases were selected, scientific and technical problems based instructional designs were explored, and students were guided to condense, analyze and solve problems. This study aims to transform the learning attitude of students from "passive" to "active", enhance students' thinking skills, highlight the engineering application of science and technology, lay the foundation for continuous and even lifelong learning, and provide a reference for fostering talents under the new engineering background.

Application of mind mapping model in the teaching of molecular biology

Molecular biology is a biology course containing multiple core concepts and complex biological processes, which are organized in a strong logic. In order to help the medical students in college of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) understand the content of this professional foundation course, we integrated the mind mapping model into the three sessions of teaching this course. First, putting forward teaching questions through a "nine grids analysis" model before the class teaching; second, transforming class teaching through a "six thinking hats" model; third, reviewing teaching content through a "pyramid principle" model, which helps students develop closed-loop thinking skills. The students' understandings to the course content were enhanced by connecting, merging and diverging the relevant knowledge through thinking visualization. According to the questionnaire, 91% of the students believe that the application of mind mapping model is an effective teaching method, which improves the teaching efficiency and effect. Furthermore, 76% of the students deem this method helps them improve their thinking ability and they also try to apply this method to the study process of other courses. Therefore, the application of mind mapping model in teaching plays an important role in fostering students' high-order thinking skills and provides a new approach for college curriculum teaching.

An Application of Interest Driven Teaching Approach in Mechanics of Material Course

Mechanics of Material is an important professional foundation course for engineering students. While the content of the course is wide-range, boring and abstract, a decline in interest for this course and also the decline in understanding of mechanics have been noticed in the teaching and learning activities. The traditional methods of teaching, which are mainly based on the theoretical interpretation, could not promote the interest of students in learning this kind of courses such as Material Mechanics, and then they cannot contribute enough to change this situation. To solve the problem, a so-called interest driven teaching method was herein presented. This paper sketches the characteristics of the interest driven teaching method. Taking Material Mechanics as an example, the learning problems and interest points of students in the course were extracted and summarized. A variety of strategies of promoting the learning interest of students has been put forward on the basis of practical teaching experience and verification. The presentation of the interest driven teaching method in the classroom has increased the interest of college students for learning Mechanics of Materials.

Exploration of the Professional Basic Course and the Teaching Team Construction of Computer Science Graduate

The construction of the postgraduate teaching team and the construction of high level teachers are an important prerequisite for improving the teaching quality and teaching reform of postgraduate students, and also one of the driving forces to guarantee the sustainable development of education. This article combined with the state, society to the current demand and developing trend of computer science and technology industry, by setting up reasonable professional foundation course, the teachers troop construction, cultivating young teachers, using high quality materials, determining the reasonable teaching content, the use of advanced teaching methods, using reasonable teaching evaluation system, auxiliary teaching resources platform, the construction of computer science and technology professional basic course teaching team, to provide a strong guarantee for the cultivation of the subject, a graduate student, also hope to provide some useful reference for engineering college graduate education.

The investigation on the course system of master of nursing specialist

Objective The study aimed to provide the foundation to master of nursing specialist in courses system. Methods 26 nursing education and management experts were selected, the Delphi method was used in three-round questionnaire inquiry on the course system. Results Experts approved to set up the course system from two platforms of compulsory and optional course, the compulsory courses were composed of public courses and professional foundation courses, a total of ten. The optional courses were composed of professional development courses, a total of 12. Expert authority coefficient was 0.88. The coordination coefficient of expert was 0.42. Conclusions Expert opinions reached a preliminary agreement. It provides a reference to set up course system of master of nursing specialist. Key words: Nursing; Graduate; Course system

Brief Discussions of a Draw of American Universal Education on Chinese Postgraduate Teaching Methods

Initiated by International Friendships Inc.(IFI) in Cincinnati, that is a Christian community organization, the authors participated in a universal education activity, called “History Museum”, organized by the local people in Kentucky State of U.S.A. In the activity, the authors grasped some characteristics of American universal education and reflected some problems of the professional foundation teaching of Chinese postgraduates, especially of Chinese engineering postgraduates. Based on the above thinking, some suggestions of the teaching methods for the professional foundation courses of Chinese postgraduates are proposed. Furthermore, the authors hope the proposed methods would be good for improving the postgraduate education in China.

Analysis of Digital Electronic Teaching in Higher Vocational Colleges - Cultivating and Stimulating Learning Motivation

Digital Electronic Technology is a very important professional foundation course in higher vocational college, especially those majors in mechanical or electrical engineer. How to arouse students' enthusiasm and initiative in every possible way, and make them pleased to acquire knowledge, it is the major research topic. So the key to success in teaching is the cultivation and simulation of learning motivation.

Application about Proteus Simulation on SCM Teaching

Principles and applications of electricity are involved in an important professional foundation courses. MCU development capabilities, including hardware design and software programming skills are basic capacity. This paper introduces an application of Proteus simulation on SCM teaching. Proteus breaks the space limitations of traditional training room with time and space constraints. The use of spare time, as long as there is a computer in a place, it can be single-chip hardware design and software programming exercises for students to improve SCM integrated development capability, practical spirit, the spirit of innovation culture to build a convenient and flexible platform.

Priorities for the Professional Foundation: Differences by Program Level

This study addresses the degree of consensus between undergraduate program directors and dean and directors of master's degree programs on the priorities for content of the professional foundation courses in social work education. The findings suggest that there is remarkable agreement on the elements that should be included in the professional foundation. The study does not deal with the question of the degree of depth of coverage, but is limited to the question of priorities.