Second-year Class Research Articles

An outcomes assessment of a hybrid‐PBL course in treatment planning

As part of an ongoing process of curriculum development, a new course was developed at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to address problems such as lack of student enjoyment of the learning process, poor student preparedness for clinical treatment planning, and underdeveloped critical thinking skills in students beginning their clinical experience. The new course utilized a hybrid problem-based learning (PBL) format that provided students with an overview in lecture format while encouraging active learning in small group tutorials and seminars. Half the second-year class was randomly selected to participate in the new course, while the other half received the standard lectures on the subject. An outcomes assessment examined whether the aforementioned problems had been addressed in the new course. Course participants completed a post-course evaluation, and all students completed a self-assessment of their preparedness and progress in treatment planning and diagnostic. Clinical instructors, who were blind to the identity of the new course participants, were asked to independently assess each student using the same criteria. Results indicate that students who participated in the hybrid-PBL course enjoyed the learning process and later rated themselves as being better prepared and improving more in the areas of treatment planning and diagnostic records than their counterparts, although the latter results were not routinely statistically significant (p < 0.1). Instructor evaluations supported these differences between the two groups.

Using Film to Build Writing Proficiency in a Second‐Year Language Class

ABSTRACT While the proficiency movement has produced numerous books and articles that deal primarily with oral proficiency, little has been published on the subject of writing proficiency. This article describes the writing curriculum for the first semester of a second‐year German course, designed using the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines as a framework. A traditional review grammar gives students practice manipulating words and sentences while films provide the context for creative, communicative writing. By the end of the semester, all students have mastered Intermediate‐level functions, while many can perform at the Advanced level.

Using a Post‐Experience Questionnaire to Measure the Quality of Student Learning in a Computer Conferencing Environment

ABSTRACT A class of second year (age group 19–20), university students used computer conferencing as an alternative to face‐to‐face seminars. A questionnaire based on Garrison's critical thinking model tested their conferencing versus face‐to‐face experiences. Factor analysis using SPSS produced five factors for face‐to‐face seminars and four factors for computer conferencing consistent with deep approaches to learning. One negative factor emerged for computer conferencing which indicated a problem with student use of the technology. The results show that computer conferencing can be a valuable learning environment on campus.

Focus on German Art and Music: The Interactive Oral Presentation in the Second-Year Class

Which German composer's music was played in Apocalypse Now? In Disney's Fantasia? In 2001: A Space Odyssey? Who wrote the melody to Here Comes the Bride? Students are surprised to learn: Wagner, Beethoven, R. Strauss, Wagner. These facts they share with fellow students in the interactive oral presentation, an activity I have used in three consecutive second-year classes-either at the end of the first or the second

Growth, age estimation and feeding of captive Sevengill Sharks, Notorynchus cepedianus, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Five methods, all based on the von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF) model, were used with captive sevengills to characterize growth and to estimate both age and age at sexual maturity. Fabens' method (MI) gave a high k = 0.25 � 0.04 year-1 and a low L∞= 202 � 13 cm and W∞ = 41 � 11 kg. Determination of the third VBGF parameter, L0 or W0, requires age to be known. Reported estimates of size at birth were used to estimate ages of individual sharks. For the 'individual VBGF fit' method (M2), the age axis was fixed by using size at birth. For the 'derivative' method (M3), a growth rate was calculated from observed size when the sharks were received and size at birth. The results of either method confirmed that two sharks were first-year class and three sharks were second-year class when they were received. Both M2 and M3 required the use of a combination of total length (TL) and weight data via the 'TL-scaled cube root weight' method (M4) to obtain adequate statistics for individual sharks. The 'exponential regression' method (M5) was used to predict the sizes and ages of larger and older sharks. Age at sexual maturity for males was estimated by using L∞ = 225-250 cm and k = 0.174 to 0.132 year-1, which gave 4.3 to 5 years, in good agreement with the age estimated from clasper-length measurements from a single male. Age at sexual maturity for females was estimated by using L∞ = 275-300 cm and k = 0.107 to 0.090 year-1, which gave 11-21 years. Feeding habits have been monitored for captive sevengill sharks since 1985. Pups consumed up to 2% of their body weight (BW) per day, juveniles about 0.6% BW day-1, and adults about 0.2% BW day-1. Food consumption and, more importantly, total efficiency changed with age. The observed large food consumption and the observed high total efficiency of pups could be substantiated on the basis of a theoretical calculation of food intake based on von Bertalanffy growth. Adult sevengills showed a 'feast or famine' feeding pattern that followed a cycle of 5-7 days and that may have been influenced by water temperature and previous meal size. We conclude that growth rates in captivity and in the field are similar, based on the available growth data and feeding behaviour of sevengills in captivity and in the field.

Authentic Interactive Video for Lower-Level Spanish at the United States Naval Academy

By the fortunate coincidence of necessity and opportunity, the Language Studies Department at the U.S. Naval Academy became involved in interactive video (IAV).2 In 1984 our alumni association funded a satellite earthstation providing broadcast video in a variety of languages. Soon we discovered that most of the programming received was beyond the linguistic reach of all but our most advanced students. Just as we began to despair about exploiting our new dish antenna fully, the Academy began funding projects to incorporate computer-assisted instruction into the curriculum. Adding computer-controlled interactivity to the video which we receive has proved an ideal means of making foreign-language materials accessible to our students from their very first week of instruction. Most laymen envision only in its flashiest form: simulations with various possible outcomes depending on the choices made by users. For various practical and theoretical reasons, however, my colleagues and I chose to avoid this participant mode and opted for an observer mode. Although both approaches clearly deserve a place in language learning, for our purposes the observer mode offers significant long-term advantages over its sexier sibling. Foremost, from the authors' standpoint, is increased lesson production: because situations with a linear design require far less extensive planning than simulations with multiple outcomes, many more promising projects can emerge from the development stage. In addition, learners appreciate the clearly defined, concrete learning objectives and the predictability of presentation and tasks which the observer mode makes possible. At the Naval Academy, foreign-language enrollment is concentrated in firstand secondyear classes, which meet three times a week for 50 minutes.3 Our overall pedagogical approach has benefited from recent research showing that the most effective instructional strategies first emphasize the receptive skills -listening, readingbefore building the productive skillsspeaking, writing.4 We have a strong bias toward building proficiency (i.e., the ability to apply linguistic knowledge and communicative strategies in order to understand and produce coherent spoken or written discourse in the foreign language) over achievement (i.e., mastery of a specific inventory of words and structures). Our lessons are designed to build listening comprehension skills with video, that is, with television programs produced by and intended for native speakers of the language. Our term authentic IAV stands for computer-assisted instruction based on such broadcast materials. Ultimately we intend to incorporate interactive video into all our language courses; but, in support of a long-term study of the effectiveness of described below, we initially concentrated on lower-level Spanish, for which we have implemented 44 weekly lessons.5 From the first satellite earth station donated by our alumni, we have expanded to two dish antennas and even have plans for a third one. Our original 6-meter dish permits us to receive regular network television broadcasts from Canada, Latin America, the Soviet Union, and Soviet-bloc countries, as well as certain broadcasts from France and Spain. Since 1989, a new 12-meter dish has improved our reception from the Americas and has also provided access to European satellites as far east as 8? west longitude.6 In the future we intend to dedicate a small dish antenna to receiving SCOLA broadcasts.

Students teaching students: a medical school peer tutorial programme

A peer tutorial programme which is available to all first- and second-year medical students has been in operation at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine since 1972. A retrospective study of the classes of 1982, 1983 and 1984 was undertaken to assess the participation levels in the tutorial programme and to compare the participation level to available performance parameters. The analysis revealed that 54% of the first-year classes and 22% of the second-year classes participated in the peer tutorial programme. X2 analysis of the data demonstrated that the relationship between participation in the tutorial programme and performance on examinations reached statistical significance. The results suggested that an open peer tutorial programme responded to the needs, both cognitive and affective, of medical students.

Mathematical Modeling: Lemonade from Lemons

What teacher has not had the discouraging experience of grading a test and discovering the scores to be depressingly lower than expected? What teacher has not been concerned about the effect of low test scores on students' attitudes and motivation? When this situation happened in my second-year algebra class, I launched an impromptu lesson that captured students' interest and offered them a new opportunity for success. The lesson also gave the class insight into elementary mathematical modeling, review and practice of first-year algebra topics, and a forum for lively discussion about the fairness of scaling, or curving test scores.

Laboratory grouping based on previous courses

In the human physiology course at Loyola University School of Dentistry, students (N = 761, second-year classes from 1971 to 1976) were divided into three laboratory groups according to prior experience with physiology courses and laboratories. To determine the effects of this grouping on academic performance, data were obtained on grades in the physiology course, National Board scores in physiology (combined with biochemistry from 1973 to 1976), predental GPA, and predental science GPA. Comparisons were made between the three groups using t-tests, and correlation coefficients were obtained for physiology grade and National Board score, predental GPA, and predental science GPA. The results indicated that there were no significant differences among the three groups in performance in the physiology course or on the National Board Examination. Significant correlations were found between course performance and the other three variables. The overall impression of the faculty and the students was that the grouping program has been successful in improving laboratory performance and participation in the conference sessions.

Family Physician Pathway and Medical Student Career Choice

In 1968 the University of Washington School of Medicine initiated a new curriculum that included a family physician pathway. Six of these classes have now graduated. Two thirds of the planned strategies for the pathway were actually implemented. Approximately half of the students in each second-year class now choose this pathway. Ninety percent of those graduating have done so in the traditional four years. Seventy-three percent of those in the pathway actually pursued family practice training on graduation. Approximately one third of all University of Washington graduates now enter training for family practice, one third enter internal medicine, 10% enter surgical fields, and 8% enter pediatrics. These rates represent significant increases in the proportion of students entering directly into family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics training.

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL HANDICAPS AS PRECURSORS OF EARLY DELINQUENCY

The criterion of early delinquency used in this report is one or more findings of guilt by a juvenile court on a boy under the age of fourteen years. The data are taken from an on-going research, the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, details of which have been published elsewhere (West, 1969). Briefly, the Study is a prospective survey of 411 boys, recruited at age eight to nine, and representing the total male membership of second-year classes in six state primary schools situated in an urban, working-class neighbourhood. All of the boys have now passed their fourteenth birthday, and the older half of the sample are fifteen years of age or more. Searches at the Criminal Record Office and at local children's department offices have established that a total of thirty of these boys, i.e. 7-3 per cent., were early delinquents. Their offences were almost exclusively petty thieving. The thirty boys had been found guilty on a total of fifty-two occasions; forty-two on a charge of larceny or attempted larceny, two for taking and driving away, three for warehouse breaking, two for wilful damage, and one each for causing actual bodily harm, unlawful possession and being on enclosed premises. A further eighty-seven boys, i.e. 21-2 per cent., were classed as unofficial early delinquents on the basis of reports made by teachers, neighbours or parents, of delinquent acts outside the home; action by police short of prosecution; or action taken by a juvenile court on evidence of non-attendance at school.

On Advising Prospective Undergraduate Majors: Some Student Misunderstandings and Questions concerning Upper Division Classes

One of the most startling experiences many of our students undergo is the sudden realization that an undergraduate major is not made up of a series of courses which are specifically and exclusively designed to teach them to read, write and express themselves in a foreign medium, but rather consists of a series of literature courses. This changeover from the language to the literature may seem quite obivous to those of us who think of ourselves as scholars of a foreign literature, but, I suggest, it is not so obvious to the still quite unsophisticated undergraduate who has arrived at the university with no particular major in mind; who starts his required language course during his freshman year and does exceptionally well because he has an aptitude for languages; then is encouraged by his instructor to consider a language major. I have all too often had students of my Survey of German Literature class appear in my office to bewail the fact that they did so well in the first and second-year classes, but now find themselves at a loss when they are asked to read a few lines of the Hildebrandslied, a play by Schiller or a few poems by H6lderlin, and furthermore are now being asked, of all things, to appreciate the literary quality and value of these works. A ramification of this same problem arises when I find myself talking to the new faculty on the campus from such diverse fields as Mathematics, Physical Anthropology, or, here in Wyoming, Geology or Range Management. These colleagues, in all honesty, are quite surprised when they learn that a language major does not consist of just teaching a student how to speak German. It occurs to me that this may well not be a problem on a campus where the Department of German is quite prestigious, such as among the Big Ten universities. I like to assume that this has to do with the general excellence of instruction at these schools, i.e., the students are faced with some systematic literary readings during their second year, and in some few cases as early as the second semester. In such a program this transition is not so jolting an experience. I suggest, however, that there is a correlation between the degree of prestige a department has and the general understanding students and faculty have for what goes on in these department. In any case, there are

Visual Transparencies for the Overhead Projector

A desire for this type of illustration grew out of my feeling of frustration in the classroom when I realized that, in first-year and even second-year classes, my pupils and I were not really speaking the foreign language because there seemed to be nothing to speak about; or if there was, the pupils didn't have the vocabulary to express their ideas. Moreover, when I talked, much of what I said was not understood by many pupils. The result was a waste of time and a lack of enthusiasm. Conversations, discussions, dialogues, etc., in short, all supposedly spontaneous speech in elementary classes, has, perforce, an artificiality about it which is difficult to overcome. Most present-day text books profess an oral approach, and to implement this approach, they present the reading material in the form of a dialogue. The pupil is supposed to memorize this dialogue so that he can use it in class. I have found that my students, especially the better ones, are reluctant, and almost embarrassed, to reeat these dialogues. Other pupils hate to e called on because they are afraid that they will forget the lines. Some pupils are so aware of the artificiality that they are reluctant to communicate in class even though there is a great deal that they could say. Thev would actually like to talk, but they feel that their remarks would be trivial or even ridiculous. When an interesting or amusing picture is placed before them, however, it seems to break the ice; the feeling of artificiality is removed, and the pupils are soon volunteering to speak. To be of the greatest value when used in a regular high school or college elementary course, the transparencies, or projectuals, must illustrate the most common concepts in language-the sort of ideas which are presented in all elementary texts, i.e. food, clothing, occupations, school, weather, shopping, etc. About fifty different projectuals are available, and many of these show at least four different ac-

Tips for Beginners: An Impromptu Discovery Lesson in Algebra

In a study of quadratic equations and quadratic functions, my second-year algebra class embarked on a discovery lesson which turned out to be the most successful class session I have ever had. The lesson plan called for a consideration of quadratic inequalities and their solutions, but we began as usual by discussing the homework of the previous day.

Do Our Students Speak?

College teachers of Russian who receive into their second-year classes the unevenly trained products of high school courses, have a problem. No one will question this, least of all the high school teachers, who intimately know the deficiencies of time, character, and circumstances from which their graduates have suffered. Furthermore, the problem stands to be compounded in th'e next few years by a growing disparity among high school products. Some high schools will make the decision to concentrate their inadequate time on speaking and hearing at the cost of reading and writing, and others will make the reverse choice. Thus, colleges will receive students with more strengths and weaknesses at both ends of the skill spectrum. The fact remains, unfortunately, that when the high school language pattern becomes a long enough sequence to obviate the necessity of this disastrous choice, several years will have gone by, and they may be fateful. For the establishment of Russian in the high school curriculum of tomorrow, and hence the college and elementary school curriculum of the day after tomorrow, colleges hold the key today. Either the small and enthusiastic beginnings already made will become substantial and send out new roots to make interest in

The Literary Movements Defined

Even though you may not teach work any more advanced than an abridged novel in a second-year Spanish class, you are a teacher of Spanish literature. So it is not exclusively the professors of upper division and graduate university courses who should ask themselves whether they have ever thought to arm their students with clear comprehensive definitions of the literary movements. Although the literary historian sometimes tends to regard the literary movements as mere professors' distinctions, still it is basic that the potential Spanish major gain in high school or early in college a working definition of Classicism, Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, and Modernism. He can find out for himself later how seldom a given work falls entirely into any one category. It may even be wise to introduce early such other -isms as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Existentialism, Cubism, Creationism, Ultraism, Neo-Gongorism, and Futurism. If you are an experienced teacher, probably you have enjoyed a long-standing acquaintance with all these terms, but your students may have to grasp their implications piecemeal-possibly as you did. One does not have to read or understand the label on the bottle of wine to appreciate its flavor, and granted this flavor identifies itself to the connoisseur, yet does one not savor the tang all the more for having classified the wine first? Further, how does one become a connoisseur without acquiring first a system of reference, a knowledge of comparative facts of manufacture? Through my undergraduate Spanish major and three years of graduate work with most worthy professors, nowhere along that academic path were the -isms defined formally. Good wines, but lacking labels. Others must have had the same experience. Understandably the attainment of knowledge in any field is such a vast enterprise that problems of the specific course and given moment often predispose the instructor to make false assumptions. Even authors of most texts and anthologies likewise presume a knowledge of the literary -isms on the part of the reader. If it is only to make the teacher realize that he ought to give his students the facts of literary life before he begins to expound case histories, the attempts at definition to follow will have served their purpose. Art (including sculpture), music, and literature are closely allied as man's three most noble media for achieving the aesthetic ideal. We shall call these the arts. The arts have a common goal, beauty, attained through an appeal to the intellect via the senses. If our intellect is mature, usually it is sensitive to all the arts if it is sensitive to one, for seeing and hearing are but leaf and stem to a common root. The arts must overlap each other: in most music a story or picture exists or is imagined; art too tells a story; all good literature evinces rhythm and equilibrium. Since the arts are so closely related, stylistic approaches to the literary, musical, or pictorial ideal are infectious. Individual stylistic approach often is imitated finally to become stereotyped. When this happens, the resulting group stylistic approach becomes known as a school. In recent centuries, numbers of individuals who have shared the same stylistic ideals have announced publicly their champion or model or set of tenets. The result is a formal school. It may be assumed, then, that the fundamental differences among Clas-

Increasing the Passive Vocabulary in German

EVERY teacher of a foreign language strives to increase the student's passive vocabulary when teaching reading. Teachers of German quite generally employ the rules for the derivation and the compounding of words in order to develop in the student the power to infer the meanings of new words. The writer of this article has no magic method to offer, but wishes to submit a study which he made some years ago and which he has used with reasonable success in second-year reading classes. Various grammars supplied the rules of derivation, and the writer needed only to collect and systematize the rules. Sometimes the grammars illustrate the rules with words of infrequent use. To avoid this mistake the writer selected examples from a master vocabulary which he had constructed by tabulating the vocabularies of one hundred texts used in American schools. Thus, the German words of this study are likely to occur frequently in reading material. The study falls into two parts: I. Increasing Vocabulary by Rule; II. Increasing Vocabulary by Studying Word-Families.' In using such a list the teacher supplies English meanings whenever it is necessary to do so. I