Single Semester Course Research Articles

Student Led Observations for Course Improvement (SLOCI)

As universities strive to enhance course delivery and the student experience, typical end-of-semester course evaluations have been demonstrated to provide insufficient and potentially biased detail for course improvement and innovation. The Student Led Observations for Course Improvement (SLOCI) team at The University of Queensland aims to provide high-quality student experience data through a student-led approach. The team comprises current undergraduate university students who have a basic understanding of pedagogical strategies and methods of evaluation, bridging the gap between students and academics. SLOCI utilises a course partnership model to work with academics to identify key research questions that can direct and inform a process of real-time feedback. Since 2018, SLOCI has conducted 48 single-semester course partnerships and nine research partnerships focussed on other aspects of the student experience. The student experience data generated from these collaborations has underpinned improvements resulting in higher student engagement and better learning outcomes.

Impact of two methods for assigning groups in a team-based learning self-care course

IntroductionStudies have examined the impact of team formation strategies to performance on team assessments and perceptions of team dynamics. This study assessed the impact of intentional vs. randomized team formation strategies on a semester-long self-care pharmacotherapy course taught using team-based learning. MethodsStudents were intentionally assigned to teams in fall 2018 and randomized to teams in fall 2019. Performance on team readiness assessment tests (TRATs) was compared. Student perceptions regarding team dynamics were evaluated using a questionnaire. ResultsThe were no significant differences in TRAT scores between the intentional (n = 91; average 99.8%) and randomized (n = 68; average 99.9%) cohorts (P = .33). Response rates for the student perception questionnaires for the intentional and randomized cohorts were 85.7% and 77.9%, respectively. No significant differences existed between cohorts for any questionnaire items. ConclusionsThe type and number of criteria used to intentionally develop teams has varied across the literature and has generally failed to show significant differences in performance on team assessments regardless of team formation strategy. There have been varied findings with respect to the impact of team formation criteria on student perceptions related to team dynamics. In this study, intentionally assigning teams in a single semester-long course primarily using community pharmacy experience and significant relationships did not produce significant differences in team performance or student perceptions compared to randomization. For teams in a single semester course, randomization may be an efficient way of assigning students to teams without negatively impacting team performance or perceptions of team dynamics.

Review of Market Design

Nowadays, supply has to be matched with demand for various types of goods and services. For designing real-world markets, the study of market design becomes essential, which is the focus of this book. The book comprises four parts and consists of twelve chapters. A brief introductory chapter provides an outline of the book. The first part focuses on microeconomic fundamentals. The second part is on multi-object auction design. The third part looks at approximation and matching markets. The fourth part has appendices on linear optimization, and algorithms and complexity At the end of the book, there are references to the literature and a helpful index. Many chapters include questions for comprehension and problems for practice. The book is intended to be a textbook for a single semester course on market design. The prerequisites for the book include familiarity with linear programming, integer linear programming, rudimentary calculus and probability theory. The intended audience comprises students with backgrounds in computer science, information systems, mathematics, and management science. The book is available in hardcover and eBook formats. The ISBN/price are 9781107173187 / US $ 64.99 and 9781316805350 / US $ 52 for the hardback and eBook respectively.

Structuring stock investment funds with a limited number of qualified students

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline the problems encountered by a student-managed investment program (SMIP) when the pool of qualified finance majors is limited in number. Restructuring the program to a single-semester course and opening the class to motivated/intelligent non-finance majors increased the number of applicants, but resulted in alternative difficulties, particularly time constraints and inadequate student preparedness. A prerequisite exam and regimented classroom structure were the solutions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper discusses the problems encountered and solutions devised to address the early year difficulties experienced by a newly developed SMIP at a relatively small university. The core of the paper chronicles the classroom approach to solving the main problem of a single-semester portfolio management course, the handling of an investment learning curve in a short period of time.FindingsThough empirically limited due to the program’s infancy, portfolio performance has been encouraging and student feedback exceptional. Regarding the former, stocks purchased by the fund have created greater wealth in total than that of equal dollar investments in an S&P500 index fund.Practical implicationsUniversities interested in running a student-managed fund should feel secure in a one-semester approach, regardless of talent pool size, as measured by the number of motivated, intelligent finance majors.Originality/valueAside from the uniqueness of requiring a mastery of entrance exam investing materials prior to the first class, this paper’s outline of core portfolio management activities includes several strategies and methods meant to streamline the process within a groupthink design.

Decolonizing Desires and Unsettling Musicology: A Settler’s Personal Story of Researching and Teaching Indigenous Music at an American University

For those of us with decolonial desires, the university classroom is a potential space of disruption and reorganization. Our courses, course materials, teaching tools, students, and our own bodies and minds are all technologies that can subvert the colonial machine (la paperson 2017). In the first section, I contextualize my decolonial desires as a non-U.S.-citizen settler Canadian musicologist in the United States. The work of David Garneau, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Andrea Smith, Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang illuminates my positionality and power. In the second section, I provide an example of one way I’m disrupting the typical curricula and classroom experiences in a Euro-American classical music school. I discuss my course entitled “North American Indigenous Music Seminar” (NAIMS), including the course structure and content, and decolonizing strategies. Student responses to interviews about the course are interspersed with the discussion of my seminar plans and challenges to claims of “decolonization.” Their responses reveal some successes and many limits for anti-colonial and decolonial work in a single-semester course.

Health and wholeness undergraduate course in Uganda: Potential public health impact and transferability

Over 26,000 students at a major Christian University in Uganda have completed a single semester course on Health and Wholeness. While common in other higher education contexts, general education courses and health education courses in particular are uncommon in the Africa higher education context. This course therefore is a bold initiative by Uganda Christian University. The course is designed to help students in a wide range of programs understand how to promote and improve health in their own lives as well as their homes, communities, workplace, and society. Students learn about the definitions of health and wholeness. They discuss hygiene; nutrition; sanitation, water, and land use; common occurring health problems, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections; sexuality; first aid and early intervention; family health, dependence, fitness and life skills, and leadership for a healthy society. Through discussion, students are expected to identify factors that hinder or enhance health. Challenges and lessons learned in the course include confronting cultural practices, improving critical analysis skills, addressing information at the right technical level, and improving behavior change. Because graduates come from, and move on to, virtually all facets of economic, civil, and social life in Uganda and beyond, this course could carry tremendous potential to improve the public’s health.

Frances

Students in all areas of computing require knowledge of the computing device including software implementation at the machine level. Several courses in computer science curricula address these low-level details such as computer architecture and assembly languages. For such courses, there are advantages to studying real architectures instead of simplified examples. However, real architectures and instruction sets introduce complexity that makes them difficult to grasp in a single semester course. Visualization techniques can help ease this burden, unfortunately existing tools are often difficult to use and consequently difficult to adopt in a course where time is already limited. To solve this problem, we present Frances. Frances graphically illustrates key differences between familiar high-level languages and unfamiliar low-level languages and also illustrates how familiar high-level programs behave on real architectures. Key to this tool is that we use a simple Web interface that requires no setup, easing course adoption hurdles. We also include several features that further enhance its usefulness in a classroom setting. These features include graphical relationships between high-level code and machine code, clearly illustrated step-by-step machine state transitions, color coding to make instruction behavior clear, and illustration of pointers. We have used Frances in courses and performed experimental evaluation. Our experiences with Frances in the classroom demonstrate its usability. Most notably, in our experimental setting, students with no computer architecture course experience were able to complete lessons using Frances with no guidance.

Teaching Focus Group Interviewing

Focus group interviewing is widely used by academic and applied researchers. Given the popularity and strengths of this method, it is surprising how rarely focus group interviewing is taught in the undergraduate classroom and how few resources exist to support instructors who wish to train students to use this technique. This article fills the gap in the teaching and learning literature in sociology by addressing focus group research. I describe how to integrate a complete research project with student-led focus groups into a single semester course. I outline the various stages involved in the research process and then consider how this approach enhances three specific areas: learning, teaching, and scholarship. The effectiveness of the focus group project was assessed through a one-group pretest-posttest survey of the student-researchers’ experiences. I conclude with a reflection on the practical limitations as well as the considerable advantages of training students to conduct focus group research.

University of South Alabama College of Medicine

University of South Alabama College of Medicine

Improving critical thinking using web based argument mapping exercises with automated feedback

<span>In this paper we describe a simple software system that allows students to practise their critical thinking skills by constructing argument maps of natural language arguments. As the students construct their maps of an argument, the system provides automatic, real time feedback on their progress. We outline the background and theoretical framework that led to the development of the system and then give a detailed example of how a student would work through a particular argument mapping exercise using the software. We then describe how the system was used in a single semester undergraduate critical thinking course. We evaluated the course using a standardised critical thinking test and measured an improvement in critical thinking skills of 0.45 standard deviations from pre-test to post-test; a modest, but encouraging result for a single semester course. We compare these results to those obtained in a number of other critical thinking courses, incorporating a variety of teaching methods. We conclude the paper with some comments on the limitations of the system and ways in which it might be improved and extended.</span>

PHYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES MEET INFORMATION EXPLOSION

![Figure][1] J. L. Nation's 2nd edition of `Insect Physiology and Biochemistry', which builds on the 1st edition published in 2002, provides a timely, updated snapshot of modern insect physiology. The book strives to be comprehensive, and the array of topics covered is impressive – from

Current Status of Undergraduate Teaching of Otorhinolaryngology in Spain

Otolaryngology is a branch of medicine of great importance for doctors working in general practice. The goal of this paper is to analyze the otolaryngology syllabuses of the medical schools in Spain. The data for this article were obtained from 2 sources: a) the web sites of the 27 medical schools with syllabuses available on the Internet, and b) a medline search using the terms undergraduate medical education and otolaryngology/otorhinolaryngology. At all the schools consulted, otolaryngology is a core subject, in most of them a single semester course. In most cases it is taught in the 4th or 5th year (92.6 %). Undergraduate teaching in otolaryngology consists of about 30 lectures. The time available for practical teaching varies greatly between 20 and 60 hours. Otolaryngology in Spain is a core subject during the specialization stage of the degree, allocated a mean of 7 credits.

Laboratory Experiments for Electrical Insulation Courses Using a New High-Voltage Cell

The objective of the study is to introduce the use of a computer-aided designed high-voltage cell for teaching electrical insulation. The cell allows students to make real applications in high voltage (HV) topics taught in a single-semester course for senior undergraduate students. The system is constituted of two main parts. The first part is a metal cell which consists of a 220 V/0-100 kV HV transformer, a variable transformer driven by an a.c. motor and a motor driver. The second part is a hand-made electrode system made of tempered glass. The system was controlled manually or automatically using a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), an operation panel and a computer. In experiments, polyester films are used at various thicknesses as a solid insulation, and transformer oil is also used as a liquid insulation. Each student measures the breakdown voltages under various conditions for solid and liquid insulation using this system. Dielectric strength and ageing of the insulation were determined by computing the mean of the data obtained by each group of students from the experiments. The results and educational benefits are also presented in this paper.

A Low-Cost Wireless Platform for First-Year Interdisciplinary Projects

This paper presents a low-cost wireless circuit that is demonstrated to be a simple, yet flexible platform to support a variety of low-level educational activities. The circuit, implemented by many for K-12 outreach activities, is based on a 555-timer and an AM radio transmitter. At the University of Vermont, Burlington, this CricketSat circuit has enabled the development of a wide variety of wireless sensor and actuator projects. In this paper, design specifics, circuit utilization within an interdisciplinary first-year design course, and assessment results are presented. The novelty of the approach is twofold. First, the course and projects pertain to the area of wireless sensor networks. Second, student groups come up with their own project applications and problem statements for which to design a system. The key finding is that this platform has enabled students to take ownership of a concept and bring it to a working reality within the time constraints of a single semester course.

Review of Decisions under Uncertainty by Ian JordaanDecisions under UncertaintyCambridge University Press13 978-0-521-78277-5$110.00

Ross B. Corotis University of Colorado at Boulder. E-mail: Corotis@colorado.edu This book takes a very interesting approach to the treatment of uncertainty and its role in decision making. The author, who has extensive background in both academia and industry, uses an intuitive argument whenever possible to derive common laws of probability. As such, he intends the book as “an introduction to probability for engineers” quoted from the Preface , and appropriate for use in an engineering curriculum; exercises are included at the end of each chapter. This approach has a distinct advantage for such use in contrast to the more traditional mathematical foundation, from which most engineering students are discouraged by a perceived lack of applicability. Based on the author’s experience, it seems that the book would fit best into an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum, since applications are focused on decisions for the built environment. How the book fares in comparison to the two common probability texts oriented toward civil engineers, Probability, Statistics and Decision, by Jack Benjamin and Allin Cornell and Probability Concepts in Engineering Planning and Design, by Alfredo Ang and Wilson Tang, is unclear. Since these latter two were written about 3 decades ago, Jordaan’s book starts off with the advantage of current examples. Several of the topics in the book are normally considered only at the graduate level of engineering education spectral analysis of random processes, optimization theory, and extreme value theory, etc. , and the inclusion of these may make the book somewhat daunting to undergraduate students. The stated goal that the book “will be of use to practicing engineers” is probably one more of hope than reality since the mathematics and details of examples quickly moves beyond the interest level of most professionals looking for answers. For instance, the book makes the argument that “... probability is not a frequency... We use frequencies to estimate probabilities; this distinction is important.” This may be true, but the importance and subtlety of the distinction is not expected to capture the attention and interest of practicing engineers. This book encompasses a much broader array of topics than is typically covered in a single-semester course. In addition to traditional probability theory, it has extensive coverage of utility theory, which the author states is as fundamental as probability theory in the process of decision making he refers to them as being “related dually” . The author also denotes significant space throughout the book to formal consideration of Bayesian methods, based on his evaluation that engineers are continually faced with the prospect of new information, which should be incorporated into their decision process. It remains to be seen whether the breadth of topics, including entropy and optimization, decreases the depth of coverage of more traditional probabilistic and statistical concepts to the point where students will find the concepts somewhat difficult to follow. Chapter one, entitled “Uncertainty and decision-making,” provides a very nice overview of the role of probability analysis in

Music of the Renaissance. By Giulio Ongaro. pp. xvi + 202. (Greenwood, Westport, Conn. and Oxford, 2003, £23.99. ISBN 0-313-32263-5.)

Unlike other recent surveys with similar titles, this book is addressed to a general audience, aimed particularly at first-year undergraduates or the equivalent. As such, it attempts to distil the necessary information for an understanding of Renaissance music into a single-semester course for non-music majors with little or no musical literacy. This is not an easy task for a specialist, but it is a very important one to undertake at this time. While many may bemoan the lack of interest of present-day students in early music, at least compared to their counterparts of even ten years ago, Giulio Ongaro has set out to do something about it and has produced a readable account for the non-specialist, published by a press which concentrates on college textbooks and survey books. The focus of the book is not on the music itself but on those who composed and performed it and on the conditions under which it was created and performed. There are very few music examples—understandably, given the target readership. In the only chapter to deal with specific instances of the musical product (‘Musical Genres of the Renaissance’) the discussion is entirely confined to the literary texts of the particular frottola, madrigal, chanson, etc. chosen for a closer look (in sections marked off by italic type). This is, I feel, a weakness. While those who already know the music of the period can easily recall these well-known examples, for those who do not the discussion in this chapter and elsewhere lacks a musical context and provides no opportunity to auralize the music. It is difficult to imagine a similar book on the art of the Renaissance without any illustrations, and equally this book needs an aural accompaniment, which might have been provided via a CD or, probably more usefully these days, via the publisher’s website. Nor is there any attempt to recommend recordings, even for those eight pieces examined in some detail in the ‘Musical Genres’ chapter. At the end of the book, under the heading ‘Further readings: recordings’ the author bemoans the fact that ‘books surveying this period do not come with a set of CDs illustrating the music’ and cites the specialization in terms of repertory as a difficulty in recommending particular recordings. He suggests that the reader enquire at a good record shop—something of a cop-out, particularly given the demise of so many such specialized shops in recent years. When the book is used as a textbook the teacher can, of course, provide the necessary aural illustrations, but the general reader will be left unguided in exploring the actual sound of the music of the period (or at least modern re-creations of it).

Teaching Digital Design to Computing Science Students in a Single Academic Term

How should digital design be taught to computing science students in a single one-semester course? This work advocates the use of state-of-the-art design tools and programmable devices and presents a series of laboratory exercises to help students learn digital logic. Each exercise introduces new concepts and produces the complete design of a stand-alone apparatus that is fun and interesting to use. These exercises lead to the most challenging capstone designs for a single-semester course of which the authors are aware. Fast progress is made possible by providing students with predesigned input/output modules. Student feedback demonstrates that the students approve of this methodology. An extensive set of slides, supporting teaching material, and laboratory exercises are freely available for downloading.

Reconciling a traditional syllabus with an inquiry-based introductory course

This paper outlines a new approach that permits the use of an inquiry-based style of learning while still meeting the requirements typical of a more traditional lecture and content-based format. The students are informed of the overall course objectives and given the freedom to choose how they will meet these goals. The goals and outcomes of the course or unit are described in detail using a rubric; a large set of problems to solve is collected or created, and the solutions to the problems are analyzed and mapped onto the course rubric. By providing students with this very large set of pre-analyzed problems from which to choose, it is possible to permit learners a great deal of freedom. The mechanism for verifiable accountability is created through the mapping of the solutions onto the course rubric. This design was used in a first-year single semester course in the fall of 2003, and a preliminary assessment of this method's viability is provided.

Medicinal Chemistry - An Introduction; Fundamentals of Medicinal Chemistry (Gareth Thomas)

To cover the need for both a user-friendly and a more rigorous text, Thomas has written two books designed for a single semester course: Medicinal Chemistry—An Introduction and Fundamentals of Medicinal Chemistry.

Are there Learning Spillovers in Introductory Macroeconomics?

This study examines the effect on learning outcomes for given topics in macroeconomics of conflating a two-semester micro and macroeconomics course into a one-semester combined micro/macro course by dropping some topics. A hypothesis that learning spillovers exist between topics is developed and tested. This is done by comparing examination results on a given set of multiple-choice questions for two large groups of students – one who had undertaken a single-semester course in macroeconomics and another who had undertaken a single-semester combined micro/macroeconomics course. In our sample, the latter group of students scored significantly less on average than the former group, after controlling for other factors, even though both had ‘learned’ the same topics that were examined. This suggests that positive learning spillovers do exist between topics and therefore that dropping some topics reduces the quality of learning outcomes on other topics. This has implications for the apparent trend towards reducing the mandatory number of economics units in business degrees in Australia from two to one.