Undergraduate Classes Research Articles

Improving engagement in large undergraduate statistics tutorial classes

We investigate whether introducing the mobile polling system Poll Everywhere had a positive impact on student engagement in large tutorial classes of a second year undergraduate statistics module. In particular, a short quiz facilitated by Poll Everywhere was introduced at the beginning of the tutorial in order to promote active participation. Students’ perceptions of the Poll Everywhere quiz on their tutorial engagement and learning are also explored. We conclude that the Poll Everywhere quiz seemed to have improved student engagement in tutorials and that students believed that it made tutorials engaging and was useful for their learning.

“Reef Survivor”: A new board game designed to teach college and university undergraduate students about reef ecology, evolution, and extinction

Educational geoscience games have been increasing in popularity because they promote learning through amusement and encourage students to engage with topical material and each other. Here we describe a new board game, “Reef Survivor”, and its use as an instructional tool in undergraduate classes. The educational objective is to teach players about ecology, evolution, and environmental perturbations, while the gameplay objective is to build a resilient reef ecosystem. Through collaborative and competitive gameplay, students learn about evolution mechanics—mutation, migration, and natural selection—as well as ecology and how reefs survive natural disasters. The game blends informed decision making and chance to encourage students to learn and model complex Earth systems and evolutionary processes. Students choose their environment and reef community, whereas chance influences mutations and disasters. The game was incorporated in undergraduate classroom activities in 2021 and 2022 at 20 colleges and universities, mostly public institutions in the United States. Students were enthusiastic about the game, with two thirds saying they would rather play the game than have a normal lab. Notably, students said playing with a peer helped them learn better. Taken together, learning gains from 15 institutions were pos­itive, with significant gains by the final semester of assess­ment. Overall, learning gains were not positive during the first deployment (online) but improved substantially when refined and played in person. A print-and-play version of the game (doi: 10.18738/T8/S3KWT7), onboarding and follow-up assignments, and suggested extension activities are provided; modifications for time, course objective, and edu­cational level are also discussed.

Integrating gender into a labour economics class

This article argues that a systematic integration of gender into labour economics courses based on standard textbooks is both beneficial and straightforward. An undergraduate course in labour economics presents an ideal opportunity to introduce students to the importance of gender differences in economic outcomes. We provide a prototype of such a course, and we show how gender-aware content and pedagogical tools can complement a course based on a standard textbook or set of articles. We also review the most popular textbooks in labour economics and show how gender issues are mostly contained in a single chapter on labour market discrimination rather than thoroughly integrated throughout the text. In addition to exposing students to more diverse content and methodologies, mainstreaming gender into an undergraduate labour economics class can help cultivate inclusivity and belongingness in the discipline.

Seminar Simulations of the European Union’s Intergovernmental Institutions: The Council of Ministers and Qualified Majority Voting

The case for the use of simulations in political science seminars to provide illustrative learning of complex political process has been well demonstrated across a variety of sub-disciplines within political science. Their value to the teaching of European Union politics has also been explored and is particularly valuable for the EU’s numerous examples of complex decision-making processes. This is particularly true of the EU’s Qualified Majority of Voting (QMV) system used in its Council of Ministers. This article demonstrates the use of a QMV simulation for undergraduate EU politics classes. Achievement of learning outcomes was greatly improved versus the standard Socratic seminar method and was in confirmed student feedback.

P9: Teaching Health Disparities as Regards Cardiopulmonary Support Technologies for Underepresented/ Underserved Patients

Background: There is a growing interest in addressing health care disparities faced by underrepresented/ underserved (U/U) populations across all fields of medicine. To that end, my goal was to introduce to the undergraduate (UG) and graduate (G) bioengineering classes that I teach the challenges faced by U/U patients as regards state-of-the art cardiopulonary support technologies (CPST) for treatment of end-stage cardiac or pulmonary failure. Methods: At the University of Pittsburgh (UoP) I teach two separate UG artificial organs (AO) classes; one class focuses on cardiac assist devices and the other on pulmonary assist devices. I also teach the cardiac assist module for a G cardiovasuclar organ replacement class. Through a long-standing NSF-funded collaboration with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (Greensboro, NC), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), I also teach my AO classes to NCAT students. The NCAT courses are taught remotely (via ZOOM). For the past several years, the term projects for my UG and G artificial organs classes at UoP and NCAT have focused on i) investigating health inequities/ disparities in CPST as applied to U/U patients; and, ii) proposing innovative improvements to current CPST that benefit, particularly, U/U patients. Students are asked to address the following in their term papers and class PPT presentations: 1) current state-of-the art in CPST; 2) limitations of current CPST as applied to U/U patients; 3) unmet clinical needs for U/U patients; 4) the feasibility of the proposed innovative improvements from a product specification, regulatory and societal viewpoint. Results: Students identified numerous reference materials that highlight the inequities/ disparities that U/U patients face. The American Heart Association, the CDC and NHLBI all maintain detailed epidemiological information related to the term project topic. There also exists a plethora of peer-reviewed published articles in this regard; a few examples being, Frech et al, “Ventricular Assist Device Technology and Black-White Disparities on the Heart Transplant Wait List.” Progress in Transplantation 2021; 31(1): 80-87; Nyak et al, “Understanding the Complexity of Heart Failure Risk and Treatment in Black Patients.” Circulation Heart Failure 2020; 13: 301-314. Among the student term project topics were, “Improving VAD Technology for the African American Community;” “Blood Pressure Measurement and Management in Black Ventricular Assist Device Users;” “A Multi-Factor Approach to Improve African American Heart Health;” “Innovative Design for Cystic Fibrosis in Women of Color.” Conclusions: Student response to the term project assignment was positive. Meetings with the students demonstrated the students’ interest in the topic. The ultimate success of this assignment will be achieved, if these students are sensitive to the special needs of U/U patients and incorporate these needs in their design of biomedical devices.

Free expansion of a Gaussian wavepacket using operator manipulations

The free expansion of a Gaussian wavepacket is a problem commonly discussed in undergraduate quantum classes by directly solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation as a differential equation. In this work, we provide an alternative way to calculate the free expansion by recognizing that the Gaussian wavepacket can be thought of as the ground state of a harmonic oscillator with its frequency adjusted to give the initial width of the Gaussian, and the time evolution, given by the free-particle Hamiltonian, being the same as the application of a time-dependent squeezing operator to the harmonic oscillator ground state. Operator manipulations alone (including the Hadamard lemma and the exponential disentangling identity) then allow us to directly solve the problem. As quantum instruction evolves to include more quantum information science applications, reworking this well-known problem using a squeezing formalism will help students develop intuition for how squeezed states are used in quantum sensing.

Applying social psychology to a global crisis: Student engagement in a laboratory class during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present research examines the attitudes and perspectives of undergraduate students in an advanced social psychology laboratory class upon engaging in pandemic-related research during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this class, the students designed and conducted online studies on pandemic-related racism, stigma related to age and mask wearing, and persuasive techniques to encourage social distancing. At the end of the semester, the students responded to a survey about their experiences engaging in pandemic-related research while the pandemic was occurring. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that students learned about the applicability of social psychology to real-world phenomena and felt high levels of engagement in the research process. However, students also noted some discomfort and the emotional challenges of conducting highly relevant research during a global crisis. Thus, instructors should carefully consider whether engaging in timely and potentially emotional research is appropriate for the students in the class. Furthermore, the present study was conducted with a small undergraduate class in which a majority of the students were White women, and their experiences may not generalize to larger classes or broader populations. Taken together, the present research points to the potential promises and pitfalls of engaging in timely research on an emergency situation within a classroom setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

고전문학 교육 텍스트의 전문적 특성과 교양적 성격

Traditionally, there has been a general perception that universities are immersed in specialized research that creates new knowledge, and the contents of education established hereby are spread through secondary education. However, as Korean language education itself moved away from academic-centered knowledge education and moved to a communication-centered function center, classical literature education also has had a gradual change from the education content focusing on the existing literature theory and history of literature to education centered on the linguistic attributes of literature. Classical literature has two educational properties. One is a property that is constantly enjoyed and reinterpreted while being handed down over a long time, which has a certain emotional influence even today. This can be conceptualized as a liberal arts character. The other is the fact that it shows the original form of culture as a material that contains the appearance of life at the time. This gave it an academic status of acquiring literacy for classical texts. I attempt to conceptualize this in terms of professional characteristics. Every classical literature text has its own inherent value. However, even if the original text is valuable, it does not immediately acquire educational value. ‘Liberal arts’ refers to creative understanding or knowledge that is embodied through acquiring a certain cultural ideal, and its content changes according to the changing times or the cultural ideology of a nation. As an educational philosophy of classical literature, I emphasize that ‘culture’ has a meaning encompassing history and philosophy. Here, the concept that responds well to culture is considered liberal arts. At this time, in the case of Korea, attention is paid to the concept term of ‘culture’ in the composition of the curriculum. In the case of Japan, the concept term of ‘liberal arts’ is highlighted as important in the composition of the curriculum. Here, I will not make a value-based evaluation of the difference between the two countries. The difference in perception between the two countries is because each has its own historical background and reason. This trend comes to affect the university curriculum in Korea, and even in undergraduate major classes at universities, there has been a situation where we are thinking about new teaching methods. As a result, it shows the characteristics that flow from the existing professional characteristics to the strengthening of liberal arts characteristics.

Facilitated Study Groups for Undergraduate Organic Chemistry: Experience from a Large Public Canadian University

Undergraduate organic chemistry courses have a reputation for being difficult among students in biological and physical sciences programs. Due to the extensive problem-solving, visualization, and depiction of chemical structures/reactions required, students may perceive learning such content as similar to learning a new language. Several interventions such as course-integrated tutorials or discussion sessions have aimed to assist students. Another effective approach that chemistry educators might consider is Supplemental Instruction (SI), a well-established program that emphasizes student-driven learning whereby student SI leaders facilitate discussions to help students arrive at solutions while also developing effective communication and study skills. A type of SI, Facilitated Study Groups (FSG), established by the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) in 2009, were introduced regularly into organic chemistry courses in 2012. This program provides semester-long optional small-group peer learning sessions, each of which corresponds to a course lecture. The aim of this paper is to provide comprehensive coverage detailing the structure of the organic chemistry FSG program, peer facilitation strategies employed, quantitative/qualitative synthesis of student outcomes indicating program uptake. We consistently find significantly higher grades and significantly lower attrition rates for students who regularly attend FSG sessions in comparison to those who do not (n=16 semesters). Given the growing diversity of undergraduate classes in terms of approaches to learning, language, and cultural barriers (international students, English second-language learners, learning and psychosocial disabilities), our FSG sessions seek to foster inclusion amongst our heterogeneous pool of attendees. Here, we describe strategies that tailored FSG sessions to a diverse group of undergraduate students as suggested by a sizable percentage of the class availing themselves of this resource and by a narrative synthesis of end-of-term surveys. Together, we demonstrate successful adoption of an SI-based model for organic chemistry and present a practical framework that includes pedagogically informed session strategies and cost estimates to guide design of similar programs for post-secondary students at other institutions.

Nature’s Mountain Mansion: Wonder, Wrangles, Bloodshed, and Bellyaching from Nineteenth Century Yosemite. By Gary Noy

Gary Noy’s Nature’s Mountain Mansion presents an impressive lineup of selections pertaining to Yosemite National Park’s early history. The works generally fall within the second half of the nineteenth century. Noy offers brief introductions and analyses in between. The selections firmly place the book as a National Park history; however, Indigenous sources and perspectives, as well as those of people of color, are far less present than they could be, creating a relatively Euro-American point of view. In its own right, this compilation of sources is informative on the major influences which began and in some ways continue through Yosemite National Park’s existence. Noy’s introductions provide context and analysis which place these sources in a more contemporary light. For some, this compilation will bring to light a darker past of Yosemite than they may have known. For others, the collection will serve as a handy and quick reference to Yosemite’s most famed personas, events, and influences, making it a worthwhile read for the broader public and useful to early scholars or as source material for an undergraduate class.

Verhulst Discrete Logistic Growth

Summary In undergraduate mathematics classes, the most common discrete version of logistic growth is defined by the difference equation . While this is a natural analog of the logistic differential equation, and while in many cases it produces results similar to those of the continuous model, it can also give rise to chaotic behavior. This paper derives in a natural way an alternative discrete logistic model, defined by the Verhulst difference equation, with several noteworthy properties. For example the Verhulst equation has closed form solutions given by continuous logistic curves and never leads to chaotic behavior. Our development of the Verhulst equation also provides a beautiful example of the formulation-application-refinement cycle of mathematical modeling. For these and other reasons, the Verhulst equation deserves a place in the undergraduate curriculum alongside the more familiar logistic difference equation given above.

Student Teachers’ Experiences with Classroom Engagement in Large Undergraduate Classes in Selected Public Universities in Uganda

The rapid growth in enrolment in undergraduate teacher training programmes calls for a pedagogical innovation geared towards effective participatory classroom instruction. The purpose of this mixed study was to explore classroom engagement experiences with large classes as lived by student teachers at the selected public universities in Uganda. The level of behavioural, cognitive, emotional and agentic engagement among student teachers was investigated, as well as their experiences with these domains. Consequently, data from hermeneutical phenomenological and crosssectional survey design was triangulated. Proportionate random sampling was used to select 396 student teachers and purposive sampling was used to select nine focus groups from the selected public universities. Manifest content analysis was used to describe and infer meaning from participants’ statements. According to the mean and standard deviation ratings, large classes performed unsatisfactorily in terms of overall classroom engagement (M=3.4, SD=0.9) and agentic engagement (M=2.7, SD=1.0). However, they acknowledged being behaviourally, emotionally and cognitively engaged (M=3.6, SD=0.8; M=3.6, SD=0.9; M=3.8, SD=0.8). Focus group narratives revealed inadequate class support, incivility, social presence and interaction, passivity and discomfort experiences as key themes that influenced the participants’ engagement levels. They felt less in control of their learning experiences and had limited opportunities to make decisions that affected their learning outcomes. Social and academic responsibilities like signing attendance sheets, taking notes and meeting with friends significantly maintained class attendance. It was recommended to improve the training of lecturers in effective engagement techniques for large undergraduate classes, and universities to invest resources in providing textbooks, reference materials and digital technologies to facilitate constructive learning and classroom participation.

The impact of the pointless system of grading in an undergraduate physiology class

The pointless system of assessment is a relatively new concept and few papers have been published demonstrating its usefulness in higher education, particularly in STEM classes. The current study was undertaken to determine the usefulness of this pedagogy in assisting students to master physiological concepts. The hypothesis is that students will respond positively to this assessment and show improved mastery of concepts. All assignments and tests require written answers that involve explanation of concepts and mechanisms. All work, except exams, can be revised, and detailed feedback and rubrics are given for each assignment. Student work is rated as exceeds, meets or approaches expectations. Class work is divided into categories (writing, exams, case studies, lab handouts, lab reports) and each category is rated as exceeds, meets or approaches expectations depending on the overall quality of the work in each category. Final grades are awarded based on a matrix of how many categories are rated at each level as shown in Table 1. [Table: see text] This approach was used in spring 2021 under IRB# LUIRB03022021SS with a physiology class while students were remote. In 2021, all the students revised some of their work and learned from their revisions as evidenced by improved first drafts in subsequent work. Students seemed to master concepts better with this system as 85% of the students scored exceeds expectations on comprehensive mid-term and final exams. Student comments on a reflective writing exercise indicated that most of the students liked this approach despite the perceived increase in workload. Students indicated that they believed they learned the concepts better and they were less concerned about trying to remember minutia. This approach is currently being used for the second time during the spring 2023 semester in a face-to-face physiology course. One goal for this year is to see if the outcomes are similar in a face-to-face class. The first student assignments are due shortly, so summary data for this semester is not yet available. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Supporting the Undergraduate Study of Theology

This article explores the experience of a Research and Education librarian providing instruction, reference, and some collection development support for undergraduate theology classes while at the same time lacking expertise and experience in the field. First, it discusses the importance of providing theological librarian support for undergraduate education at Providence College. Second, the article details several of the challenges encountered providing this support. Third, and perhaps most important, it examines ways that librarians without specific theological expertise can make use of the experience and training that we do possess.

Unravelling challenges of COVID-19 pandemic through risk and controls turnaround: the case of Dots & Lines

Research methodology The focused case is a “disguised case” developed based on a real-life apparel company in Sri Lanka. The authors have disguised the company name and have not revealed the identity of the key respondents and any data, which makes the firm obvious. However, the processes and practices reported represent the actual scenario of the company (gathered through interviews done mainly with the case protagonist, General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls) and the authors have not fabricated any data. Case overview/synopsis Having established itself as a pioneer in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka, Dots & Lines reached the pinnacle of its performance in 2019. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the situation turned unfavorable: global customers canceled orders by the end of the first quarter of 2020. It experienced settlement delays, increased freight charges and supply chain barriers. The virus spread among the operational staff, leading to health and safety issues and absenteeism. On April 2020, the executive committee gathered and decided to form a position titled “General Manager (GM) – Risk and Controls” and a team to turn around the company. Dots & Lines witnessed the harvest of the risk management turnaround measures pioneered by GM – Risk and Controls, from the first quarter of 2021 with impressive revenue and profit figures. It developed a pool of key strategic customers, while key performance indicators dashboards and the risk matrix provided vital insights in moving forward. Complexity academic level The case, Dots & Lines is written for use in undergraduate and graduate-level classes in business administration and management degree programs. The focus aligns with discussions on industry competition, controls and risk management. Of further importance, the case is applicable to discussions on topics in strategic management accounting courses.

Do Most Students Need in-Person Lectures? A Study of a Large Statistics Class

Over 1100 students over four semesters were given the option of taking an introductory undergraduate statistics class either by in-person attendance in lectures or by taking exactly the same class (same instructor, recorded lectures, homework, blind grading, website, etc.) without the in-person lectures. Roughly, equal numbers of students chose each option. The online students did slightly better on computer-graded exams. The causal effect of choosing only online lectures was estimated by adjusting for measured confounders using four standard methods. The four nearly identical point estimates remained positive but were small and not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Sensitivity analysis indicated that unmeasured confounding was unlikely to be large but might plausibly reduce the point estimate to zero. No statistically significant differences were found in preliminary comparisons of effects on females/males, U.S./non-U.S. citizens, freshmen/non-freshman, and lower-scoring/higher-scoring math ACT groups.

Resolving Conflict and Fostering Cooperation: A Cross-Cultural Experiential Exercise

In an ever-increasingly diverse workforce, cross-cultural communication skills are essential for success regardless of job title or task. We present an engaging and customizable 30-minute activity designed to develop participants’ cross-cultural communication skills by increasing awareness and sensitivity to interpersonal differences in collaborative group settings. Drawing from a multiculturalism approach to diversity, participants learn that acknowledging our differences facilitates more effective and strategic communication. We provide detailed instructions for running this exercise to meet instructors’ and students’ outlined learning objectives. The debriefing questions and post-lesson reflections support an environment where facilitators and participants grow. This experiential exercise suits any discipline’s synchronous undergraduate, graduate, and professional classes.

The power of rap in music education: a study of undergraduate students’ original rap creations

AbstractAn undergraduate music class was examined that incorporated the creation of students’ individual original raps. Research was conducted to understand the value of studying rap and its impact upon students’ education. This instrumental case study utilised students’ individual raps as an art-based research component to address three research questions: 1.) How, if at all, does studying hip-hop through the creation of a rap provide a transformative experience and growth in students? 2.) How are student experiences reflected in the use of music composition through the creation of an original rap? and 3.) How does the process of creating an original rap provide insight into students’ experiences?

Tequila Arette®

Research methodology The case study is based on a series of in-depth interviews carried out with the owners and directors of the company. The data are complemented by documentary analysis, including descriptions of internal processes and industry information. For the teaching note, the authors opt for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory. Case overview/synopsis Arette® is a Mexican family business dedicated to the production and sale of tequila, fusing the artisanal with the new in its production processes. Sales take place mostly in the European and American markets. The foreign market for tequila is very attractive but also very demanding both in terms of financial resources and time. Although the company has managed to enter this market through bars and restaurants, it has not yet managed to reach the final consumers (those who order margaritas in bars). Jaime, Eduardo and Lalo are wondering whether it might be time to invest more resources in ensuring that Arette® is not just a brand for fine cocktails. Until now, their main promotional tool has been word of mouth, and they are not sure what their next step should be – to focus on the international or the domestic market. Complexity academic level The case study can be incorporated into undergraduate classes, where it could serve as part of an international marketing course, in particular, as an international sales strategy and implementation session. It can be used to teach basic concepts and their application. Learning objectives This case study focuses on the decision that many small companies have to make at some point in their business strategy, which is to focus either on the international or domestic market: The objectives are as follows: 1. To identify the variables that increase or modify the demand for Tequila. 2. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of focusing on a domestic Tequila market or focusing on an international market. 3. Identify the critical variables that a small company faces if it wants to go international such as. 4. Identify if there are forms of diversification for Tequila Arette such as new markets or new products, or both.

What undergraduate students know and what they want to learn about in climate change education

Climate change education is of great interest to many in higher education. What is missing, however, is a sense of how students view climate change especially with respect to specific impacts such as changes to food systems. We designed a survey, which focused on climate change, food systems, and GMOs. We administered this survey in a large introductory undergraduate environmental science class and compared responses to demographic information. We found that students were knowledgeable in some areas more than others; especially when considering climate change drivers and mitigating factors. We also found that students were largely concerned about climate change impacts and wanted to understand the socio-environmental solutions that might help to mitigate potential impact. These same students, however, seemed optimistic that solutions could be found and implemented. Finally, while little demographic trends emerged, students who were more knowledgeable in one area (e.g., GMOS) tended to be knowledgeable in other areas.