Upper-level Course Research Articles

Developing Prerequisite Skills in a CURE through Competency-Based Assignments

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are increasingly popular, but less often implemented in core laboratory courses due to the strict learning objectives necessary for follow-on courses. A curricular core intermediate- level experimental biosciences laboratory course was implemented, which paired competency-based assignments with client-serving research projects to develop the prerequisite skills for upper-level courses in the context of authentic research. This CURE led to more favorable student outcomes and more positive perceptions than the previous course design. This approach was piloted at a private, research-intensive university in fall 2015 and scaled to full implementation the following year. Several considerations and the necessary resources for such a scaling are discussed.

The Prevalence of Teacher Tracking in High School Mathematics Departments

This study examined the prevalence of teacher tracking in a population of 1,822 mathematics teachers in 184 high schools in a single state. Results showed that 70% of teachers were tracked by course level, course track, or both. Three fourths of high schools tracked at least 58% of their mathematics teachers. We also found significant differences in teaching assignments across quintiles of years of experience at a teacher’s current school. First-quintile teachers were the most likely to be assigned low-track or entry-level courses. In contrast, fifth-quintile teachers were the most likely to be assigned high-track or upper-level courses. These findings indicate that the tracking of mathematics teachers is a prevalent and persistent inequitable structure in most high schools.

A Study of Ungrading in Upper-level Political Theory Courses

This paper presents results from qualitative student reflections from three upper-level courses taught using the “ungrading” pedagogy. This is a pedagogy that emphasizes student learning and self-evaluation by omitting quantitative grades, replacing them with a structure where students evaluate themselves and define their own grades for the course. This work draws on comments taken from student reflections and personal accounts of the course design and outcomes presented as a comprehensive reflection on the pedagogy. The goal of these reflections is to present the advantages and challenges of using such a system and a firsthand account for instructors who are interested in alternative grading schemes. Overall, students found ungrading to be initially worrying, but ultimately rewarding. Student work improved and individual students reflected on the innovative nature of the class, providing concrete suggestions for future iterations.

BREATHING LIFE INTO CONVERSATIONS ON DEATH: USING A DEATH CAFÉ MODEL IN A SERVICE-LEARNING PROJECT

Abstract This poster presentation describes a project from an upper-level course on death and dying (part of a gerontology program at a small Midwest college). The course derives from the work of Phillipe Ariès’s book, The Hour of Our Death. Ariès traced five patterns across time and showed why death had become an uncomfortable truth for those of us living now. In essence, death has been banished from our daily lives. Other research suggests that younger healthcare professionals are particularly uncomfortable interacting with dying clients and may withdraw from them at this important life juncture. Finally, frustration with textbook development of cultural approaches to dying and death (often varied cultural groups, e.g., Asian Americans, are lumped together as if all Asian-Americans share death related practices) led to design of this unique service-learning project. Students, and community members who are experts on various faith/cultural practices take part in a modified death café. Students from an OLLI program are invited to participate, too. We report on qualitative data taken from student reflections. Content analyses of reflective essays identified these themes: (a) new insights/questions about death encounters/attitudes/practices in America (b) willingness to assimilate and accommodate various aspects of other cultural approaches to death into one’s own philosophy; (c) feelings of accomplishment/awareness of new skills in providing community-based support to people isolated during the pandemic; (d) understandings related to the importance/value of community service and civic engagement; and (e) new found comfort in openly discussing death concepts in this supportive environment.

High-Priced Textbooks’ Impact on Community College Student Success

Objective: This research study examined textbook costs and student success rates at one community college in the Southwest United States. Method: Descriptive statistics were used in the study to identify the mean textbook costs and student success rates over five semesters. Chi-square tests for independence were used to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between textbook costs and student success rates based on course level of lower or upper-level courses. Results: The chi-square tests of independence found a statistically significant relationship between textbook costs and student success rates in lower and upper-level courses. Contributions: Research shows college students often opt not to purchase commercial textbooks due to costs, thus resulting in higher D, F, and W rates. The results of this study support numerous recent research studies on the impact of textbook costs and student success.

Observing Evolution: Peppered Moths and the Discovery of Parallel Melanism

Observing Evolution: Peppered Moths and the Discovery of Parallel Melanism

Leaving Victorian Studies Behind: The Case of Vassar College

Much of the recent reflection on nineteenth-century global studies has focused on research, graduate program(me)s, or upper-level courses. This essay recounts the transformation of the Program in Victorian Studies at Vassar College, one of the few institutions in North America offering an undergraduate degree in Victorian Studies, into a global nineteenth-century studies program. The new multidisciplinary program prioritizes teaching at the 100-level in order to prepare students to take a global perspective into advanced courses. Its introductory team-taught course, ‘Revolution, Evolution, and the Global Nineteenth Century’, is the place where the Vassar faculty work out both the practical and theoretical challenges of teaching ‘the global’, such as how to incorporate non-Anglophone materials as well as science and technology into a global curriculum. The course - and the program more broadly - constitute a serious effort to decolonize the study of the nineteenth century at the undergraduate level.

Introducing Undergraduate Students to Kinesiology Using Team-Based Learning

ABSTRACT Team-based learning (TBL) is an evidence-based collaborative pedagogical strategy that engages student knowledge through group collaboration. Using TBL, a course is designed around units of instruction, referred to as modules. TBL has been found to motivate students by holding them accountable to themselves and their peers, while also introducing them to a variety of thought processes. Furthermore, research indicates that students have reported growing in their creative thinking and oral communication. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine undergraduate kinesiology students’ experiences of using TBL in an introductory course. Researchers were interested in the advantages of building communities of practice within the scholastic setting as well as using a “flipped” classroom to better prepare students for upper level courses. In order to build the course, a team of faculty brought expertise from each of the core sub-disciplines in kinesiology. The introductory course instructor then taught the course using TBL throughout the semester, including Readiness Assurance Tests, Decision Based Questions, and application based projects all done in their semester-long designated team during class instruction time. Students participated in an entry and exit interview which focused on exploring pre and post course preparedness, course engagement and communication styles, and overall feelings toward group work. Results indicated that students had overall more positive experiences and feelings toward group work and classroom engagement, while still valuing their instructor in a flipped classroom setting.

Perspectives on How 1.5 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic Have Impacted Biophysicists at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

Perspectives on How 1.5 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic Have Impacted Biophysicists at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions

Interdisciplinary curriculum for computational neuroscience at primarily undergraduate institutions

Developing interdisciplinary undergraduate courses is challenging at all levels; it requires involving trained faculty who can successfully cover more than one discipline and creating a new curriculum that crosses discipline boundaries. While such integrative curricula are expected in a graduate school setting, they are challenging at the undergraduate level since they require proficiency in multiple disciplines. However, making this transition to interdisciplinary, project-based teaching at the undergraduate level gives a competitive edge to undergraduates. As part of a broader effort of developing a comprehensive neuroscience curriculum, we implemented an interdisciplinary, one-semester, upper-level course called Biophysical Modeling of Excitable Cells (BMEC). The course exposes undergraduate students to broad areas of computational biology. It focuses on computational neuroscience, develops scientific literacy, and promotes teamwork between biology, psychology, physics, and mathematics-oriented undergraduates. This course also provides pedagogical experience for senior Ph.D. students in Neuroscience. BMEC is a three contact hours per week lecture-based course that includes a set of computer-based activities designed to gradually increase the undergraduates’ ability to apply mathematics and computational concepts to solving biologically-relevant problems. The class brings together two different groups of students with very dissimilar and complementary backgrounds, i.e., biology/psychology and physics/mathematics oriented. The teamwork allows students with more substantial biology/psychology backgrounds to explain to physics/mathematics students the biological implications and instill realism into the computer modeling project they completed for this class. Simultaneously, students with substantial physics/mathematics backgrounds can apply techniques learned in specialized mathematics, physics, or computer science classes to generate mathematical hypotheses and implement them in computer codes. This study expands on Oprisan (2021) by including examples of hands-on activities, student projects, and a brief overview of course assessment tools and results. This study also includes more recent approaches to teaching computational neuroscience using cloud computing.

Integrating Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Into the Undergraduate Psychology Curriculum: An Upper-Level Laboratory Course Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Background Psychology has seen a recent explosion in the use of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) to understand cognition. The prevalence of techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in published research has grown immensely in the past decade; however, there has been little effort to incorporate these techniques into the undergraduate curriculum through course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). Objective To demonstrate the feasibility of creating a CURE focused on tDCS and to offer practical advice on how to create one at other institutions. Method I present a novel undergraduate CURE focused on tDCS, as well as practical advice on how to teach about and safely implement student-driven tDCS experiments. Results Undergraduate students learned about and engaged first-hand in their own non-invasive brain stimulation research in an upper-level psychology laboratory course. Conclusion An undergraduate laboratory course that focuses on non-invasive brain stimulation has a range of potential benefits for students and instructors alike. Furthermore, it allows undergraduates to gain experience using a rapidly growing neuroscientific methodology. Teaching Implications Given that tDCS is a safe and relatively inexpensive method of modulating brain function, the present course demonstrates the ease, and potential advantages, of incorporating NIBS into the undergraduate psychology curriculum.

Analysis of Engineering Technology Students’ Digital Footprints in Synchronous and Asynchronous Blended Courses

The advent of Covid-19 provided an enormous academic and logistical challenge to almost all academic institutions in the United States and around the world. As a precautionary measure surrounding the novel coronavirus and in line with recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at that time (spring 2020), most higher education institutions in the United States shut down campuses and completed the second half of the spring 2020 semester virtually. During the fall 2020 semester, when relatively more was known about the virus, some institutions started with face-to-face classes but had to switch to virtual learning after noticing a spread of the coronavirus on their campuses. Others adopted a blended approach that supplements face-to-face meetings with virtual learning synchronously or asynchronously. Whichever approach adopted in place of the traditional face-to-face meetings did not necessarily solve the challenge faced by Engineering Technology programs, which typically infuse hands-on learning in most of the courses in their curriculum. Due to the applied nature of engineering technology, it is important to ensure that students stay engaged with creative ways to learn by doing. And to ensure that the students do not miss critical course content in virtual and blended engineering technology courses, it is vital that the students maintain high interactions with online resources such as class video recordings. This paper reviews students’ patterns of interactions with course videos to assess its impact on the academic success of engineering technology students in some upper-level blended courses delivered during the spring and fall 2020 semesters.

Teaching the economics of sports

A course on the economics of sports provides a unique opportunity to the economics department but confronts the instructor with unique challenges. Students in such a class are likely to be more heterogeneous and more likely to enter the class with inappropriate expectations than is the case for a typical upper-level economics elective. The author of this article discusses the problems an instructor in an economics of sports course will encounter and how s/he might overcome them. Particular emphasis is placed on the use of technology in the classroom and on how an economics of sports class might enable the instructor to raise issues of inclusion/exclusion in a nonthreatening manner. A course on the economics of sports provides a unique opportunity to economics departments. Because of the outsized interest of the American public in sports, an undergraduate course in the economics of sports can be a magnet that attracts students who otherwise might shy away from an upper-level economics course. It is far more likely to attract non-majors than our traditional offerings in labor economics or monetary theory.

COVID’s impact on small business: the case of SPR industries a distributor of PPEs

Theoretical basis The case delves into supply, demand, price gouging, hoarding and capabilities of the firm. The theories/concepts and a short overview are covered below. These theories and concepts are then referenced as appropriate in the “Answers to Discussion Questions” section as follows: Supply Demand Theory; Price Gouging, Speculation and Hoarding; Resources, Capabilities and Activities; Friedman’s and Porter’s view of goals of a firm; Corporate Social Responsibility. Research methodology The case was motivated after a discussion with Mr Matthew Roberts, who is the Chief Operating Officer of SPR Industries. Several subsequent interviews were conducted with Matt. Matt also became the chief protagonist of the case. Matt provided multiple quotes and anecdotes. The protagonist Matt and the focal organization (SPR Industries) are disguised. The financial figures have also been disguised using a multiplier. However, the material facts of the case are authentic. Case overview/synopsis This case sheds light on the impact of the COVID pandemic on a small business in the personal protective equipment industry. The students will get an understanding of the supply and demand forces in a market. Furthermore, the case bears out how unpredictable situations such as the pandemic lead to speculation and price gouging opportunities but not in all products affected by it. The case explores the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of firms regarding price gouging in their products. Students will also get an appreciation of how an industry and its participants change in response to such black swan events as the COVID pandemic. Finally, the case presents a small enterprise’s decision choices â?? Should they maintain the status quo, become a sub-broker or become a wholesaler. Complexity academic level This case is designed to target undergraduate students of strategic management or entrepreneurship. It could be appropriate for upper level courses such as Strategic Management, Small Business Management and maybe even Family Business Management. It could be taught in the latter half of the course after the basic concepts have been covered. This case could bring together many of the concepts into a real-life setting.

Embracing Age-Inclusivity Through Multimodal, Active Student Learning in a Health and Aging Policy Course

Abstract One of the goals for an upper-level undergraduate seminar course is for students to identify and discuss existing policies, programs, and resources for meeting the needs of the aging population. To encourage active student learning, the course provides a mix of readings and assignments, six intergenerational discussions, and reflective writing. The idea is that these varying experiences help foster a deep understanding of how these policies and related issues pertain and matter to everyone, not only older individuals, and how their future career and family experiences will benefit from the knowledge gained in the course regardless of their next career steps. This course model has been effective for challenging ageism, and has been taught four times, each time with modifications based on student numbers, current issues, and the pandemic. The presenter will discuss assessment methods, identify best practices, and offer suggestions for others interested in utilizing a similar model.

Assessing the use of explanatory journalistic texts for crisis communication education during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brings both challenges and opportunities to crisis communication education. This article reports on student perceptions of an upper-level undergraduate course on risk and crisis communication that was taught in the fall 2020 semester. The course syllabus was redesigned to assist students in better understanding pandemic-related communication challenges. For this purpose, I adopted explanatory journalistic texts published by The Conversation Canada as supplementary readings for weekly in-class discussions. I subsequently conducted a survey near the semester end to explore how the course attendees perceived the revised syllabus. According to the survey results, the course attendees overwhelmingly welcomed a crisis communication syllabus built around an ongoing crisis. They also expressed a strong preference for the adoption of explanatory journalistic texts as supplementary readings. Overall, this classroom assessment demonstrates the advantages of teaching crisis communication theories and principles through the combination of explanatory journalistic texts and real-world cases, which other communication courses may adopt in the future.

Multi-scale virtual field experience: sedimentology and stratigraphy of Grand Ledge, Michigan, USA

Abstract. Field experiences are a critical component of undergraduate geoscience education; however, traditional onsite field experiences are not always practical due to accessibility, and the popularity of alternative modes of learning in higher education is increasing. One way to support student access to field experiences is through virtual field trips, implemented either independently or in conjunction with in-person field trips. We created a virtual field trip (VFT) to Grand Ledge, a regionally important suite of sedimentary outcrops in central lower Michigan, USA. This VFT undertakes all stages of a field project, from question development and detailed observation through data collection to interpretation. The VFT was implemented in undergraduate sedimentation and stratigraphy courses at two different liberal arts institutions, with one version of the VFT conducted in-person and the other online. The VFT was presented from a locally hosted website and distributed through an online learning platform. Students completed a series of activities using field data in the form of outcrop photos, virtual 3D models of outcrops and hand samples, and photos of thin sections. Student products included annotated field notes, a stratigraphic column, a collaborative stratigraphic correlation, and a final written reflection. VFT assessment demonstrated that students successfully achieved the inquiry-oriented student learning outcomes, and student reflection responses provide anecdotal evidence that the field experience was comparable to field geology onsite. This VFT is an example of successful student learning in an upper-level sedimentation and stratigraphy course via virtual field experience with an emphasis on local geology.

Pedagogical Explorations in Computational Perception for Performance


 
 
 Experience using computational perception within the context of art and performance is reported. Four different types of pedagogical projects are presented: a new non-majors introductory computing course, an upper-level course covering computer vision and graphics in an integrated manner, an interactive dance piece, and a peer-led tele-workshop outreach series.
 
 

Teaching Reinforcement Learning with Mario: An Argument and Case Study

Integrating games into the computer science curriculum has been gaining acceptance in recent years, particularly when used to improve student engagement in introductory courses. This paper argues that games can also be useful in upper level courses, such as general artificial intelligence and machine learning. We provide a case study of using a Mario game in a machine learning class to provide one successful data point where both content-specific and general learning outcomes were successfully achieved

Complementary teaching approaches facilitating interdisciplinary soil science education

The complementary nature of different teaching approaches in facilitating student learning is rarely discussed in the literature. This study compared diverse teaching approaches in soil science education to explore how a combination of instructional approaches can support student learning. Student perspectives on lectures, problem-based learning, and experiential learning in three upper-level university soil science courses were assessed through student enrolment data and survey responses. Results emphasize the benefits of integrating theory and practice and support the integration of concepts from soil physics, chemistry, and biology within individual courses. All respondents who took two or more courses indicated that the distinct teaching approaches and the integration of soil physics, chemistry, and biology within individual courses were beneficial to their learning. Lectures and problem-based learning were seen as pedagogically reciprocal, with theory supporting the application of knowledge for 75% students, while others noted that having the management course first provided context for learning additional theory. A subset of students (n = 9) indicated the relevance of the interdisciplinary nature of the courses for their current employment. Our findings suggest that combining knowledge-based and competency-based approaches may support both student learning and workforce demands and that diverse teaching approaches can work together to support student learning. The research outcomes call for fellow instructors to diverge from the dichotomy of passive and active learning and to consider the complementary nature of distinct teaching strategies.