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The Evolution of Student Engagement: Writing Improves Teaching in Introductory Biology
In response to calls for pedagogical reforms in undergraduate biology courses to decrease student attrition rates and increase active learning, this article describes one faculty member’s conversion from traditional teaching methods to more engaging forms of practice. Partially told as a narrative, this article illustrates a.) the way many faculty initially learn to teach by modeling the pedagogy from their own undergraduate programs; b.) the kind of support biology faculty may need to break out of traditional molds; c.) how writing can promote active learning; and d.) the impact of reformed pedagogy on student levels of engagement. The latter will be demonstrated through assessment results gathered from student surveys, reflective writing, and focus group interview. Ultimately, the study challenges misunderstandings some faculty might have regarding the value of writing in science classes and offers inspiration, urging critical reflection and persistence
Agribusiness Capstone Courses Design: Objectives and Strategies
This paper discusses the benefits of using strategic management principles as the cornerstone for building the agribusiness capstone experience. The necessity for agribusiness firms to create and implement strategies that build a sustainable competitive advantage in turn necessitates the development of strategic management skills in the leaders/managers of the future. As such, the objectives of a capstone course lean heavily toward the integrative development of strategic decision-making competence. This has a number of implications for the capstone professor in terms of course content, pedagogies, and subsequent measurement of student performance.Agribusiness, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,
Evaluation of team dynamic in Norwegian projects for IT students
The need for teaching realistic software development in project courses has
increased in a global scale. It has always been challenges in cooperating
fast-changing software technologies, development methodologies and teamwork.
Moreover, such project courses need to be designed in the connection to
existing theoretical courses. We performed a large-scale research on student
performance in Software Engineering projects in Norwegian universities. This
paper investigates four aspects of team dynamics, which are team reflection,
leadership, decision making and task assignment in order to improve student
learning. Data was collected from student projects in 4 years at two
universities. We found that some leader's characteristics are perceived
differently for female and male leaders, including the perception of leaders as
skilful workers or visionaries. Leadership is still a challenging aspect to
teach, and assigned leadership is probably not the best way to learn. Students
is are performing well in task review, however, needs support while performing
task assignment. The result also suggests that task management to be done in
more fine-grained levels. It is also important to maintain an open and active
discussion to facilitate effective group decision makings
Virtual Capstone Design Teams: Preparing for Global Innovation (Journal article)
Global innovation requires collaboration between groups of people located in different parts of the world, and is a growing trend in industry. Virtual teams are often used to manage new product development projects. These teams are similar to traditional teams but are geographically separated and rely heavily on virtual methods of communication (email, Skype, teleconferencing, etc.) instead of regular face-to-face meetings. Experience working as a member of a virtual capstone design team can help prepare students for this growing trend. To begin preparing students for work on virtual teams in industry, we co-advised two virtual capstone design projects with students from Marquette University and Smith College. This paper describes our experience with managing two virtual capstone design project teams across institutions. Presented here are the challenges we encountered, the lessons we learned as a result of this experience, as well our recommendations for others who might want to include virtual project teams in their capstone design courses. We also include retrospective feedback from the students on these teams regarding their perceived value of their virtual team experience to their careers in engineering
Scrum2Kanban: Integrating Kanban and Scrum in a University Software Engineering Capstone Course
Using university capstone courses to teach agile software development
methodologies has become commonplace, as agile methods have gained support in
professional software development. This usually means students are introduced
to and work with the currently most popular agile methodology: Scrum. However,
as the agile methods employed in the industry change and are adapted to
different contexts, university courses must follow suit. A prime example of
this is the Kanban method, which has recently gathered attention in the
industry. In this paper, we describe a capstone course design, which adds the
hands-on learning of the lean principles advocated by Kanban into a capstone
project run with Scrum. This both ensures that students are aware of recent
process frameworks and ideas as well as gain a more thorough overview of how
agile methods can be employed in practice. We describe the details of the
course and analyze the participating students' perceptions as well as our
observations. We analyze the development artifacts, created by students during
the course in respect to the two different development methodologies. We
further present a summary of the lessons learned as well as recommendations for
future similar courses. The survey conducted at the end of the course revealed
an overwhelmingly positive attitude of students towards the integration of
Kanban into the course
Closing the gap between business undergraduate education and the organisational environment: A Chilean case study applying experiential learning theory
In response to the continuous changes in Latin American higher education and the increasing demands for better prepared professionals, the Learning Connected to the Organisational Environment method was introduced in the course of Marketing at one public University in Chile. This was aimed as an integrated approach to education, providing pedagogical and social value by connecting organisations and real challenges with the learning objectives. This paper describes its design, implementation and initial impact on students’ learning process. Results on the impact of the LCOE method show that students valued learning with this new initiative (n = 158) and showed higher performance and improved quality of their written reports, along with higher evaluations of the teaching staff compared to students in the same course learning with traditional methods (n = 158). Discussion is centred on the value of this initiative and on suggestions for transference and future research
THE CAPSTONE EXPERIENCE COURSE IN AGRICULTURAL CURRICULUM
Capstone courses are being developed in colleges of agriculture in response to demands from agribusiness firms, students, and other university stakeholders. With data from a faculty survey, the factors affecting the success of capstone courses in agricultural economics as well as other agricultural disciplines are identified.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,
Challenges for Science and Mathematics Faculty
The increased science and mathematics teacher licensure requirements for K-8 teachers are clearly necessary to prepare teachers to appropriately teach the new Virginia SOLs [1]; The expectations of a program equivalent to 12 hours of science and 12 hours of mathematics for the PreK-6 endorsement and the 21 hours each of math and science to teach middle school math and science must be chosen very carefully indeed if future teachers are to be prepared to teach the specific SOL content, as well as practical applications and the use of appropriate technology“. Most Virginia colleges and universities are not currently offering the appropriate courses nor the courses taught in the appropriate manner to meet new licensure requirements. Both interdisciplinary courses and interdisciplinary degree programs may be required
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