Chapter 2: A Native’s Flashback into the University of Dayton Global Education Seminar

A reflection on the 2018-19 Global Education Seminars in West Africa.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cip_ges_2019/1005/thumbnail.jp

Enhancing Students Learning and Assessment through Positive Reinforcement

Students’ understanding of class material, and knowledge retention are assessed through homework, exams, and a host of other methods. None of these forms of assessment is intrinsically paramount to the others; however, the benefits depend on how well they are used. A good assessment depends on the purpose and learning objectives, and one way of maximizing the benefits of assessment is to involve students in the assessment methodology. This paper evaluates the benefits of having students prepare some of the questions for their final exams. Generally, students put in more effort when they understand that they are in charge. Each student in a class of 28 was asked to prepare five questions each, which must be multiple-choice, true or false (not more than 2), or fill-in-the-blanks. They were made to understand that 75% of questions for the final exam will entirely be from the questions prepared by the class. It was hypothesized that this will strengthen students\u27 engagement with class material, and their colleagues, which may aid them to achieve a better exam score. The instructor, acted as the expert system in this case to ascertain the quality of the questions. Unlike the orthodox exams, which are entirely prepared by faculties, it is believed that this may serve as positive reinforcement for students. Thus, knowing that the bulk of the exams questions were prepared by their colleagues, the desire to get a good score will be high, and ultimately translate to better material engagement and better exam score

U.S Inflight Icing Accidents and Incidents, 2006 to 2010.

Through its recommendations, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has helped the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) introduce regulations that have helped to curtail icing accidents1 (an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft where as a result of the operation of an aircraft, any person receives fatal or serious injury or any aircraft receives substantial damage) and incidents1 (an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operations). However, the only acceptable safety goal of zero accident, proposed by former Secretary of Transportation, Federico Fabian Pena, has not materialized. The aviation industry each year experiences more accidents and incidents. Steven D. Green of Flight Operations Research, Underhill, Vermont, researched US inflight icing accidents and incidents from 1978 to 2005.3 Using the NTSB online database, he observed that 645 accidents and incidents occurred in the US from 1978 to 2005. He identified another 299 incidents in the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) reports during the same period. The purpose of this thesis is to update and expand upon Mr. Green\u27s research by studying US inflight icing accidents and incidents from 2006 to 2010. The NTSB and ASRS databases were respectively, the primary means of obtaining accident and incident reports. The databases revealed 228 icing related accidents and 30 inflight icing related incidents from 2006 to 2010. Forty of the accidents were related to inflight icing occurring on the wings, fuselage or control surfaces.From all of the reports sampled it was determined that an aircraft in cruise is more likely to accrete ice than in any other phase of flight. Furthermore, aircraft in cruise are more prone toVIinflight icing during instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) than in visual meteorological conditions (VMC). Throughout this report there did not appear to be a direct correlation between the number of flights and inflight icing accidents or incidents. Additionally, it was determined that icing events depended more upon the ice protection system (IPS) equipment, its use and effectiveness, as well as the management of ice accretion by the aircre

Effects of Service Projects on the Perceived Skills of Engineering Technology Students

Client based service projects offer many advantages to instructors, students and host communities. However, instructors must carefully choose the projects in order to achieve the benefits that come with this pedagogical tool. The purpose of this research was to investigate the perception of engineering technology students on how different service projects influence performance and perceived skills. A modified perceived skill model was used to measure the perceived effect of the team based service projects on: motivation to learn, contribution to research knowledge, skills and personal benefit, and project as a learning device. The projects were either client based or non-client based. In addition, they were categorized as either engineering, non-engineering, or some engineering projects. The non-engineering were the projects with no engineering content, whereas those with some form of engineering content were classified as some engineering. From the results, it appears that all the project types and categories were highly perceived by the students as contributing to their perceived skills. They were also highly perceived as great learning tools. Additionally, the projects with engineering content (client based and non-client based) provided a significantly higher perceived motivation to learn. However, there was no significant difference in the exam performance

Work in Progress: Students\u27 Perception of Collaborative online International Learning

Teaching and learning in the digital age harness the opportunities created by internet technologies to distribute and learn various information all over the world. This is commonly referred to as connectivism, and it values the impact of stakeholder information appraisal skills, virtual and personal communication skills [1], and the sense of cultural awareness. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a type of connectivism, typically involves instructors and students from at least two geographically and culturally distinct areas who collaborate virtually on a common project for four or more weeks. The objective is to create a culturally diverse virtual environment where students can explore and enhance their interpersonal skills, and also, improve their intercultural competency skills. In this Work-in-Progress (WIP) paper, we present early findings of a COIL project from students’ perspectives. Social constructivism postulates that humans develop and construct knowledge through social interactions with others [2]. Thus, participating in collaborative social activity helps to acquire knowledge [2]. Hence, having students from two culturally distinct regions to collaborate is crucial for the development of intercultural skills. Thus, the objective of COIL is not necessarily to expose students to the experience of virtual collaboration, rather, to enhance intercultural competency skills while collaborating virtually. The project serves as a collaborative tool and must provide a challenge for the teams to design concepts, negotiate, build, or share perspectives to solve a problem [1, 3, 4]. The project could be a client-based or instructor designed project

Simulation of the Impact of Connected and Automated Vehicles at a Signalized Intersection

Intersections are locations with higher likelihood of crash occurences and sources of traffic congestion as they act as bottlenecks compared with other parts of the roadway networks. Consequently, connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) can help to improve the efficiency of the roadways by reducing traffic congestion and traffic delays. Since CAVs are expected to take control from drivers (human control) in making many important decisions, thus they are expected to minimize driver (human) errors in driving tasks. Therefore, CAVs potential benefits of eliminating driver error include an increase in safety (crash reduction), smooth vehicle flow to reduce emissions, and reduce congestion in all roadway networks. Since CAV implementations are currently in early stages, researchers have found that the use of traffic modeling and simulation can assist decision makers by quantifying the impact of increasing levels of CAVs, helping to identify the effect this will have on future transportation facilities. The main objective of the current study was to simulate the potential impacts CAVs may have on traffic flow and delay at a typical urban signalized intersection. Essentially, to use a microscopic traffic simulation software to test future CAV technology within a virtual environment, by testing different levels of CAVs with their associated behaviors across several scenarios simulated. This study tested and simulated the impact of CAVs compared with conventional vehicles at a signalized intersection. Specifically, I analyzed and compared the operations of the signalized intersection when there are only conventional vehicles, conventional vehicles mixed with CAVs, and when there are only CAVs

Enhancing Global Awareness on Campus

The Global Education Seminar (GES) program is in its ninth year of existence. The program serves as a key faculty development opportunity and supports respective academic units’ strategic priorities for internationalization. Faculty from across disciplines commit to participating in a one-year, seminar-structured program prior to a three-week immersive experience in a particular region. The intent is to provide faculty with a mechanism to expand their understanding of the world and, in doing so, shape new or existing curriculum, faculty or student collaborations, research opportunities, and/or other international opportunities. Regions of focus for the GES program have included China, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ghana, Togo, and South Africa. “Enhancing Global Awareness on Campus” was a session part of the 2020 Global Voices Symposium in which we invited six past GES faculty participants to discuss their GES experience, stating its impact both personally and professionally, and explaining how they have been able to disseminate to the campus community the knowledge they have acquired. Faculty concluded their reflections with suggestions on what can be done to promote global consciousness and awareness on campus.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/global_voices_3/1010/thumbnail.jp

A Transdisciplinary Collaboration and Innovation Education Model and Experience

As the interconnectedness of the world grows, the need to prepare college students capable of addressing complexity likewise grows. In this context, the University of Dayton has developed and tested a transdisciplinary model for education. This model links multiple classes from different disciplines via a common theme and within a common space. It also employs an educational model premised on the following trajectory: disciplinary content development / transdisciplinary observation (empathy); transdisciplinary disruption leading to “A-Ha” observations which transform the disciplinary directions; and lastly transdisciplinary informed design and research. Central to this model is a 3,500 square foot common space used only by the classes participating in the experience. In this space classes share their reflections and content with other classes via both personal linkages and analog communications. The other classes respond to these from their disciplinary and personal perspectives. Thirteen classes, fourteen faculty, and over three-hundred students participated in a themed experience centered on the addiction crisis in Dayton, Ohio. Participants included faculty in applied creativity, engineering, health and sport science, education, theater, and religious studies. Also serving as co-teacher were community stakeholders. Assessment of the experience revealed variable student takeaways. Most prominent among these was student recognition that the experience had expanded their perspectives of the other disciplines. Most suggested that it had improved their ability to collaborate in a transdisciplinary environment and that it had significantly impacted their career aspirations. Fewer acknowledged the experience had improved their ability to create

The Year One Book: GEMnasium (A Transdisciplinary Test Lab for Social Change)

Through an experimental process that is mutually beneficial to community partners, more opportunities for undergraduate research and experiential learning are cultivated. The GEMnasium accomplished this through active efforts of teaching, researching and partnering with the core ethos of the University in mind: Learn: Teaching - Prepare servant-leaders through comprehensive academic and residential curricula and extraordinary experiential learning opportunities. Lead: Researching - Perform research that leads to deeper understanding, addresses critical issues, and supports economic growth. Serve: Partnering - Engage in mutually beneficial partnerships to strengthen our communities in Dayton and around the world. In doing so, faculty and staff prototyped a social innovation approach and curriculum through a radical new integrated student experience while developing shared scholarship of research “stacks” across the University of Dayton and inter-institutional partners for greater humanity impact. This integrated learning community was driven by cross-university “transdisciplinary faculties” that encouraged a fail fast, fail forward mindset surrounding humanity-centered growth. The participating educators and students focused on a unified grand challenge, contributing their own knowledge and expertise toward a collective effort

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century