Facilitating Bloom\u27s Level One through Active Learning and Collaboration

Bloom\u27s taxonomy provides a means of structuring learning activities according to levels of comprehension ranging from factual knowledge to the creation of new knowledge. There are problems with presenting factual knowledge in the traditional lecture mode: student motivation, time-to-present, and course priorities. However, in Bloom\u27s taxonomy, Level 1 (factual) knowledge is the basis for knowledge comprehension at higher levels. Therefore, it is essential that the fact base comprehension be attained so that higher levels of knowledge can be addressed. Active learning and collaborative approaches have been shown to be effective in promoting learning. How can active learning and collaboration be used to overcome the problems associated with promoting Level 1 comprehension? In our introductory Computer Information Science (CIS) course, we attempt to answer this question for the topic history of computing. We have combined a student research and collaborative assignment to acquire Level 1 comprehension with a culminating College Bowl activity to reach the goal of Level 2 comprehension. In this paper we discuss course organization, course goals, the College Bowl format of quizzing, contest results, and overall observation of the process

A Group Problem-Solving Model for the CIS Curriculum

The development of problem solving, abstraction, and design skills through group activities and projects was prescribed in the revised curricula for Computer Science and Information Systems. Myers\u27 Zig Zag problem-solving model is adapted into a group problem-solving model, Group Zig Zag, for use throughout a curriculum. In this paper, we describe our initial efforts at introducing this model into three CIS course sequences

Changing the CIS Academic Culture: Using Senior Design Projects to Unify the Curriculum

Recently we initiated an effort to create a synergistic relationship between the senior design sequence and the sophomore software engineering course that resulted in a cultural change to our CIS academic community. Because of the enthusiastic response from students and faculty, we are extending this initiative to generate early interest among freshman and sophomore majors for electives in artificial intelligence and decision support. With hardware acquisitions obtained through an Instrumentation Laboratory Improvement (ILI) grant from the National Science Foundation, teams in the Senior Projects capstone sequence are preparing projects that will be employed in early courses in the curriculum. The projects will be used to provide students with insight about each of the elective areas of the curriculum through demonstrations and activities. This paper describes the five project initiatives and how the projects will be employed to generate interest in the elective areas

Using Polya to Teach System Development Methodologies: Fostering a Role Perspective in IS Students

The role of IS is changing from a task perspective to a role perspective focused on aligning IS with business needs and goals. In this paper we present a problem solving perspective for teaching systems development methodologies as a means of fostering this shift in perspective in IS students. Polya\u27s formal problem solving process is synthesized with the traditional systems development life cycle. This synthesis makes explicit the tacit knowledge embedded in system development methodologies and enables the transfer of domain knowledge to the broader organizational context and the alignment of IS with business needs and goals

Beyond the Classroom: Mentoring in the CIS Academic Community

Elliot Soloway, noted author and teacher, recently observed in a presentation at ACM\u2797 in San Jose, that human interaction and nurturing are as much a part of the educational process as is the discipline knowledge. He went on to state that no use of technology can replace this human element. Although the classroom is the traditional instructional forum for issues such as professional ethics, responsibility to society, and the need for a life-long learning, a more individualized approach to learning is recognized as providing a higher degree of success. How can educators provide a more individualized approach to learning without sacrificing classroom content? One answer is Mentoring. Several years ago, our university established a mentoring program for certain high-risk students. The School of Computer and Information Science (CIS) embraced the mentoring concept and extended it to involve CIS majors for in-class and out-of-class activities. In this paper we describe the mentoring process as it occurs in our CIS community

The Influence of Group Labs on Student Adoption of Software Methodologies: An Empirical Test

The ACM\u27s CIS curriculum model calls for structured laboratories using groups to instruct students in software engineering methodologies. A social-psychological model of individual acceptance of a technological innovation is employed to empirically test the effectiveness of structured labs in fostering individual adoption of a software engineering methodology. Our findings suggest that a structured labexperience does influence a student\u27s belief system regarding the usefulness of a methodology, leading to a decision to adopt the methodology in completing individual programming assignment

The Evolving Role of Faculty: Traditional Scholarship, Instructional Scholarship and Service Scholarship

Faculty workload decisions made by a departmental unit often create a conflict for faculty because promotion/tenure decisions usually focus primarily on individual scholarly achievements. This paper describes an approach to faculty evaluation that considers both departmental and individual needs by expanding the view of scholarship to include Research, Instruction, and Service

Early Dark Energy Cosmologies

We propose a novel parameterization of the dark energy density. It is particularly well suited to describe a non-negligible contribution of dark energy at early times and contains only three parameters, which are all physically meaningful: the fractional dark energy density today, the equation of state today and the fractional dark energy density at early times. As we parameterize Omega_d(a) directly instead of the equation of state, we can give analytic expressions for the Hubble parameter, the conformal horizon today and at last scattering, the sound horizon at last scattering, the acoustic scale as well as the luminosity distance. For an equation of state today w_0 < -1, our model crosses the cosmological constant boundary. We perform numerical studies to constrain the parameters of our model by using Cosmic Microwave Background, Large Scale Structure and Supernovae Ia data. At 95% confidence, we find that the fractional dark energy density at early times Omega_early < 0.06. This bound tightens considerably to Omega_early < 0.04 when the latest Boomerang data is included. We find that both the gold sample of Riess et. al. and the SNLS data by Astier et. al. when combined with CMB and LSS data mildly prefer w_0 < -1, but are well compatible with a cosmological constant.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; references added, matches published versio

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Dynamical Dark Energy

We compute the impact of dark energy at last scattering on measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs). We show that an early dark energy component can contribute a systematic uncertainty to BAO measurements of up to 2.5%. Whilst this effect turns out to only slightly affect current BAO surveys, the results of future BAO surveys might become biased. We find that BAO surveys alone appear unable to resolve this systematic uncertainty, so supplementary measurements are necessary.Comment: 4 pages, added sections and references, matches published versio

Are different groups of patients with stroke more likely to be excluded from the new UK general medical services contract? A cross-sectional retrospective analysis of a large primary care population

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