Effectively Serving The Needs Of Todays Business Student: The Product Life Cycle Approach To Class Organization

We illustrate a class organization process utilizing the concept of the Product Life Cycle to meet the needs of todays millennial student. In the Introduction stage of a business course, professors need to build structure to encourage commitment. In the Growth stage, professors need to promote the structure through multiple, brief activities that can keep the attention of business students. In the Mature stage, professors need to use the structure to stabilize engagement levels and learning rates but be willing to make adjustments to prevent apathy in the course. Finally, in the Decline stage, professors need to dismantle the structure while allowing opportunities for utilizing materials for future business courses and addressing todays millennial students need for achievement and sense of entitlement with the course grades. The value is that this paper illustrates an approach to aid professors in organizing business courses that can be utilized in a variety of courses to better serve millennial students

Effectively Serving the Needs of the Millennial Marketing Student: The Product Life Cycle Approach to Class Organization

We illustrate a class organization process utilizing the concept of the Product Life Cycle to meet the needs of today’s millennial student. In the Introduction stage of a business course, professors need to build structure to encourage commitment. In the Growth stage, professors need to promote the structure through multiple, brief activities that can keep the attention of business students. In the Mature stage, professors need to use the structure to stabilize engagement levels and learning rates but be willing to make adjustments to prevent apathy in the course. Finally, in the Decline stage, professors need to dismantle the structure while allowing opportunities for utilizing materials for future business courses and addressing today’s millennial students’ need for achievement and sense of entitlement with the course grades. The value is that this paper illustrates an approach to aid professors in organizing business courses that can be utilized in a variety of courses to better serve millennial students

Problem-Based Learning: A Tale of Three Courses

Courses in engineering and science are typically taught deductively, through transmission of information from instructor to student, followed by practice problems to reinforce what was covered in readings and lectures. Yet in our personal and professional lives, we learn experientially – by facing a real situation and attempting to address it, and from our related successes and failures. Experiential education emphasizes a mixture of content and experiences, connection of learning to meaning and to the world outside of the classroom, and reflection on this for higher order learning and development of new skills and capabilities. Problem-based Learning (PBL) is an inductive, active learning approach that connects learning to real world problems, and provides a context in which students can tether their knowledge and internalize course concepts. Students are thus motivated to seek out a deeper understanding of the concepts they need to address the problems presented in a course. This research focuses on going beyond the technical lecture to enhance the student experience through PBL and experiential education techniques, based on implementation in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) College of Engineering Technology, in courses in telecommunications engineering and environmental sustainability. PBL content was developed and implemented with a goal of motivating and exciting students, and enabling them to internalize the knowledge for deeper understanding. This included enhancing students’ ability to think critically about real-world challenges in engineering and sustainability, as well as their ability to address these challenges through an inductive, experiential approach that mirrors the way they will need to approach problem solving in professional practice. Assessments suggest initial challenges for students in self-directed research and working outside of their comfort zone, but ultimately there is evidence of tangible value for student learning, skill development, and ability to succeed and thrive in the field

Phase delaying the human circadian clock with a single light pulse and moderate delay of the sleep/dark episode: no influence of iris color

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Light exposure in the late evening and nighttime and a delay of the sleep/dark episode can phase delay the circadian clock. This study assessed the size of the phase delay produced by a single light pulse combined with a moderate delay of the sleep/dark episode for one day. Because iris color or race has been reported to influence light-induced melatonin suppression, and we have recently reported racial differences in free-running circadian period and circadian phase shifting in response to light pulses, we also tested for differences in the magnitude of the phase delay in subjects with blue and brown irises.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Subjects (blue-eyed n = 7; brown eyed n = 6) maintained a regular sleep schedule for 1 week before coming to the laboratory for a baseline phase assessment, during which saliva was collected every 30 minutes to determine the time of the dim light melatonin onset (DLMO). Immediately following the baseline phase assessment, which ended 2 hours after baseline bedtime, subjects received a 2-hour bright light pulse (~4,000 lux). An 8-hour sleep episode followed the light pulse (i.e. was delayed 4 hours from baseline). A final phase assessment was conducted the subsequent night to determine the phase shift of the DLMO from the baseline to final phase assessment.</p> <p>Phase delays of the DLMO were compared in subjects with blue and brown irises. Iris color was also quantified from photographs using the three dimensions of red-green-blue color axes, as well as a lightness scale. These variables were correlated with phase shift of the DLMO, with the hypothesis that subjects with lighter irises would have larger phase delays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The average phase delay of the DLMO was -1.3 ± 0.6 h, with a maximum delay of ~2 hours, and was similar for subjects with blue and brown irises. There were no significant correlations between any of the iris color variables and the magnitude of the phase delay.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A single 2-hour bright light pulse combined with a moderate delay of the sleep/dark episode delayed the circadian clock an average of ~1.5 hours. There was no evidence that iris color influenced the magnitude of the phase shift. Future studies are needed to replicate our findings that iris color does not impact the magnitude of light-induced circadian phase shifts, and that the previously reported differences may be due to race.</p

Racial Differences in the Human Endogenous Circadian Period

The length of the endogenous period of the human circadian clock (tau) is slightly greater than 24 hours. There are individual differences in tau, which influence the phase angle of entrainment to the light/dark (LD) cycle, and in doing so contribute to morningness-eveningness. We have recently reported that tau measured in subjects living on an ultradian LD cycle averaged 24.2 hours, and is similar to tau measured using different experimental methods. Here we report racial differences in tau. Subjects lived on an ultradian LD cycle (1.5 hours sleep, 2.5 hours wake) for 3 days. Circadian phase assessments were conducted before and after the ultradian days to determine the change in circadian phase, which was attributed to tau. African American subjects had a significantly shorter tau than subjects of other races. We also tested for racial differences in our previous circadian phase advancing and phase delaying studies. In the phase advancing study, subjects underwent 4 days of a gradually advancing sleep schedule combined with a bright light pulse upon awakening each morning. In the phase delaying study, subjects underwent 4 days of a gradually delaying sleep schedule combined with evening light pulses before bedtime. African American subjects had larger phase advances and smaller phase delays, relative to Caucasian subjects. The racial differences in tau and circadian phase shifting have important implications for understanding normal phase differences between individuals, for developing solutions to the problems of jet lag and shift work, and for the diagnosis and treatment of circadian rhythm based sleep disorders such as advanced and delayed sleep phase disorder

Commentary: Essential Programs and Services Model

To further discussion about the Essential Programs and Services (EPS) model for funding public education in Maine, Maine Policy Review asked eight superintendents—representing districts across the state— to provide their views. We also asked each to discuss the needs of his district and whether additional state policy options were necessary to tackle the most pressing issues. The districts represented by these superintendents are a cross section of urban and rural high-receivers and low-receivers. Still, several commonalities emerge: the need for a state commitment that does not wax and wane with the business cycle; the urgency of professional development for new and experienced teachers; and, the importance of linking student outcomes with student assessment measures and student funding. In short, EPS is not seen as a solution to the state’s ongoing debate over public-education funding, but is recognized as a necessary first step

Evaluation of Talking Parents, Healthy Teens, a new worksite based parenting programme to promote parent-adolescent communication about sexual health: randomised controlled trial

Objective To evaluate a worksite based parenting programme—Talking Parents, Healthy Teens—designed to help parents learn to address sexual health with their adolescent children