Considering students’ abilities in the academic advising process

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Academic advising is time-consuming work. At the same time, it needs to be efficient and productive in assisting the students to choose appropriate academic courses towards the completion of their selected programs in a beneficial manner. In addition, both private and public educational institutions are, currently, operating in an extremely competitive market and are, thus, faced with various challenges. Among these are the twin challenges of student retention and the rate of success in completion of their chosen academic courses. The mentioned challenges have a direct bearing on the quality of academic advising and services provided to the students, by the individual academic institution. A number of research studies have been carried out suggesting various online academic advising systems for undergraduate and graduate programs. In this context, we develop and present, here, an academic advising system which differs from and improves upon previously suggested methodologies with the inclusion of the facility to track individual students’ performance and, thus, ability in educational subjects and programs, taken in the previous academic terms. Our suggested methodology is based on the use of this facility to guide students in the selection of courses that they may register for the forthcoming academic term. We believe that the consideration of individual students’ past academic preformation, in our suggested methodology, is a significant improvement and will assist students in making more beneficial choices when registering for academic courses

IT Teaching Labs: Innovations in a Distance Education Era

Computer laboratories, or simply labs, are crucial in many fields including Information Technologies (IT), Management Information Systems (MIS), Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE). Labs play a vital role in helping students achieve the know-how and develop problem solving, communication and collaboration skills. Traditional labs comprising desktop computers organized into lines or U shapes have been around for almost forty years. Many of the contemporary labs look very different from their ancestors they are designed to facilitate a myriad of learning activities including solo learning, testing and perhaps foremost, collaborative group work. This paper reviews some ergonomics issues and investigates examples of innovative labs being developed nowadays. We elaborate on the innovative labs\u27 powerfulness in addressing the drawbacks of traditional labs as well in supporting innovative teaching methods, student creativity and interactions, and the education eco-system engagement. Further, we present several ergonomic tips as a lab proposal for Zayed University (ZU) and under the computing education research umbrella

Teaching Recursive Thinking using Unplugged Activities

Traditionally, recursion is primarily taught using coding activities, presenting a high cognitive load for novice programmers. A possible method to teach recursion to novice programmers is the use of unplugged activities, engaging tasks not involving coding. Despite having been shown to improve students’ understanding of computational thinking, it has been argued that unplugged activities alone are not effective to teach recursion. In response, the authors engaged novice programmers who are non-computer science students by utilising unplugged visual activities to illustrate basic recursion concepts. Thereafter, the students were shown how to implement the activities with coding. The authors created three activities that illustrate recursion using breadth-first search (BFS) and depth-first search (DFS) algorithms. An evaluation study with 19 students was conducted in an on-line teaching environment. Empirical results show that most students learned the covered activities. Further, the students reported that the activities were engaging, and helped them learn how to think recursively

Hydrological Risk Assessment at Praia, Cape Verde

Hydrology modeling became a relevant topic for the Cidade da Praia, Cabo Verde, Africa, due to negative impact risk to local population and its assets. The modeling via Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can help the decision-making process of space occupation and characterization for this type of risk. Under the municipalities of Praia, the phenomenon of flash flood is common, causing soil erosion and landslide. This constitutes a risk for the local habitat, particularly in districts with a lack of strong human infrastructures. To simulate, analyze and generate risk maps using GIS to help this county governance authorities for decision-making, thus, becomes the main aim of this article

MyMajor: Assisting IT students with major selection

Information technology (IT) in university education plays a crucial role in preparing students for future technological jobs. University students desiring to select an IT major can access a plethora of on-line information about the majors in the form of university brochures, videos, articles, job prospects, and more. Nevertheless, such information is scattered, not interactive, and often presented without usability in mind, hence students have to spend considerable time and effort to obtain an overview of a desired major. In response, the authors present, MyMajor, a tool that helps IT students to select a major by providing all relevant information in one space: Relevant job demand, job salary distribution, overview of vacancies, notable employers and expert interviews. The tool was designed to pack much information using user-centric visualisations, as well as insights. Preliminarily evaluation of MyMajor shows that students find the tool useful, easy to navigate and understandable

Engaging Students With a Chatbot-Based Academic Advising System

Advising systems automate aspects of academic advising. Traditionally, advising systems focused on specialized tasks such as course selection. Recently, chatbot-based advising systems have emerged as they emulate scenario-based advising. Nevertheless, the design of most chatbot-based advising systems is not user-centric, potentially causing a lack of adoption. Further, there is a lack of studies reporting findings of usability evaluation of chatbot-based advising systems. In response, we contribute a chatbot-based academic advising system, MyAdvisor, that helps students with prescriptive academic inquiries. The system is based on real advising scenarios and designed with usability principles. The results show that students learn the system fast and find it helpful. This work contributes (1) scenario-based functional requirements and usability requirements of the chatbot-based advising system, (2) the application of usability heuristics in the design of the system, and (3) findings of empirically evaluating the system usability

Understanding Influencers of College Major Decision: The UAE Case

This study aims to understand and analyze what influences female students to choose a college major in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To accomplish our target, we conducted a survey with mostly female first-year undergraduate students (N = 496) at Zayed University to understand the personal, social, and financial factors influencing students’ major choices. Further, this study also asked students to specify their actions before deciding on their major and assessed the information that could be helpful for future students to decide on their majors. Last, the study investigated how Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students differ from other students in their major decision. The results show that financial factors such as income and business opportunities related to the major are crucial. Further, gender suitability for the job and passion are influential. Students conduct internet searches, use social media, and read brochures in the process of major decisions. Moreover, students think job alignment with the UAE vision and information related to job availability, income, and skills are critical for future students to decide on their major. Finally, STEM students are more influenced by business opportunities, prestige, and career advancement than others

CONSIDERAÇÕES A RESPEITO DA TUBERCULOSE

A Tuberculose (TB), doença infecciosa causada pelo Mycobacterium tuberculosis, afeta milhões de pessoas em todo mundo, e especialmente os países em desenvolvimento

Introducing Educational Technologies to Teachers: Experience Report

The dramatic rise in use of digital media has changed the way learning is taking place and has led to new ways to teach with digital technologies. In this article, we describe the experiences of teaching a course that introduces educational technologies to teachers in Macau. The course design is based on connectivism, a learning theory for the digital age that emphasizes interaction with digital media and active engagement in sharing digital artefacts. The learning outcomes are constructively aligned with learning and teaching activities and assessments. We share the insights we gained of the learning needs and the disparity in the technological skills and competencies of the students. The course design is evaluated in terms of the students\u27 learning outcomes and progress through the stages of learning with technology. We present evidence from journal writings that show metacognition, active reflection and critical evaluation, and we identify anxiety and increased confidence with digital tools, as well as concerns about group work. This article contributes to the discussion on teachers learning to teach with technologies

Considering Students’ Abilities in the Academic Advising Process

Academic advising is time-consuming work. At the same time, it needs to be efficient and productive in assisting the students to choose appropriate academic courses towards the completion of their selected programs in a beneficial manner. In addition, both private and public educational institutions are, currently, operating in an extremely competitive market and are, thus, faced with various challenges. Among these are the twin challenges of student retention and the rate of success in completion of their chosen academic courses. The mentioned challenges have a direct bearing on the quality of academic advising and services provided to the students, by the individual academic institution. A number of research studies have been carried out suggesting various online academic advising systems for undergraduate and graduate programs. In this context, we develop and present, here, an academic advising system which differs from and improves upon previously suggested methodologies with the inclusion of the facility to track individual students’ performance and, thus, ability in educational subjects and programs, taken in the previous academic terms. Our suggested methodology is based on the use of this facility to guide students in the selection of courses that they may register for the forthcoming academic term. We believe that the consideration of individual students’ past academic preformation, in our suggested methodology, is a significant improvement and will assist students in making more beneficial choices when registering for academic courses