Reviewing an integrated MBA core course: Working paper series--03-16

Entering the new century, business education must respond to changes in the work environment. The traditional job as we have known it is rapidly becoming rarer, and students find themselves in an environment of higher complexity, more competition, and faster change. Employers state that students are often unprepared to meet challenges of the new work environment. In response to these influences, a team of educators at Northern Arizona University's College of Business Administration redesigned their MBA program. Based on surveys of employers, alumni and others, core courses of the MBA program became functionally integrated, cross-disciplinary, more outcome-oriented, and more rigorous. The program core was integrated in its entirety; then, components of the core were "chunked" to fit traditional time slots for administrative reasons. This paper describes design and implementation efforts for one MBA core component: Individuals, Teams, and Careers. This component presents students with an integrated view of their own strengths and weaknesses as they relate to personal, team, and career issues for students' pursuit of careers after graduation. Course content is strongly based on self-evaluations by students, then moves into group interaction strategies and skills, and finally focuses on reciprocal interactions of the person and the work environment. The multiple foci of this component include students' careers as future managers, management of their own careers and career mentorship of subordinates. Content development for the MBA program core, and thus for this component was a team effort, negotiated among the MBA redesign team. Six team members represented traditional functional areas of economics, finance, accounting, marketing, management, and computer information systems. Development and implementation of Individuals, Teams, and Careers fell to the authors as members of the MBA core faculty representing the management area. Course topics were team-taught by two management faculty members, as well as by economics, marketing, business law, and human resources faculty. In addition, guest presenters included specialists in leadership, arbitration, and a retired career manager who had been President of IBM's General Products Division. In its first iteration, the Individuals, Teams, and Careers component was presented during semester break between the first and second semesters of the MBA program. With this medial position in the core, much of the team content was based on students' retrospective views of team interaction and performance during the first half of the program. The course has since been moved to the beginning of the course sequence. In this current position, this "chunk" appears as one of two initial program components and fulfills the socialization and expectations-setting function for individual and team performance in the program, as well as addressing career management at the start of the program. This paper describes the integrated content of this MBA program component, including its multiple focus and its outcome orientation. In addition, dimensions of the team-teaching experience in this course component are examined. Finally, students' responses to this component are reported, relative to content and pedagogy. We expect other educators will benefit from seeing Northern Arizona University's response to the dramatically changing environment of the 21st century

Perinatal germ cell development and differentiation in the male marmoset (Callithrix jacchus):similarities with the human and differences from the rat

STUDY QUESTION: Is perinatal germ cell (GC) differentiation in the marmoset similar to that in the human? SUMMARY ANSWER: In a process comparable with the human, marmoset GC differentiate rapidly after birth, losing OCT4 expression after 5–7 weeks of age during mini-puberty. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Most of our understanding about perinatal GC development derives from rodents, in which all gonocytes (undifferentiated GC) co-ordinately lose expression of the pluripotency factor OCT4 and stop proliferating in late gestation. Then after birth these differentiated GC migrate to the basal lamina and resume proliferation prior to the onset of spermatogenesis. In humans, fetal GC differentiation occurs gradually and asynchronously and OCT4(+) GC persist into perinatal life. Failure to switch off OCT4 in GC perinatally can lead to development of carcinoma in situ (CIS), the precursor of testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC), for which there is no animal model. Marmosets show similarities to the human, but systematic evaluation of perinatal GC development in this species is lacking. Similarity, especially for loss of OCT4 expression, would support use of the marmoset as a model for the human and for studying CIS origins. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE AND DURATION: Testis tissues were obtained from marmosets (n = 4–10 per age) at 12–17 weeks' gestation and post-natal weeks 0.5, 2.5, 5–7, 14 and 22 weeks, humans at 15–18 weeks' gestation (n = 5) and 4–5 weeks of age (n = 4) and rats at embryonic day 21.5 (e21.5) (n = 3) and post-natal days 4, 6 and 8 (n = 4 each). PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING AND METHODS: Testis sections from fetal and post-natal marmosets, humans and rats were collected and immunostained for OCT4 and VASA to identify undifferentiated and differentiated GC, respectively, and for Ki67, to identify proliferating GC. Stereological quantification of GC numbers, differentiation (% OCT4(+) GC) and proliferation were performed in perinatal marmosets and humans. Quantification of GC position within seminiferous cords was performed in marmosets, humans and rats. MAIN RESULTS AND ROLE OF CHANCE: The total GC number increased 17-fold from birth to 22 post-natal weeks in marmosets; OCT4(+) and VASA(+) GC proliferated equally in late gestation and early post-natal life. The percentage of OCT4(+) GC fell from 54% in late fetal life to <0.5% at 2.5 weeks of age and none were detected after 5–7 weeks in marmosets. In humans, the percentage of OCT4(+) GC also declined markedly during the equivalent period. In marmosets, GC had begun migrating to the base of seminiferous cords at ∼22 weeks of age, after the loss of GC OCT4 expression. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: There is considerable individual variation between marmosets. Although GC development in marmosets and humans was similar, there are differences with respect to proliferation during fetal life. The number of human samples was limited. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The similarities in testicular GC differentiation between marmosets and humans during the perinatal period, and their differences from rodents, suggest that the marmoset may be a useful model for studying the origins of CIS, with relevance for the study of TGCC. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTERESTS: This work was supported by Grant G33253 from the Medical Research Council, UK. No external funding was sought and there are no competing interests

Comparison of Pharmaceutical Calculations Learning Outcomes Achieved Within a Traditional Lecture or Flipped Classroom Andragogy

Objective. To compare learning outcomes achieved from a pharmaceutical calculations course taught in a traditional lecture (lecture model) and a flipped classroom (flipped model). Methods. Students were randomly assigned to the lecture model and the flipped model. Course instructors, content, assessments, and instructional time for both models were equivalent. Overall group performance and pass rates on a standardized assessment (Pcalc OSCE) were compared at six weeks and at six months post-course completion. Results. Student mean exam scores in the flipped model were higher than those in the lecture model at six weeks and six months later. Significantly more students passed the OSCE the first time in the flipped model at six weeks; however, this effect was not maintained at six months. Conclusion. Within a 6 week course of study, use of a flipped classroom improves student pharmacy calculation skill achievement relative to a traditional lecture andragogy. Further study is needed to determine if the effect is maintained over time

Threshold Concepts about Online Teaching: Progress Report on a Five Year Project

The burgeoning expansion of online education has presented the challenges of articulating an appropriate pedagogy for online education (Stevens, 2003; Runnels et al., 2006; Gosselin, 2009) while also contending with perceived and real deficits in lecturer competence (Shephard, 2007). Conceptually, the identified areas of concern are viewed as troublesome knowledge (Perkins, 1999), or knowledge that is counter intuitive to traditional teaching face to face teaching. To meet the emerging difficulties of new modes of distance teaching, researchers have focused on transformative learning using threshold concepts, or new portals, that allow understanding of concepts through new modes of thinking (Meyer & Land, 2003). Northcote and her colleagues used findings from their research into threshold concepts of online teaching to develop a tailored staff development training program (Northcote et al., 2011; Northcote et al., 2013). By identifying troublesome knowledge and threshold concepts, several unique benefits have been realised that include: 1) a focus for professional development programs; 2) a clearer understanding of the processes and resources needed to facilitate development; 3) support from institutional leadership; and 4) increased competence and confidence for online course developers

Defect Formation Energies without the Band-Gap Problem: Combining DFT and GW for the Silicon Self-Interstitial

We present an improved method to calculate defect formation energies that overcomes the band-gap problem of Kohn-Sham density-functional theory (DFT) and reduces the self-interaction error of the local-density approximation (LDA) to DFT. We demonstrate for the silicon self-interstitial that combining LDA with quasiparticle energy calculations in the G0W0 approach increases the defect formation energy of the neutral charge state by ~1.1 eV, which is in good agreement with diffusion Monte Carlo calculations (E. R. Batista et al. Phys. Rev. B 74, 121102(R) (2006), W.-K. Leung et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2351 (1999)). Moreover, the G0W0-corrected charge transition levels agree well with recent measurements.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figures; related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/th.htm

Vertebrate Natural History Notes from Arkansas, 2018

Because meaningful observations of natural history are not always part of larger studies, important pieces of information often are unreported. Small details, however, can fill gaps in understanding and lead to interesting questions about ecological relationships or environmental change. We have compiled recent important observations of distribution, deformities, and foods of various vertebrates, observations of winter activity of a woodchuck (Marmota monax) and winter torpor of a hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), and also report a very unusual case of bilateral gynandromorphism in a Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis). These unique observations continue to add immensely to the growth of knowledge of the biology of vertebrates in Arkansas

Quantum corrections to the ground state energy of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate: A diffusion Monte Carlo calculation

The diffusion Monte Carlo method is applied to describe a trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature, fully quantum mechanically and nonperturbatively. For low densities, $n(0)a^3 \le 2 \cdot 10^{-3}$ [n(0): peak density, a: s-wave scattering length], our calculations confirm that the exact ground state energy for a sum of two-body interactions depends on only the atomic physics parameter a, and no other details of the two-body model potential. Corrections to the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii energy range from being essentially negligible to about 20% for N=2-50 particles in the trap with positive s-wave scattering length a=100-10000 a.u.. Our numerical calculations confirm that inclusion of an additional effective potential term in the mean-field equation, which accounts for quantum fluctuations [see e.g. E. Braaten and A. Nieto, Phys. Rev. B 56}, 14745 (1997)], leads to a greatly improved description of trapped Bose gases.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure