Evaluating the Effects of Content Reinforcement

Universities and colleges employ many models for content development such as the “introduce, reinforce, apply, and assess” model. This model seeks to first introduce a concept, followed by a reinforcement technique, an application, and finally assessing student learning outcomes. This research proposal aims to design an experiment which will measure the effectiveness of such a model by applying it to two introductory business related courses (Information and Technology Management Applications and Introduction to Business). Key content, such as time value of money, loan repayment schedules, and interest calculations, will be strategically overlapped in the redesigned courses and student learning outcomes will be assessed with students in the redesigned superimposing courses serving as the treatment group and students having only one of the redesigned courses serving as the control groups. The research question to be explored is stated as: “Will student performance be improved by overlaying key business concepts between two introductory courses in the standard business curriculum?” Practical implications include insights into course and curriculum development and the efficacy of reinforcement learning

Key Factors Effecting Career Choice Among Business and Information Technology Students

Work was published in PAECT: Technology Education Research Journa

Mining the Bureau of Labor and Statistics for Job Skills

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) provides information about occupations including growth rates, median salaries, and job descriptions. Determining which skills will be most in demand in the next decade can assist higher education in designing relevant curriculum. Determining common skills among hundreds of occupation descriptions is a tedious task which lends itself well to a technology-based solution. This applied research applies data mining and topic analysis techniques to job descriptions and duties from BLS.gov in order to extract the most relevant job skills. Job descriptions for the top growing jobs, as defined by number of new positions projected, were extracted from BLS.gov. The descriptions were then mined for the highest frequency terms to determine the skills most relevant in the next decade. Preliminary results indicate terms such as analyze, software, develop, systems, computer, technology, data, systems, and information are in the top 50 terms thereby indicating the importance of technology in the future job market

Creating Effective Online (Virtual) Learning Environments

Online learning has become ubiquitous in education. At the secondary level, online charter schools are gaining ground on traditional brick and mortar institutions. A similar evolution is occurring in higher education where online programs reduce the geographic constraint of attending degree programs. The online format has a clear financial advantage as the institution can reduce its need of physical facilities while attracting students and faculty outside of a specific geographic region. Simply posting content online does not differentiate an educational institution from a service such as Lynda.com; therefore, competition on quality of courses is expected. In order to be successful when teaching an online course, instructors need to change from traditional teaching methods to online teaching methods. Appana (2008) recognizes that limitations to online learning may be tied to the limited experiences and skills of instructors. Support mechanisms need to be in place to assist instructors in creating and teaching an online course. This may help to improve the online learning experience of students because of a resulting higher quality course. Further, Appana explains that online training with technology is vital. This includes not only how to use the technology, but to also solve technological problems. Administrative support, available technical personnel, and mentoring are also vital aspects to course success. Instructors are often thrust into online delivery formats with little to no training. Professors are seldom trained in teaching methodology let alone teaching online (Alley, 1996). Further, instructors who do not have adequate computer literacy skills will struggle with online teaching (Thurmond, 2003). One study conducted by Kosak, Manning, Dobson, Rogerson, Cotnam, Colaric, and McFadden (2004) found that the majority of faculty believed the online course training they received and participated in was adequate in terms of pedagogical and technical training. At the same time, faculty may remain reluctant to teach online courses. This research proposal seeks to measure instructor’s attitudes of preparedness to teach an online class based on training received and administrative support

Internet of Things: Entrepreneurial Concepts

Currently, the one hottest technology trends occurring is the Internet of Things (IoT). Specifically, the IoT can be defines as a connection of sensors and machines. As such, the real value that the IoT creates is at the crosssroads of collecting data and leveraging the data to make valuable information. The data collected by sensors isn’t of value until it can be analyzed to produce valuable information. For example, icy roads are very hazardous and often times can cause injury and possible death to drivers. Providing wireless sensors in the road to detect the freezing ice and wirelessly communicate to an automobile’s sensor to slow the car down to a safe speed. The Internet of things provides a world of opportunity and innovation to occur. This presentation will define the IoT and explore underlying opportunities for innovation that can occur at the crossroads of collecting data and leveraging the data to make valuable information. Hence, establishing new entrepreneurial concepts and creating new products and services

Online Learning: Resistance to Change

Presented at Business and Applied Science of North America (BAASANA) Conference Proceedings Online learning has become ubiquitous in education. At the secondary level, online charter schools are gaining ground on traditional brick and mortar institutions. A similar evolution is occurring in higher education where online programs reduce the geographic constraint of attending degree programs. The online format has a clear financial advantage as the institution can reduce its need of physical facilities while attracting students and faculty outside of a specific geographic region. Simply posting content online does not differentiate an educational institution from a service such as Lynda.com; therefore, competition on quality of courses is expected. In order to be successful when teaching an online course, instructors need to change from traditional teaching methods to online teaching methods. Appana (2008) recognizes that limitations to online learning may be tied to the limited experiences and skills of instructors. Support mechanisms need to be in place to assist instructors in creating and teaching an online course. This may help to improve the online learning experience of students because of a resulting higher quality course. Further, Appana explains that online training with technology is vital. This includes not only how to use the technology, but to also solve technological problems. Administrative support, available technical personnel, and mentoring are also vital aspects to course success. Instructors are often thrust into online delivery formats with little to no training. Professors are seldom trained in teaching methodology let alone teaching online (Alley, 1996). Further, instructors who do not have adequate computer literacy skills will struggle with online teaching (Thurmond, 2003). One study conducted by Kosak, Manning, Dobson, Rogerson, Cotnam, Colaric, and McFadden (2004) found that the majority of faculty believed the online course training they received and participated in was adequate in terms of pedagogical and technical training. At the same time, faculty may remain reluctant to teach online courses. This research proposal seeks to measure instructor’s attitudes of preparedness to teach an online class based on training received and administrative support

Online Education: Status and Change

Research has shown that online education has grown leaps and bounds with the last decade, alter the way students learn, and provided opportunities for students and schools to further education beyond the boundaries of the physical school. However, with every technology change a large budgetary item also comes. Providing online education courses within public school districts is not cheap. Currently, many public school districts have been experiencing heavy budgetary problems. Has Pennsylvania’s state budget problems affected public schools’ efforts to go online? The purpose of this study was to examine the status of fully online and blended learning environments in Northeastern Pennsylvania K-12 public schools, as well as provide indicators of change

Using Simple Data Mining Techniques with a Course Management System

Research has shown that discussion forums add value to traditional and online classroom experiences. However, while many instructors embrace discussion forums to add interactivity in online courses as well as encourage class-room activity outside of class, individually reading and manually grading student discussion posts can be a daunting and time consuming process for the instructor. The purpose of this pilot research study was to utilize data mining techniques to assess asynchronous discussion forums and examine its effectiveness between those individualized manually graded