Digital Commons Network^™

The Importance And Implementation Of Kinesthetic Learning In The English Classroom, Emma Crandall

Senior Honors Theses

This paper examines different educators’ and researchers’ activities for kinesthetic learners and discusses how they can be applied to the English classroom in literature, writing, and language. The first section delves into the difficulty associated with but ultimate importance of including kinesthetic learning activities for both kinesthetic and non-kinesthetic learners due to the benefits of active learning. Subsequently, it looks for synthesis between different types of kinesthetic activities, dividing them into the categories of manipulatives, commonly accepted classroom activities with kinesthetic add-ons, and kinesthetic-centered activities. The ways each activity can be used, including its benefits and disadvantages, are discussed, and …

Machine Learning-Based Methods For The Segmentation Of Scanning Electron Microscopy Images Of Fine-Grained Shale Samples, Binqian Yin

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations

The segmentation of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images is critical yet time-consuming for geological studies, as it will need to differentiate the boundaries for different mineral objects to facilitate subsequent analyses, such as porosity calculation. Recently, machine learning methods, especially convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have been explored to segment SEM images for fine-grained shale samples. However, existing methods fail to address two critical issues in the segmentation of shale rock images---insufficient labeled data and imbalanced objects. To this end, this dissertation has proposed a machine learning pipeline that consists of supervised, semi-supervised, and active learning stages to reduce manual efforts …

Teaching Risk Management To Human Performance Students By Using A Virtual Simulation, Emily J. Houghton

Human Performance Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Active Learning In Higher Education —A Case Study Of Introducing Japanese Style Education Into Egyptian Higher Education, Lina Abdel Hamid Ibrahim علي

Journal of the Faculty of Arts (JFA)

The purpose of this study is to present a case study of the introduction of Japanese style education into Egyptian higher education (Department of Specialized Japanese Translation, Credit Hour Programs-Cairo University), and report on the problems and issues involved, as well as the reflection of the improvement of students levels as a result of such attempt. I obtained doctorate in Japan, received the Japanese style education and realized its excellence,; therefore I tried to utilize the Japanese style education in the field of Japanese language education for Egyptian learners of Japanese. In particular, I provided a practical educational model to …

Learning Mathematics From The Master: A Collection Of Euler-Based Primary Source Projects For Today’S Students, Part Ii, Janet H. Barnett, Dominic Klyve, Dave Ruch

Euleriana

This article and its prequel together highlight a set of nine classroom-ready projects that draw on the remarkable writing of Leonhard Euler (1707--1783) as a means to help students develop an understanding of standard topics from today’s undergraduate mathematics curriculum. Part of a larger collection of primary source projects intended for use in a wide range of undergraduate mathematics courses, these projects are freely available to students and their instructors. We provide a general description of the pedagogical design underlying these projects, more detailed descriptions of the individual projects themselves, and instructions for obtaining downloadable copies for classroom use.

Leveraging The "Large" In Large Lecture Statistics Classes, Kady Schneiter, Kimberleigh Felix Hadfield, Jenny Lee Clements

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Being a teacher or a student in a class with a large enrollment can be intimidating. Often, teachers view comforts that are common to small classes as unattainable in a larger class, including knowing students’ names, using active learning, employing group work, and creating group discussion. Students in large classes may find that the class size leads to isolation. At Utah State University, we offer introductory statistics classes for various audiences using a large lecture format. The authors have collectively led these large lectures dozens of times and found that, despite its shortcomings, the large lecture format can be an …

Data-Centric Machine Learning For Speech And Audio, Ali Raza Syed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is growing recognition of the importance of data-centric methods for building machine learning systems. Data-centric methods assume a fixed model and iterate over the data to improve system performance. This is in contrast to traditional model-centric approaches, which assume a fixed dataset and iterate over models for the same ends. Data-centric machine learning is driven by the observation that, beyond the size of the training data, model performance depends on factors such as the quality of the annotations, and whether the data are representative of conditions in which models will be deployed. This is particularly of interest in the …

Project-Based Learning Promotes Students’Perceived Relevance In An Engineering Statistics Course: A Comparison Of Learning In Synchronous And Online Learning Environments, Wen Huang, Jeremi S. London, Loga A. Perry

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Understanding statistics is essential for engineers. However, statistics courses remain challenging for many students, as they find them rigid, abstract, and demanding. Prior research has indicated that using project based learning (PjBL) to demonstrate the relevance of statistics to students can have a significant effect on learning in these courses. Consequently, this study sought to explore the impact of a PjBL intervention on student perceptions of the relevance of engineering and statistics. The purpose of the intervention was to help students understand the connection between statistics and their academic majors, lives, and future careers. Four mini-projects connecting statistics to students’ …

Bias-Corrected Bagging In Active Learning With An Actuarial Application, Yangxuan Xu

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The variable annuity (VA) is a modern insurance product that offers certain guaranteed protection and tax-deferred treatment. Because of the inherent complexity of guarantees’ payoff, the closed-form solution of fair market values (FMVs) is often not available. Most insurance companies depend on Monte Carlo (MC) simulation to price the FMVs of these products, which is an extremely computational intensive and time-consuming approach. The metamodeling approach can be used to circumvent the heavy computation.

In the modeling stage, the bagged tree method has proved to outperform other parametric approaches. Also, a bias-corrected (BC) bagging model was tried and showed significant improvement …

Increasing The Accessibility Of Archaeological Education: Exploring The Possibilities Of Inquiry-Based Pedagogy Through Collections Research, Aspen Kemmerlin

Anthropology Theses

Recent trends in archaeological pedagogy include the adoption of active learning models as well as courses that incorporate community and public archaeology frameworks. These shifts have primarily been centered around archaeological field schools and on-campus excavations. In contrast, despite the growing concern over legacy and orphaned collections that contribute to the “curation crisis,” less attention has been given to the potential for inquiry-based learning in lab or collections-based courses, particularly at the undergraduate level. Utilizing ethnographic methods, this study examines undergraduate experiences in introductory archaeology courses at Georgia State University (GSU). Comparing student experiences in a traditional lecture course with …

Towards General Ai Using Continual, Active Learning In Large And Few Shot Domains, Jaya Krishna Mandivarapu

Computer Science Dissertations

Lifelong learning a.k.a Continual Learning is an advanced machine learning paradigm in which a system learns continuously, assembling the knowledge of prior skills in the process. The system becomes more proficient at acquiring new skill using its accumulated knowledge. This type of learning is one of the hallmarks of human intelligence. However, in the prevail- ing machine learning paradigm, each task is learned in isolation: given a dataset for a task, the system tries to find a machine learning model which performs well on the given dataset. Isolated learning paradigm has led to deep neural networks achieving the state-of-the-art performance …

Student Attitudes Contribute To The Effectiveness Of A Genomics Cure, David Lopatto, Anne G. Rosenwald, Rebecca C. Burgess, Catherine Silver Key, Melanie Van Stry, Matthew Wawersik, Justin R. Diangelo, Amy T. Hark, Matthew Skerritt, Anna K. Allen, Consuelo Alvarez, Sara Anderson, Cindy Arrigo, Andrew Arsham, Daron Barnard, James E. Bedard, Indrani Bose, John M. Braverman, Martin G. Burg, Paula Croonquist, Chunguang Du, Sondra Dubowsky, Heather Eisler, Matthew A. Escobar, Michael Foulk, Thomas Giarla, Rivka L. Glaser, Anya L. Goodman, Yuying Gosser, Adam Haberman, Charles Hauser, Shan Hays, Carina E. Howell

Biology and Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) engages students in a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). To better understand the student attributes that support success in this CURE, we asked students about their attitudes using previously published scales that measure epistemic beliefs about work and science, interest in science, and grit. We found, in general, that the attitudes students bring with them into the classroom contribute to two outcome measures, namely, learning as assessed by a pre- and postquiz and perceived self-reported benefits. While the GEP CURE produces positive outcomes overall, the students with more positive attitudes toward science, particularly with respect …

Measuring Engineering Students' Engagement In Sustainability Design Concepts, Karen Aide Perez

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Within industries, governments, and accreditation organizations, there has been a push to incorporate sustainability concepts into their models. Universities like Boise State University (BSU) have already begun to place greater emphasis in inclusion of sustainability concepts in different engineering department curricula. As part of this effort, BSU plans to redesign courses to integrate sustainability concepts using active learning modules (ALMs) suited for each grade level and discipline. The effectiveness of these modules will be evaluated across disciplines. In support of this larger goal, the work in this study will specifically focus on mechanical engineering students.

A survey instrument was developed …

Piloting A Qualitative Interview For Malaysia Primary School Active Learning Needs Analysis Regarding Learner Control Experiences, Leow Min Hui, Siti Hajar Binti Halili, Rafiza Binti Abdul Razak

The Qualitative Report

This paper describes a holistic process of a pilot test to determine the trustworthiness of semi-structured interview questions to be used in the qualitative investigation of Malaysia primary school active learning needs analysis, by focusing on the learner control peculiarity in the context. The researchers carried out the pilot test based on a sequential cycle of determining, assessment, adjustment, revisiting, and reflection. The researchers generated semi-structured interview questions mainly based on Hutchinson and Waters’s (1987) framework for analysis of learning needs. The researchers tested the semi-structured interview questions on two teacher and two pupil participants mirroring the intended subjects in …

Calculus Iii: Under The Influence Of Peer Instruction, Alan Von Herrmann, L. Jeneva Clark

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In peer Instruction, students engage with core course concepts and then explain those concepts to one another in small groups. Unlike in lecture format, peer instruction involves every student in the class. In Spring 2019, the first authot began using a modified version of peer instruction in Calculus III classes. He started each class by discussing important Calculus III concepts from three standpoints (the formula, the geometry behind the formula, and the physics behind the formula). During the last 20 minutes of each 50-minute class session, he polled the students using questions in the “Goldilocks Zone” – not too hard …

What In The World Just Happened? Students’ Self-Regulation In Asynchronous Precalculus During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Whitney George, Keith Gallagher

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

We describe students’ learning practices in an online asynchronous PreCalculus course during Fall 2020, the first complete semester of distance learning induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results were compiled using a thematic analysis of a questionnaire administered to 43 students enrolled in PreCalculus at a university in the Midwest (United States). Students were given opportunities for active learning and various synchronous Q&A sessions, yet they primarily learned through watching videos and reading worked examples, minimizing interactions with the instructor and available tutors. The questionnaire results show that students knew active learning was helpful, but they were unable to curtail unproductive …

Encouraging Productive Behavior In Student Teams With Interventions, Jacqueline M. Zalewski, Susan Brudvig

Anthropology & Sociology Faculty Publications

Teamwork pedagogies are used for teaching and learning in sociology, addressing general education goals, and developing students’ professional skills. Nevertheless, problems arise in group work that negatively affect learning, engagement, treatment of others, and team satisfaction. An intervention was added to an Introduction to Sociology course with an established teamwork pedagogy to improve these outcomes. We compared the results of student surveys before and after the intervention, finding improvement in students’ satisfaction with teamwork and students’ perceptions of their teammates. There were large, statistically significant improvements in interactional fairness. Students’ perceptions of learning improved, although the gains were not statistically …

Active Learning From Knowledge-Rich Data, Weishi Shi

Theses

With the ever-increasing demand for the quality and quantity of the training samples, it is difficult to replicate the success of modern machine learning models in knowledge-rich domains, where the labeled data for training is scarce and labeling new data is expensive. While machine learning and AI have achieved significant progress in many common domains, the lack of large-scale labeled data samples poses a grand challenge for the wide application of advanced statistical learning models in key knowledge-rich domains, such as medicine, biology, physical science, and more. Active learning (AL) offers a promising and powerful learning paradigm that can significantly …

Exploring The Educational And Psychological Impacts Of Peer Led Team Learning And Cyber Peer Led Team Learning On Undergraduate Students In A Large-Enrollment Introductory Biology Course, Mariah Claire Maxwell

Theses - ALL

Peer Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a well-studied active learning model that is associated with improved educational outcomes for students. The introductory biology course at Syracuse University (SU) has a well-established PLTL program, and published research stemming from this program has shown that PLTL has positive impacts on the short- and long-term retention of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM. However, there are additional data regarding potential benefits of the PLTL program for women and first-generation college students that have yet to be published. In this thesis, I present previously unpublished data indicating that women and first-generation college students who …

Investigating Student Engagement In General Chemistry Active Learning Activities Using The Activity Engagement Survey (Aces), Nicole Naibert, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Investigating student engagement in active learning activities could provide valuable insight into variations of student learning outcomes when active learning is included in a course. This study sought to explore students’ engagement in relation to active learning activities incorporated in a general chemistry lecture course using the Activity Engagement Survey (AcES). The AcES can be used to simultaneously assess students’ overall engagement, as well as dimensions above and beyond overall engagement including their combined behavioral/cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and social engagement. As students’ engagement may be influenced by aspects related to the learning environment and context, differences in engagement were …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Problem-Based Learning Across Two Concrete Construction Courses, Anthony Torres, Jiong Hu, Vedaraman Sriraman, Araceli Martínez-Ortiz, Jorge Membrillo-Hernández

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The goal of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) pedagogy that was implemented in two different concrete construction courses. Both courses are a part of an industry focused four-year undergraduate concrete degree program. One of the classes focused on concrete problems, diagnosis, and repair of existing concrete, while the other class focused on handling and management methods of various concrete mixtures. In both courses, a PBL pedagogy was implemented such that students were self-learning and discovering the knowledge through an action-research case study. The action-research case study was specific to the course outcomes relevant …

Student Engagement And Performance Assessment As Associated With Three Types Of Integument System Laboratory Activities, Sophie Deoliveira

Honors Theses

Students participating in anatomy education, specifically an Anatomy and Physiology classroom, have shown difficulty in learning and retaining information on the various systems of the body. This study sought to assess the benefits of different learning activities associated with student engagement and performance on subsequent examinations regarding the integumentary system. For this study, three different hands-on laboratory activities (i.e., treatments) were given during different laboratory sessions. These hands-on activities included labeling a three-dimensional model, illustrating a model, or building a model of the integumentary system using materials provided. Students then completed a post-laboratory questionnaire regarding their enjoyment of their particular …

Movement In Math - Integrating Movement-Based Activities Into Kindergarten Math, Katelyn Belch

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

Gross-motor movements have shown promising effects on student academic achievement and engagement especially in kindergarten classrooms. The purpose of this study was to examine what happens when movement-based mathematical activities are introduced into a kindergarten math curriculum and its implications on how kindergarteners engage during math time. Using surveys, observational and reflective data, and semi-structured interviews of students and my cooperating teacher, this study aimed to examine student and teacher perceptions of incorporating movement-activities. When movement activities were introduced into math time, the students were more engaged in math. The movement activities served as form of play-based learning and relied …

The Effectiveness Of Using The Anatomage Table As A Learning Adjunct To Peripheral Nerve Blocks Among Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists, Paige Dickey, Melissa Gerlach, Mary Zerlan

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Abstract

In anesthesia programs across the country, learning advanced level human anatomy and physiology concepts provides a large foundation for which skills used in clinical application are learned. Student registered nurse anesthetists (SRNAs) are clinically trained to perform a variety of invasive procedures in practice including peripheral nerve blocks (PNBs). This project aimed to implement a supplemental, hands-on learning activity to improve overall PNB education, ultimately improving patient care and safety. A series of guided lessons were created to help the students walk through the anatomy of PNBs utilizing the Anatomage table (AT). SRNAs attended a workshop where they went …

Critical Care Orientation Escape Room, Leah Deaton

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Newly licensed nurses often feel unprepared and lack confidence as they transition from academia to practice. Education Specialists who oversee training programs for newly graduated nurses are challenged to create education modalities that are meaningful, engaging, and promote critical thinking. The purpose of this project was to create an Educational Escape Room to reinforce principles of safe medication administration for new nurses entering critical care areas in a large pediatric hospital. Escape Rooms engage learners through gamification and active-learning principles to improve knowledge synthesis and retention. Eighty-three newly hired critical care RNs participated in the Educational Escape Room during house-wide …

Investigating Active Learning Through The Lens Of Student Engagement, Nicole Naibert

Dissertations and Theses

Incorporating active learning into a course has been generally found to lead to improved student learning outcomes; however, not all students benefit from these environments to the same extent. Although active learning environments provide the opportunity for students to interact and engage with the material, whether a student decides to do so is completely up to them. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation was to begin exploring active learning environments through the lens of student engagement and relevant associated variables (i.e., self-efficacy and student perceptions). This was completed through three separate but related projects.

Project I focused on investigating flipped …

Dataset Evaluation For Data Trading Using Expected Loss And Homomorphic Encryption, Minsung Joo

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Supervised machine learning suffers from the ``garbage-in garbage-out" phenomenon where the performance of a model is limited by the quality of the data. While a myriad of data is collected every second, there is no general rigorous method of evaluating the quality of a given dataset. This hinders fair pricing of data in scenarios where a buyer may look to buy data for use with machine learning. In this work, I propose using the expected loss corresponding to a dataset as a measure of its quality, relying on Bayesian methods for uncertainty quantification. Furthermore, I present a secure multi-party computation …

An Exploratory Multiple-Case Study Of Nepal’S Science Teacher Educators’ Knowledge And Practices Of Active Learning And Culturally Responsive Teaching, Sunil Pokhrel

All Dissertations

The benefits of implementing active learning (AL) embedded with culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices are well established: students’ deep learning of science is promoted and the achievement gaps between students of majority and minority backgrounds are reduced. Unfortunately, the acceptance for AL and CRT in Nepal’s science teacher programs is low and implementation is superficial. Using a qualitative multiple-case study, the study examined the understanding of seven Nepali science teacher educators (STE) of AL and CRT practices. The challenges faced by the STEs to implementing these two pedagogies at three of Nepal’s science education-focused Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) programs were …

Exploring The Educational Impact Of Academic Field Trips Over Time, Tara Parrello, Colby L. Valentine

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Experiential learning can be in the form of internships, field trips, service learning, and research projects. The practical nature of criminal justice is a logical fit for experience-based learning. Specifically, academic field trips may be viewed as examples of short-term experiential education. However, do experiential learning trips have an academic impact over time? Using survey data, the current study examines if students acquire and retain knowledge after a prison tour of Eastern State Penitentiary. Pre- and post-tour surveys of student learning outcomes showed a statistically significant gain between the pre- and post-tour survey results. A follow-up survey explored if students …

Teaching Tip: Socio-Cultural Learning To Increase Student Engagement In Introduction To Mis, Amy J. Connolly, Leigh A. Mutchler, Daniel E. Rush

IT and Supply Chain Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction to Management Information Systems (MIS) is a challenging course to teach because of the broad expanse of rapidlychanging material, the centrality of the course to the business curriculum, students’ demand for interactive teaching rather than traditional lecture, and general student disinterest in or lack of familiarity with the subject. Further compounding these problems, faculty may not be adequately comfortable with or trained in active teaching modalities. To address these challenges, we used principles of socio-cultural learning to design a system of class activities to teach the dynamic concepts commonly found in the Introduction to MIS course. Faculty can adapt …