Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Undergraduate Research In A Fully Online Engineering Program: Building The Framework Of Support, Emily Faulconer, Robert Deters, Brent Terwilliger

Publications

Undergraduate engineering programs often face low persistence and retention.

• Females and ethnic minorities are underrepresented and show lower persistence
• Certain minorities may be less likely to enroll in online programs
• Lower persistence and retention in online students across disciplines

Undergraduate research may increase persistence and retention.

• Online students likely underrepresented due to access limitations

Reinvigorating A Technical Countering Weapons Of Mass Destruction Distance Learning Graduate Certificate Program, James C. Petrosky, Gaiven Varshney, Jeremy Slagley, Sara Shaghaghi

Faculty Publications

Current Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) demands can be divided broadly into policy and science. The science of chemical, biological, and radiological/nuclear weapons informs the limits of development, production, employment, operation, detection, risk characterization, human and material protection, and medical intervention. In short, the science of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should precede and inform the development of policy. It is to this end that the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) CWMD program was re-established, providing a technical educational option for practitioners to understand the science behind a very technically challenging subject.

Making Scientific And Technical Materials Pervasively Accessible, Jason J.G. White

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

In this paper, the question is explored of what policies, standards and practices are desirable to ensure that hardware, software and publications in the sciences and associated disciplines are created from the outset to be accessible to people with disabilities. Insight into this question can be obtained by considering the unique accessibility challenges that these materials pose, including complexities of notation, language, and graphical representation.

Having analyzed what sets this problem apart from broader issues of accessibility, the advantages and limitations of current international standards are reviewed, and contemporary developments in standards and policies are considered from a strategic perspective. …

The Perceptions Of Teachers Of Students With Visual Impairments On Students With Visual Impairments And Graphing: How To Teach, Ashley N. Nashleanas Ph.D.

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Many gaps exist in what is known around teaching students with visual impairments (SVI) about how to use graphs (Rosenblum et al., 2018; Rosenblum & Herzberg, 2015; Zebehazy & Wilton, 2014a;2014b;2014c). When teachers first experience a student with a visual impairment, some of the questions that come to mind are: How can I be sure this student understands what I am saying about these graphs I show on the board? Will this student be able to keep up? The study herein, based on findings from Author (2018), serves as a guide for teachers to consider in the case that SVI …

On The Socialization Of Transfer Physics Majors Enrolled Within Upper-Division Physics Courses At Transfer Receiving Institutions: Qualitative Research, Patrick Lee Chestnut

Theses and Dissertations

A host of individual and institutional sociocultural factors mediate transfer physics students' socialization experiences at 4-year transfer receiving institutions. The purpose of this study is to understand how sociocultural factors mediate transfer physics students' socialization while participating in upper-division physics coursework at a 4-year public transfer-receiving university. This study, rooted in sociocultural constructivism, aimed to shape discussion of seven transfer physics students, six regular admit physics students, and a physics course instructor's experiences connected to physics studies that emerged from qualitative data. These data included student and faculty surveys, interviews, and classroom observations. Several key findings emerged. First, a multitude …

Student Perceptions Of Authoring A Publication Stemming From A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (Cure), Ashley N. Turner, Anil K. Challa, Katelyn M. Cooper

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) engage students in authentic research experiences in a course format and can sometimes result in the publication of that research. However, little is known about student-author perceptions of CURE publications. In this study, we examined how students perceive they benefit from authoring a CURE publication and what they believe is required for authorship of a manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal. All 16 students who were enrolled in a molecular genetics CURE during their first year of college participated in semistructured interviews during their fourth year. At the time of the interviews, students had been authors …

Experiences Of Undergraduates And Graduate Teaching Assistants In Biology Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences, Emma Crystal Goodwin

Dissertations and Theses

Evidence of positive student outcomes from course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) has sparked implementation of CUREs in introductory biology laboratory courses, as one approach to boosting student engagement in research. In a CURE, students collaborate with other students and instructors on a research project, where they conduct novel scientific research that has relevance to a local or scientific community. However, previous research rarely considers that graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) often teach introductory labs. The classroom role of GTAs expands in a CURE--they no longer need to simply teach a lab class, but also to serve as research mentors. GTAs, who …

Advances In Global Education And Research: Volume 4, Waynne B. James, Cihan Cobanoglu, Muhittin Cavusoglu

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

This is the fourth volume of the Advances in Global Education and Research Book Series. This volume has the following parts:

• Part 1: Adult Education
• Part 2: Curriculum and Instruction Development
• Part 3: Educational Technology
• Part 4: Education in Other Specialties
• Part 5: English as a Second Language
• Part 6: Global Competence
• Part 7: Higher Education and Educational Leadership
• Part 8: Inclusive Education
• Part 9: International Education
• Part 10: PreK-12
• Part 11: Research Methods in Education

ISBN: 978-1-955833-04-2

Adult Education

• Teaching for knowledge transfer: Best practices from a graduate-level educational psychology distance learning program
  • Bobby Hoffman
• A study on the …

Investigating The Relationship Between Departmental Support Structures, Self-Efficacy And Intention To Persist: An Examination Of Students' Experience In 19 Physics Graduate Programs Across The United States, Diana Sachmpazidi

Dissertations

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate programs experience consistently high attrition rates. Moreover, persistent disparities exist in racial and gender representation. Women and People of Color are significantly underrepresented and have higher attrition rates than men and white and Asian American students. To date, little work is done to understand graduate student attrition or persistence. There is also a lack of information regarding the causes of demographic disparities in attrition. Most past studies in this context have focused on students' attributes, undergraduate preparation, and mentoring relationships. Moreover, student self-efficacy is a contributing factor for undergraduate student retention. Yet, there …

The Math Games Seminar: A Mathematical Learning Community, Anthony Delegge, Ellen Ziliak

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Learning communities can be an effective means of engaging university students across disciplines. Games have always been a source of both enjoyment and interesting mathematics. Based on our own interest in games, and the deep, strategic discussions we found ourselves having with students when we played games with them, we decided to design a learning community around the mathematics of games. We hoped in particular that such a community could be a great pathway to introducing mathematical thinking to students not majoring in mathematics, and that they would gain a greater appreciation for our field. In this paper, we describe …

Comparing Effectiveness And Perceived Characteristics Of Active Learning Methods In Undergraduate Biology Education, Linda R. Pesciotta

Dissertations - ALL

Although many undergraduates begin college as STEM majors, attrition rates from the field are high and numerous reports suggest that evidence-based teaching methods are critical for retention. Despite educators' research and near consensus that active learning is more effective than lecture, there are many types of active learning and the literature indicates their effects are not equivalent. The purpose of the current study was to directly compare different kinds of active learning by assessing their correlation with student performance (including learning gains) and understanding students' perceptions of them (including whether they contained Merrill's five principles of instruction and/or met three …

Runge-Kutta 4 (And Other Numerical Methods For Odes), Adam E. Parker

Differential Equations

No abstract provided.

Connected Design Rationale: A Model For Measuring Design Learning Using Epistemic Network Analysis, Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens

Publications

Virtual learning environments have the potential to support students’ development of design skills in engineering education. However, few approaches exist for modeling and measuring design learning as it emerges in authentic practices, which often includes collaboration. This study merges learning sciences research with engineering design education to develop an approach for modeling and measuring design thinking. I propose a connected design rationale model which identifies relationships among design moves and rationale. Results from a qualitative examination of how professional engineers make connections among moves and rationales were used as the foundation to examine students in virtual internships. Using digital collaborative …

Contributors

Early College Folio

Contributors to issue 1 of Early College Folio

Table Of Contents

Early College Folio

Table of Contents | Issue 1 | Early College Folio

Math And Politics, David Price

Early College Folio

This lesson plan, crafted during the Bard Early College Fellowship, details a unit in which students develop their own voting systems and compare them to voting methods and other social choice procedures actually used throughout society. It reinforces the idea that many mathematical notions are human constructs, with strengths and weaknesses, rather than ideas that exist completely outside of human experience.

Early College Pedagogy: An Introduction To The Bard Early College Fellowship, Ligaya Franklin

Early College Folio

The author introduces the Bard Early College Fellowship, an opportunity for faculty from the network of Bard Early Colleges to craft a lesson series which centers Bardian pedagogical methods and student success. The author also highlights five projects that emerged from past fellows, also published in this issue.

Initiatives To Find The "Lost Einsteins" Through The Integration Of Independent Scientific Research Projects In Early College, Maria Agapito, Mini Jayaprakash, Tiffany Morris, Carla Stephens

Early College Folio

This exploratory study examines the effects of incorporating Independent Scientific Research Projects (ISRP) into early college biology curriculum. The authors present their findings, which are steeped in the goal of increasing minority students’ interest in STEM careers, by analyzing student engagement in classrooms with and without ISRP integration.

Qualitative Analysis Of Corequisite Instruction In A Quantitative Reasoning Course, Zachary Beamer

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

In corequisite models of instruction, marginally prepared students are placed directly into college-level coursework, taught with a paired support course. Initial research suggests that such models yield significant improvements in the number of students passing credit-level mathematics when compared to previous models of prerequisite remediation. The present study employs qualitative methods to investigate methods of instruction at one community colleges to understand how instructors identify and respond to student needs. It concludes with recommendations for practice and highlights advantages of small format corequisite classes taught by the same instructor.

Covid-19 Impact On Radiology Students’ Distance Learning (Spring 2021), Mary Lee, Jason Chan, Cherylann Jackson-Holmes, Renzo Marmolejo, Zoya Vinokur

Publications and Research

Radiologic Technology students are well into a full year of distance learning. The Juniors are utilizing a hybrid mode, where they continue to have laboratory classes on campus at half capacity and every other week. The Senior students are completely learning through distance learning and focusing their efforts on reviewing for their licensing exams. Both cohorts are in clinical rotation with COVID-19, a smaller threat to their schooling, but still a hazard that can impact their personal and educational lives. With the use of surveys that are distributed during online classes, we hope to evaluate how a full semester of …

Contributing To Engineering Colleges Students' Development Through Out-Of-Class Involvement: A Survey Of Chinese Private Colleges' Engineering Students, Wanlu Li

Education (PhD) Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary characteristics of engineering college students’ involvement in out-of-class activities (OA) at one private college in China through the use of the translated and culturally adapted Chinese version of the Postsecondary Student Engagement Survey (PosSES 2.1). This study provides the statistical analyses of the survey data completed by 283 senior engineering students on their perceptions about their levels of involvement related to positive/negative outcomes students perceive and affective engagement. Data results showed all levels of involvement have a significant influence on positive outcomes. Besides, active involvement degree, hours, and types of …

Overview Of The Proceedings Of The 2020 Inclusion In Science, Learning A New Direction, Conference On Disability (Island), Cary Supalo, Jasodhara Bhattacharya, Daniel Steinberg

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Elevating The Voices For All Learners Through Shared Stories Of Science Learning, Lauren Madden, Stuart Z. Carroll, Amy K. Schuler

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This study examines the science learning experiences across the lifespan of two groups of college students: adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities in a post-secondary inclusive program, and adults in a preservice secondary education teacher candidate program. Data, in the form of personal narrative science stories were collected using a paired-interview approach in which students from each group interviewed one another about their science learning across their lifespans, and recorded responses using an online form. Across the stories, several clear themes emerged. Similarities and differences were found across and within the groups and are shared in a narrative format. Trends …

Publishing Successful Practitioner (Teaching Techniques) Manuscripts For The Journal Of Science Education For Students With Disabilities, Jonte C. Taylor

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities (JSESD)d is the premier journal focusing on the intersections of science education for students with disabilities. JSESD provides valuable content and context for teachers and researchers on what works in advancing science access, practices, and knowledge for all students across settings, grades, ages, and exceptionality. One way in which JSESD supports teachers and researchers is through publication of practitioner manuscripts also referred to as Teaching Techniques. These manuscripts focus on the how-to portion of science education. That is, JSESD practitioner publications give detailed information on how-to provide science instruction or how-to …

Developing Better Instruction, Better Instructors, And New Investigators, Clay Vander Kolk, Abigail Pyle

Celebration of Scholarship 2021

This research discusses how HAMTE and future educators collaborated to use the Principles to Action Professional Learning Toolkit in their classes and the tools they used to measure and gather conclusions about the development in the future teachers.

Integrating Common Data Analytics Tools Into Non-Technical Undergraduate Curricula, Kurt Kirstein

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

Aside from statistics courses, accessible data analytics skills are often excluded from traditional non-technical university programs. These are topics that are typically the domain of programs that focus on math, statistics and computer science. Yet the need for these skills in non-technical disciplines is changing. A rapid expansion of data-related processes in organizations of many types requires individuals who have at least a working knowledge of common analytic tools. This article briefly describes three categories of data analytics tools that can be useful for graduates in any discipline. The first category covers descriptive tools that allow students to learn what …

Student Perceptions Of The Online Introductory Biology Laboratory Curriculum Using A Framework Of Vision And Change And Its Core Competencies, Erin Ulrich

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, an Introductory Biology course at a private university was reformatted to an online format. To examine student perceptions of the effectiveness of the laboratory portion of the course, a researcher designed questions based on the Vision and Change core competencies and presented them to a representative sample of students in virtual interviews. The themes which emerged from the student responses were that students had positive views of their comfort level with the scientific method, the virtual laboratory synchronous format, worksheet activities, breakout rooms, and lessons with social relevance to college-aged students.

Mindfulness & Mindset: The Winning Combination? The Exploration Of The Unstuck Method® On Developmental Math Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Edite Birnbaum, Edith L. Birnbaum

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Many students enter colleges having to take non-credit-bearing courses, and many do not pass these courses due to numerous factors, including anxiety and stress, especially in mathematics. Current literature shows how mindfulness-based interventions (Bamber, & Schneider, 2016; Dvořáková et al., 2017; Hidman, 2013; Miller et al. 2019; Regehr et al., 2013) and a growth mindset (Blackwell et al., 2007; Boaler et al., 2018; May, 2009) have a positive effect on student stress, anxiety, and academic success. This mixed-method study focused on the unSTUCK strategy’s impact, a mindfulness-inspired tool, on foundation math students. The unSTUCK strategy is a mindfulness-inspired program. The …

Letter From The Co-Editors, Todd Pagano, Sami Kahn

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Faculty Attitudes Toward Technology-Driven Instruction In Developmental Mathematics, Jenna W. Kramer, Stephany Cuevas, Angela Boatman

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Innovation in instructional technology has contributed to the rapid implementation of technology-driven instructional platforms, particularly in developmental math coursework (Bickerstaff et al., 2016). In this phenomenological study, we investigate how faculty perceive and respond to a mandated, technology-driven instructional model for developmental math coursework at public colleges in Tennessee. Through interviews with faculty members across four colleges, we find that many faculty agreed that technology helped them to better track student performance, provide more targeted assistance, and communicate directly with students. Faculty also expressed concerns that technology provides the opportunity or temptation to game the system, interfering with true learning, …