Exploring the Impact of Receiving Sender‐Based Negative and Positive Feedback on Team‐Level Process Outcomes Using a Mobile Application

Team‐based projects continue to be important for structuring work in many organizations, and employees are increasingly using mobile applications (apps) for peer evaluations as part of a performance appraisals process. Since a graduating student can expect to work in a team at some point in their career, exposure to class‐related group projects is important. This study explored using a mobile application (app) called DevelapMe (DMe), which allowed for 273 business undergraduates in 54 teams to give and receive real‐time peer‐based feedback during a 5‐week group project. Prior empirical research has shown that technology can improve the group development process, but such research has not used a mobile app. The general goal of this study was to investigate how receiving real‐time feedback through a mobile app (DMe) can affect the team development process over time. Two online surveys, Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), were administered over a 5‐week period. Results showed that two of the three team‐level process outcomes, team trust and team commitment (but not team value‐goal fit), significantly increased from T1 to T2. Results also showed that receiving T1 sender‐based positive, but not negative, feedback scales had a significant impact on all three team‐level process outcomes.     

‘Everybody kind of looked at me like I was from Mars:’ preparing educators through qualitative service-research projects

Skills developed through qualitative research and community partnerships can be essential for developing education students’ cultural competency and understandings about diverse student populations. Toward this end, we developed a qualitative ‘service-research’ project in a teacher education course focused on child development, whereby undergraduate students examined the racial, linguistic, religious, and migration experiences of youth in St. Louis, Missouri. This paper provides a snapshot of this work by defining service-research and showcasing one student research team that developed and analyzed three case studies of young women from Bosnian Muslim families in partnership with a local organization. Through an analysis and discussion of service-research and the students’ results, we argue for the integration of qualitative research skills, service projects, and community partnerships into educator preparation programs.     

Mentoring Student Participation in Undergraduate Research: A Case Study of Twists and Turns from Two Perspectives

Abstract

Undergraduate research experiences provide excellent examples of high-impact practices. They rely on inquiry-based learning to provide important capstone experiences for the students. However, they are time-intensive for mentor faculty. In an attempt to scale up our faculty’s ability to offer such experiences, we combined a number of projects into one class: the Biomathematics Workshop. This article chronicles the experiences of one student from that class interspersed with comments from his mentor. Our goal is to illustrate some of the twists and turns in his journey and the unexpected but valuable lessons the student (and the mentoring team) learned.     

The team teaching experiences of pre-service science teachers implementing PBL in elementary school

The current phenomenological-qualitative case study examined the team teaching related experiences of 17 Israeli student teachers in the context of using the project-based teaching method in the course of their pedagogical practicum module conducted in elementary schools. The focus of the study was on participants’ experiences in terms of quality and content. Data collection methods included reflective reports and in-depth interviews. Data analysis was conducted using the qualitative method for content analysis. Findings of the study indicate that during team teaching, the student teachers underwent a process of four qualitatively different experiential stages, each of which is characterised by a unique set of experiences. There was also a qualitative difference at each stage between the experiences of student teachers who emerged with an overall positive assessment and those who emerged with an overall negative assessment of team teaching. The practical implications of the findings are discussed. This research contributes to the professional literature on the team teaching of science courses, and may serve to encourage educators to implement team teaching as part of student teachers‘ practicum involving a project based, student centred methodology.     

浅析高职院校学生干部培养

随着近几年高职院校的学生规模越来越大,导致专门从事学生管理工作的人员严重不足,专职辅导员工作很难细化,因而很多工作都要依赖学生干部来协助完成。但由于历史原因,高职学生干部队伍的建设存在很多问题。本文在对高职院校学生干部现状分析的基础上,提出了解决问题的对策建议。     

Collaborative design decision-making as social process

ABSTRACT

Collaborative design is recognised as being shaped by complex social, cognitive, material, and technical processes. In the case of design decision-making, however, the social dimension has yet to be fully understood as the product of the whole team dynamic rather than as simply the sum of the individual (cognitive) contributions. This paper examines the interactional work teams of first-time design students do that produces decisions in undergraduate engineering design projects. Close analysis of decision-making episodes, recorded in design meetings in a yearlong ethnographic study, reveals the joint social and situated work teams do to produce decisions. Students were found to do decision-making via three overlapping phases that were invariant across the database: (i) Design options emerge, (ii) teams orient to design options, and (iii) design decisions come off. This paper exemplifies these phases of decision-making as inherently – and not just incidentally – social, and illustrates how decisions are produced in novice design teams via these phases in multifarious ways. We argue for an explicit retrospective focus on the processes and consequences of team decisions following projects as an avenue for fostering the development of design judgment that engineering graduates will take into their professional practice.     

Action learning – a process which supports organisational change initiatives

This paper reflects on how action learning sets (ALSs) were used to support organisational change initiatives. It sets the scene with contextualising the inclusion of change projects in a masters programme. Action learning is understood to be a dynamic process where a team meets regularly to help individual members address issues through a highly structured, facilitated team process of reflection and action. The key findings from the evaluation of the students and facilitators’ experiences are reflected on, together with plans for improving the experience for all stakeholders for the next academic year. In sharing this experience, the purpose of the paper is to highlight the most significant learning from the evaluation. Good preparation for action learning is vital to ensure a positive experience for all involved. From the student perspective, an appropriate learning set mix is needed to ensure a balance of support and challenge for the ALS. In addition to a preparatory workshop for action learning facilitators, regular meetings with the action learning facilitators in the form of ALSs could be scheduled as a support especially for those new to the process. Finally, it is hoped that this account will encourage readers to use action learning for supporting and engaging students in organisational change initiatives.     

研究生思想政治教育工作浅析

近年来,随着研究生教育的发展,研究生群体规模不断扩大,研究生思想政治教育工作在管理体制、队伍建设和工作方式方法的不足日益显现,这种情况不利于研究生的全面发展,成为当前的一个突出而紧迫的问题。在具体工作中,我们应当着力从改善研究生思想政治教育管理体制、加强研究生思想政治教育队伍建设、充分发挥研究生思想政治教育中导师的积极作用、创新研究生思想政治教育的内容和途径等几个方面入手,把研究生培养成为德才兼备的社会主义建设者。     

An Undergraduate Research Opportunity: Collaboration Between Undergraduate and Graduate Students

ABSTRACT: A research experience was made available to an undergraduate Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) student through collaboration with a Masters-level Nutrition graduate student. Both students were under the supervision of a graduate FSHN faculty member. Positive, self-identified aspects for the students included learning how to work collaboratively as a team member, gaining a better understanding of the process of field-based research, and successfully completing both projects. While caveats are noted, we suggest that this process is an untapped opportunity to offer a research experience to undergraduates. It could be applicable in departments/ units that maintain both an undergraduate and graduate program or across departments where disciplines are similar.     

Improving the CBT Development Process Through Knowledge Sharing: An Empirical Study

In this paper, techniques from the research field of knowledge management are used to improve the maturity of the Computer Based Training (CBT) development process at an IT-oriented organization involved in producing courseware. The project team is facilitated with a knowledge-sharing solution that enables them to unambiguously define their project process, and link templates and best practices to the activities in that process. In addition, a virtual discussion room is provided for them to share new insights. Results from measurement experiments indicate more positive project experiences with projects that used the knowledge-sharing solution.     

Teacher learning on problem-solving teams

Problem-solving teams address student difficulties. Teams comprised of teachers, specialists, and administrators identify the student problem, develop individualized interventions, and assess student change. Teacher experiences of teams are understudied. In a prospective, mixed-method study conducted in the United States, 34 teachers were followed through the team process. Interview coding showed that 60% of teachers reported they gained new intervention skills. Yet, 40% of teachers reported no professional benefits. Logistic regression showed that differences in teacher learning were partially explained by teachers' negative or positive expectations at the outset of the team. The expectancy effects have implications for teacher professional development.     

SERVICE-LEARNING AT THE EDGE OF CHAOS

This paper discusses the implementation of an intergenerational service-learning (IS-L) project by Western Michigan University's Gerontology Program. Two classes of students, one graduate and one undergraduate, taking introductory gerontology courses were brought together to complete IS-L projects of their own designs. Students were placed in teams. Key project components included: negotiation with community partners to construct a viable one-semester project, collaboration on a team, and analysis of the team development process. A Critical Incident Questionnaire was used to collect data on student perceptions of project and class progress. While challenging, most students found the intergenerational service-learning projects and team format valuable and rewarding.     

The student experience of undergraduate students: towards a conceptual framework

While the term ‘student experience’ is used widely in universities, it is remarkably under-developed as a construct in the academic literature. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a conceptual framework for the student experience of undergraduate students. The approach taken is to identify the key influences that shape the student experience from the perspective of students. It does this by addressing two questions: firstly, what are the key influences that shape the student experience? Secondly, how do these influences shape the student experience? To do this the paper draws from a wide range of studies that provide substantial theoretical and empirical evidence as to how students experience university. Drawing from Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development, it identifies seven key sets of influences or microsystems that shape the undergraduate student experience. Then the paper considers how these influences shape students’ experiences drawing from the concepts of engagement and alienation. The paper concludes by proposing a broadly defined model for the student experience where learning and development take place as a result of meaningful interactions between the student and the key microsystems. The implications of this model for universities and for further study are also discussed.     

ePortfolios: The Method of Choice for Validation

Community colleges have long been institutions of higher education in the arenas of technical education and training, as well as preparing students for transfer to universities. While students are engaged in their student learning outcomes, projects, research, and community service, how have these students validated their work? One method of validation is the design and development of the personal and professional ePortfolio. This article chronicles the process of how ePortfolios offer validation of a student’s learning experiences to meet workforce expectations as part of an individual’s holistic social media footprint (e.g., ePortfolios [workforce] and social media [interpersonal]).     

对高等院校学生党员教育的思考

大学生是国家宝贵的人才资源,要正视大学生党员教育的现状。大学生党员在发挥先锋模范作用方面具有得天独厚的条件,他们大多是理论学习的标兵和积极工作的表率,但也存在一些问题,包括理想信念淡漠、理论学习脱离实际、进取精神不强。如果注重加强组织队伍建设,学习注重理论联系实际,健全制度、加强群众监督,引入党员导师制,大学生党员教育的效果会有效提高。     

Making sense of conceptual tools in student-generated cases: Student teachers' problem-solving processes

This article examines the way student teachers make sense of conceptual tools when writing cases. In order to understand the problem-solving process, an analysis of the interactions is conducted. The findings show that transforming practical experiences into theoretical reflection is not a straightforward matter. To be able to elaborate on the task it is crucial to make meaning of the tools. It is demonstrated that the institutional practices, rules and expectations must be explicit for the students. The overall aim is to demonstrate that activity theory can enhance our understanding of the interdependence between activity, task and mediating tools.     

Democratising Teacher Education Research in India

This paper argues for the need to adopt a more participatory and research-based approach to teacher development in India. Drawing on the experiences of a participatory teacher educator development project in three States, we discuss processes of developing a democratically orientated qualitative research team to work with teachers and teacher educators, highlighting the interplay between their education and socialisation and the demands of the methodology. In the second part of the paper, aspects of developing collaborative action research projects with teacher educators in the context of District Institutes of Education and Training are discussed. Both these approaches require the development of autonomy and critical reflexivity, and although there are tensions in this process, these emerge as vital components of developing a more democratic approach to teacher education.     

Learning the methods and the skills of global product realization in an academic virtual enterprise

This paper reports on and draws conclusions about the international course called European Global Product Realization. It was organized to provide university students with knowledge about distributed product development in virtual enterprises. The philosophy of the course is discussed together with its structure, contents, organization, infrastructure, deliverables and the experiences. Necessitated by globalization, the principles of operation of virtual enterprises were used in organizing the course. The knowledge accumulated in global product realization by the participating companies and academic sections provided the basis for the course and for the student projects. The organizers put the students of three European universities into the position of evolving young professionals who act as both knowledge producers and knowledge consumers. The design and engineering students took part in academic lectures and industrial case studies in a virtual classroom and practised collaborative product development in the emulated virtual enterprise. The academic virtual enterprise framework has been confirmed to be a solution for opening the conventional educational institutions. Our future work will concentrate on how to exploit disciplinary and operational research as the engine behind academic learning and teaching.     

The preparation of pre-service student teachers’ competence to work in schools

Competence to work in schools is an important dimension of professional competence, although it is often a neglected dimension of teacher development. This article reports a qualitative study that examined student teachers’ learning experiences in initial teacher education (ITE) in relation to competence to work in schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 student teachers on an undergraduate ITE programme in Hong Kong. The findings of the study show that competence to work in schools is characterised by student teachers’ deep contextualised learning. In addition, it offers a deeper understanding of this competence in the ITE context by identifying its three facets, namely understanding of the micro-political realities of schools, social capital building and social strategies. The study provides insights for ITE and schools to support student teachers’ development of their competence to work in schools, including the design of ITE curricula, ITE processes and co-curricular activities in undergraduate studies. Moreover, it suggests the importance of developing schools as growth-fostering and positive micro-political sites for ITE fieldwork and teacher induction.     

To Each Their Own: Students Asking Questions Through Individualized Projects

Abstract

As mathematics educators we want our students to develop a natural curiosity that will lead them on the path toward solving problems in a changing world, in fields that perhaps do not even exist today. Here we present student projects, adaptable for several mid- and upper-level mathematics courses, that require students to formulate their own questions and to begin to develop the basic research skills needed to answer these questions. These projects, where each student is given an individualized object to study, allow students to take ownership over their own learning while introducing them to the joy and challenge of discovery and research. Each student is directed to use the concepts and techniques presented in class as a set of tools to guide the investigation of their object. We discuss our experiences–both positive and negative–with these inquiry-based projects.