Maximising resource allocation in the teaching laboratory: understanding student evaluations of teaching assistants in a team-based teaching format

Minimal research papers have investigated the use of student evaluations on the laboratory, a learning medium usually run by teaching assistants with little control of the content, delivery and equipment. Finding the right mix of teaching assistants for the laboratory can be an onerous task due to the many skills required including theoretical and practical know-how, troubleshooting, safety and class management. Using larger classes with multiple teaching assistants, a team-based teaching (TBT) format may be advantageous. A rigorous three-year study across twenty-five courses over repetitive laboratory classes is analysed using a multi-level statistical model considering students, laboratory classes and courses. The study is used to investigate the effectiveness of the TBT format, and quantify the influence each demonstrator has on the laboratory experience. The study found that TBT is effective and the lead demonstrator most influential, influencing up to 55% of the laboratory experience evaluation.     

GiveMe Shelter: a people-centred design process for promoting independent inquiry-led learning in engineering

It has become increasingly common for tasks traditionally carried out by engineers to be undertaken by technicians and technologist with access to sophisticated computers and software that can often perform complex calculations that were previously the responsibility of engineers. Not surprisingly, this development raises serious questions about the future role of engineers and the education needed to address these changes in technology as well as emerging priorities from societal to environmental challenges. In response to these challenges, a new design module was created for undergraduate engineering students to design and build temporary shelters for a wide variety of end users from refugees, to the homeless and children. Even though the module provided guidance on principles of design thinking and methods for observing users needs through field studies, the students found it difficult to respond to needs of specific end users but instead focused more on purely technical issues.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Perspectivesand Experiences on Mentoring Undergraduate Students in Research: Part II

Abstract

This issue is the second of a special PRIMUS two-part issue collecting articles on undergraduate research from experienced faculty mentors. We offer it as a valuable resource for faculty leading undergraduate research programs. This issue presents a collection of papers offering advice on a variety of specific topics important for leaders of undergraduate research programs. Issues of finding and designing appropriate and accessible research projects, assessing undergraduate research, and publicizing it in the media are addressed.     

Health informatics program design and outcomes: Learning from an early offering at a mid-level university

Curriculum development is particularly challenging in computing-related disciplines as the computing industry changes more quickly than most. As information technology degrees have become relatively pervasive, some institutions that offer information systems degrees have recognized a need to develop specialist studies in information systems. This detailed case study shows the forces related to a successful implementation of new Health Informatics degrees. The case describes both an unsuccessful and then a successful attempt at essentially the same curriculum development. Although the case includes some local political factors, these represent typical considerations that a curriculum developer is likely to encounter.     

When Cyberresearch Goes Awry: The Ethics of the Rimm "Cyberporn" Study

Like most things that we take for granted, we rarely pay attention to ethical issues in research until something goes horribly wrong. Focusing on a recent cyberresearch project gone awry, this essay illustrates why ethical issues should be continually confronted and discussed by scholars and nonscholars alike.     

New teachers’ identity shifts at the boundary of teacher education and initial practice

As teachers enter the school communities of their initial practice, they experience identity shifts that reflect their learning. Throughout teacher education they have constructed an identity informed by their previous school experiences, the ideas and approaches promoted by their teacher education programs, and an ideal of the teachers they hope to become. The complex set of influences at the boundary between their lives as students and their lives as professionals causes them to confront their identities in new and sometimes disruptive ways (Flores & Day, 2006). New teaching situations introduce them to the thinking of experienced teachers, and to the needs of their first groups of learners, challenging the notions they have so far developed about who they are as teachers (Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004). This paper reports on interviews with 35 new teachers as they graduate from teacher education programs and enter the profession, and details their learning about agency and role in community resulting in identity changes within this boundary space.     

Intergenerational transmission of adaptive functioning: a test of the interactionist model of SES and human development

The interactionist model (IM) of human development (R. D. Conger & M. B. Donellan, 2007) proposes that the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and human development involves a dynamic interplay that includes both social causation (SES influences human development) and social selection (individual characteristics affect SES). Using a multigenerational data set involving 271 families, the current study finds empirical support for the IM. Adolescent personality characteristics indicative of social competence, goal-setting, hard work, and emotional stability predicted later SES, parenting, and family characteristics that were related to the positive development of a third-generation child. Processes of both social selection and social causation appear to account for the association between SES and dimensions of human development indicative of healthy functioning across multiple generations.     

Hemoglobin, growth, and attention of infants in southern Ethiopia

Male and female infants from rural Ethiopia were tested to investigate relations among hemoglobin (Hb), anthropometry, and attention. A longitudinal design was used to examine differences in attention performance from 6 (M = 24.9 weeks, n = 89) to 9 months of age (M = 40.6 weeks, n = 85), differences hypothesized to be related to changes in iron status and growth delays. Stunting (length‐for‐age z scores < ?2.0) and attention performance, t(30) = ?2.42, p = .022, worsened over time. Growth and Hb predicted attention at 9 months, R² = .15, p < .05, but not at 6. The study contributes to the knowledge base concerning the relations among Hb, early growth, and attention.