The purpose of this study was to continue the trend of identifying the course offerings of National Communication Association (NCA) department members started by Wardrope (1999). A curricular profile ...of U.S. communication departments. Communication Education, 48(3), 256-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529909379173 and followed by Bertelsen and Goodboy (2009). Curriculum planning: Trends in communication studies, workplace competencies, and current programs at 4-year colleges and universities. Communication Education, 58(2), 262-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520902755458. Supported by an Advancing the Discipline grant obtained by the NCA in 2019, this third iteration identifies the Top 30 course offerings across 322 NCA Department members as of May 2020. The results indicate that over the past three decades, the most currently offered communication courses have remained relatively stable, with the interpersonal communication course remaining the most currently offered course by NCA department members, followed (in this study) by the persuasion, introductory, intercultural, public speaking, organizational, group, research methods, argumentation and debate, and theory courses. Future researchers might extend this line of research by inquiring whether these offered courses are required for the undergraduate degree in communication, a department major or area of emphasis, a department minor, or institutional graduation as well as probe the graduate courses offered by communication departments.
Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) represent very interesting tools to reach eco-friendly and sustainable transformations in organic chemistry. In particular, the Biginelli reaction furnishes a very ...easy approach to the synthesis of a library of biological active compounds in an academic course. Here we describe the realization of several experiments involving the synthesis of potential inhibitors of beta-secretase by the Biginelli reaction. All of the obtained compounds were tested with a FRET fluorimetric assay. The experiments were proposed to students either at entry level or during advanced laboratory courses of organic and bioorganic chemistry. The learning objectives at the advanced level were to introduce the students to the practice of combinatorial synthesis and to the evaluation of biological activity of combinatorial libraries by enzyme inhibition assays. The meeting of the learning objectives was probed first by analyzing their daily performance in the laboratory and their increasing proactive attitude, and the contents of their final presentations. The resulting marks obtained by the students were compared with the average evaluation of their career. Second, the students were asked to evaluate the course and their own experience, and the outcome of their evaluation was compared with that of the teachers.
Despite increasing enrollment percentages from earlier years, online courses continue to show receding student retention rates. To reduce attrition and ensure continual growth in online courses, it ...is important to continue to review current and updated literature to understand the changing behaviors of online learners and faculty in the 21st century and examine how they fit together as a cohesive educational unit. This article reviews literature to ascertain critical reasons for high attrition rates in online classes, as well as explore solutions to boost retention rates. This will help create a starting point and foundation for a more, in-depth research and analysis of retention issues in online courses. Examining these issues is critical to contemporary learning environments.
The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of conceptualising and measuring learner engagement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The paper develops ...and validates a MOOC engagement scale (MES) to measure learner engagement. The initial questionnaire items of the scale were developed by reviewing existing related literature and validated student engagement constructs. This was followed by a modified scale development process, including two focus group interviews (n = 10), an exploratory survey (n = 12), an expert review (n = 10), a pilot survey (n = 15), an item purification study (n = 590) and a construct validation study (n = 303). The final version of the scale is made up of four dimensions: behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, emotional engagement and social engagement. The paper concludes with recommendations for how the MES can be used to assess the pattern of engagement in MOOCs and to investigate the relationship between learner engagement and other important MOOC teaching and learning factors. Author abstract
In golf the playing field is also landscape, where nature and the shaping of it conspire to test athletic prowess. As golf courses move away from the "big business, pristine lawn" approach of recent ...times, Bradley S. Klein, a leading expert on golf course design and economics, finds much to contemplate, and much to report, in the way these wide-open spaces function as landscapes that inspire us, stimulate our senses, and reveal the special nature of particular places. A meditation on what makes golf courses compelling landscapes, this is also a personal memoir that follows Klein's own unique journey across the golfing terrain, from the Bronx and Long Island suburbia to the American prairie and the Pacific Northwest. Whether discussing Robert Moses and Donald Trump and the making of New York City, or the role of golf in the development of the atomic bomb, or the relevance of Willa Cather to how the game has taken hold in the Nebraska Sandhills, Klein is always looking for the freedom and the meaning of golf's wide-open spaces. And as he searches, he offers a deeply informed and absorbing view of golf courses as cultural markers, linking the game to larger issues of land use, ecology, design, and imagination. Purchase the audio edition.
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have generated enthusiasm, excitement, and hype worldwide and recently increasing skepticism. They are being broadly discussed in the major news media (and to a ...smaller extent in academic circles). Rapidly increasing numbers of MOOC providers, MOOC courses and articles, discussion groups, and blogs discussing MOOCs are indicators of the involvement of many stakeholders. Most of these analyses and developments are based on economic perspectives (such as scalability, productivity, and being free) and technology perspectives (including platforms supporting large number of students in online environments, enrichment components such as forums, peer-to-peer learning support, and automatic grading). Few contributions analyze MOOCs from a learning science perspective and put them into a larger context with other approaches to learning and education. This commentary explores challenges derived from the perspective to conceptualize MOOCs as being one component in a rich landscape of learning.
This paper examines the impact of substituting regular classroom programme with online classes on students’ academic performance. We compared the change in the delivery mechanism of preparatory ...courses for two consecutive Master of Business Administration (MBA) batches in one of the top business schools in India. While the first batch studied in a face-to-face classroom setting, the second batch was taught two subjects in an online format, while the third subject continued to be offered in the face-to-face classroom setting. Using a difference-in-difference estimation, we found that the students' performance declined in both the subjects offered online, with the average performance declining by 4.95% and 8.4% in Economics and Accounting, respectively. However, no decline in performance was noted in the third subject of Quantitative Methods, offered in a face-to-face classroom setting. Further, we found a larger drop in scores for students with lowest academic ability. Our results indicate that a shift to online courses should be accompanied by well-designed pedagogical and curriculum changes to ensure substantive learning, especially for academically weaker students.
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