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Abstract

Introduction: Online learning increased rapidly during the 2020 school year due to COVID-19. While online learning was perhaps the only realistic response to the health crisis, students differ in terms of their success with online learning. One particular group which may be vulnerable to problems with online learning is transfer students. Transfer students may be coming from smaller, in-person classes and are now put into fully online environments. This paper studies the performance of transfer students in online classes versus in-person classes. Methods: This study compares the success of transfer students for an in-person semester to an online semester. A simple statistical test was performed to compare results for transfer students to control students. Results: Transfer students appear to be performing worse than control students in the fully online learning environment. Discussion: There may be a variety of reasons for the poorer performance of transfer students. They may be switching from smaller, in-person learning environments to more impersonal online environments. Limitations: Pre-existing differences in individual students could not be controlled for. Conclusion: These results suggest that transfer students may not be adapting to fully online learning as well as control students. Further research is needed to clarify this.

AbstractBusinesses and organizations are turning to fast feedback devices that measure consumer satisfaction. These standalone devices often have four or five different smiley-face buttons that can quickly gauge consumer sentiment. These devices are becoming popular due to the short time commitment needed to provide feedback.This instructor has piloted the use of a smiley-face survey tool that is used at the end of each class session. Initial results suggest the role of the instructor may play a lesser role in student happiness for a given class. External factors, such as outside event or incoming GPA, appear to have a larger effect on class satisfaction. Data from classes and sample email exchanges will be presented. This type of fast feedback system has many potential benefits and low startup costs.

Student discussion has been identified as a key ingredient in overall student learning (Flynn & Klein 2001; Safari et al 2006). However, in many classrooms, there is little to no discussion between teachers and students or among students themselves. This may result from high student-teacher ratios, or from the chosen pedagogy of the instructor.A variety of ideas to increase class discussion have been proposed over time. A number of these ideas have been shown to increase student learning (Freeman et al 2014 for a recent meta-analysis). This paper attempts to analyze student discussion from a human evolutionary standpoint. Such a view may add new insights into how discussion can be effectively used in the classroom.While looking at discussion from such an evolutionary view, several key questions arise: how and why did humans utilize discussion in the past? What are “natural conditions” for human discussion? How can these ideas help increase the use and effectiveness of discussion within an educational framework? This paper hopes to answer these questions and expound upon the evolutionary origins of productive discussion.