A Cultured Learning Environment: Implementing a Problem- and Service-Based Microbiology Capstone Course to Assess Process- and Skill-Based Learning Objectives

Watson, Rachel; Willford, John; Pfeifer, Mariel A.

doi:10.7771/1541-5015.1694

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…While traditional PBL calls for small class sizes, and undergraduate research placements and capstone courses are often restricted by GPA and other criteria, a hybrid project-led PBL approach can allow for a wider range of students to experience conducting original anthropological research (see discussion in Watson, Willford, and Pfiefer 2013). For instructors wanting to expand active learning and PBL beyond course labs or to incorporate a service component, but also needing to teach new content or dealing with a medium (rather than small) class size, a hybrid, structurallyscaffolded project-based approach could be a productive option.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While traditional PBL calls for small courses, and undergraduate research placements and capstone courses are often restricted by GPA and other criteria, a hybridized project-led PBL approach can allow for a greater range of students to experience conducting original research (see discussion in Watson, Willford, and Pfiefer 2013). Certainly, one major pedagogical benefit of the Project was the opportunity for students to experience working with complex data.…”

Section: Project Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Demography and Community Engagement through a Study of Auckland’s Nineteenth-Century Symonds Street Cemetery

Battles

2020

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The Symonds Street Cemetery Project was initially suggested by Auckland Council, which desired to learn more about this first-generation colonial urban cemetery in Auckland, New Zealand. Undergraduate students enrolled in an Anthropological Demography course worked in groups to transcribe demographic information from existing gravestones. The undergraduates’ assignment was to develop a demographic profile of one denominational section, comparing results from their transcriptions with those based on a database of known burials and considering issues of representativeness and preservation. The postgraduates developed their own original research questions relating to gender, migration, and infant mortality. The final transcribed data and student papers were given to Auckland Council for their records and others’ use. The postgraduate students also presented their findings in a public forum. Observed benefits were consistent with the literature on fieldwork and service learning in anthropology and related disciplines, such as increased interest and motivation associated with working with ‘real’ data with a purpose beyond their own learning and assessment. The project thus accomplished specific pedagogical goals related to course content while developing students’ transferable skills and including them in the process of community engagement as contributors to local heritage knowledge and preservation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Project Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Demography and Community Engagement through a Study of Auckland’s Nineteenth-Century Symonds Street Cemetery

Battles

2020

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“…Assessment was, as expected in an assessment‐driven curriculum, the place where the largest number of issues weras raised. Other studies have found that assessment of interdisciplinary learning commonly involves group outputs such as management plans and grant proposals, developed through multiple stages of drafting and feedback, 20,23 often accompanied by individual reflection statements 20,27,28 . Assessment associated with the interdisciplinary component of the capstones—a large interdisciplinary project – was aligned and shared between partnered courses (Table 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An idea to explore: Interdisciplinary capstone courses in biomedical and life science education

Ross

Mercer-Mapstone

Pozza

et al. 2022

Biochem Molecular Bio Educ

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While biomedical and life science research have embraced interdisciplinarity as the means to solving pressing 21st century complex challenges, interdisciplinarity in undergraduate education has been more difficult to implement. As a consequence, disciplinary rather than interdisciplinary capstones have become ubiquitous. Disciplinary capstones are valuable for students because they enable them to integrate knowledge and skills within the discipline, but they are also limiting because the integration is within rather than across disciplines. In contrast to a capstone, which involves a single discipline, interdisciplinary capstones require two or more disciplines to combine and integrate across disciplinary boundaries. Interdisciplinarity, where two of more disciplines come together, is difficult to implement in the biomedical and life science curricula because student majors and finances are administered in ways, which reinforce institutional organization of schools and faculties and prevent collaboration. Here in this "idea to explore" we provide an interdisciplinary capstone model where students enroll in disciplinary courses, but then these disciplinary courses and students collaborate on interdisciplinary real-world problems. This interdisciplinary capstone model was implemented across two diverse and large biomedical and life science schools within two faculties in a research intensive, metropolitan university. This approach allows for integration of the biomedical, social and ethical perspectives required when solving problems in the real world, such as COVID-19. Interdisciplinary learning also better prepares students for higher degree research and future careers. Overcoming disciplinary curriculum silos and faculty barriers is critical if we are to meet expectations of acquiring interdisciplinarity as a key competency.

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“…In this way, it directly affects the students' attitude toward the training they receive, given that the acquisition of practical knowledge constructed around their own experience shows clear repercussions in their levels of satisfaction, especially given the perceived usefulness of their learning processes (Thamwipat et al, 2018). From this point of view, students participating in SL report positive emotions such as interest, enthusiasm, inspiration and determination (Opazo et al, 2018); they also state that the educational experience provides them with satisfaction, commitment and growth (Watson et al, 2018); and they see their motivation and perception of self-efficacy transcend (Gonsalves et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evaluation of Social and Professional Life Competences of University Students Through Service-Learning

et al. 2021

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The view previously held in the university regarding teaching-learning processes has changed significantly over the past few years. Undoubtedly, in the case of Europe, this change of pedagogical model has gone hand in hand with the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Some of the pivotal areas of EHEA are the independent work of the individual student, the social dimension of learning, and the acquiring of skills, which are not reduced to the mere technical and/or subject matter knowledge. Generic competences and the so-called “soft skills” have also become important, given their significant contribution to the students’ academic, personal, social, and professional development. Predictably, within this framework, new methodologies appear, in line with this educational focus on competences; among these new methodologies include service-learning (SL). It basically consists of introducing a community service into the traditional academic and curricular tasks thereby seeking a better relevance and applicability in the learning processes. This article analyzes the way in which SL contributes to the acquisition, by university students, of a certain skill set which is useful for their social and professional life. To this end, we used a quasi-experimental design, which included pretest and posttest assessments based on a total sample of 1,153 students (789 SL students and 364 non-SL students). The used questionnaire evaluates three important components relevant for the purpose of the present article (perception of the university education, social participation and civic-social competences). The conclusion is that students involved in SL not only show a more positive evolution, but also obtain better results after the projects are completed (regarding satisfaction with the training, and social participation). By the same token, not all students included in the experimental group achieve homogeneous results; the differences are according to variables such as gender, the cycle/year they are enrolled in, area of study or whether or not they previously participated in university service activities. Finally, we observe that this methodology is capable of approaching university education in a holistic way by asserting cross-section type learning processes likely to be useful in the transition from the students’ academic to their professional life.

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A Cultured Learning Environment: Implementing a Problem- and Service-Based Microbiology Capstone Course to Assess Process- and Skill-Based Learning Objectives

Cited by 7 publications

References 23 publications

Teaching Demography and Community Engagement through a Study of Auckland’s Nineteenth-Century Symonds Street Cemetery

Teaching Demography and Community Engagement through a Study of Auckland’s Nineteenth-Century Symonds Street Cemetery

An idea to explore: Interdisciplinary capstone courses in biomedical and life science education

The Evaluation of Social and Professional Life Competences of University Students Through Service-Learning

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