skip to main content


Title: Educating the Next Generation of Interdisciplinary Researchers to Tackle Global Sustainability Challenges: A Graduate Course
This paper describes an innovative graduate course in agricultural economics that has evolved over the past decade and attracts students from across the Purdue University campus. Its novel combination of guest lectures on key sustainability topics, and intensive, computer-based lab assignments with the SIMPLE model of global food and environmental security, prepares students to undertake innovative projects. These independent projects are presented to the class, written up, and submitted in lieu of a final exam. The topics covered are quite diverse and range from the impacts of women empowerment on food security, to the consequences of heat stress on farm workers, and the impact of reducing food waste. The course has spawned two dozen published journal articles, inspired MS and PhD theses, and facilitated a number of important interdisciplinary projects. The complete syllabus, lab assignments, and detailed course design are made available for others to use and adapt to their own circumstances. Future versions of the course will seek to incorporate explicitly spatial analysis of agriculture, land, water, and environmental quality outcomes.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1855937
NSF-PAR ID:
10276868
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Applied economics teaching resources
Volume:
2
Issue:
6
ISSN:
2688-5999
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. An important challenge for the geoscience community is developing engaging, accessible, and effective experiences within introductory courses, which are often gateways to geoscience majors. This study evaluates low-barrier-to-entry and flexible assignments focused on a pedagogical innovation: faculty replaced one of their usual course components (research paper, lab, etc.) with a Student-Produced Audio Narrative (SPAN) assignment. SPAN assignments require students to engage with geoscience content by telling a scientific story using simple audio-recording and production techniques. The hypothesis is that SPAN assignments will increase students’ personal connection to geoscience course content. The pilot study included 8 faculty and 693 students across a range of institution types, course structures, class sizes, and content topics during the control and implementation semesters. The study evaluated student responses to SPAN assignments both quantitatively, using a pre/post survey, and qualitatively, using semi-structured interviews. Survey results show that students experienced positive changes in the categories of personal relevance, sense of curricular innovation, and future intentions to study science. Interview results indicate that much of the increased senses of innovation and personal relevance came from the creativity and choice the students experienced during the SPAN assignment. Taken together, these results indicate that SPAN assignments are innovative to students and effective pedagogical tools that can positively change students’ perceptions of their learning environment and attitudes toward science. 
    more » « less
  2. Nowadays, cyberattack incidents are happening on a daily basis. As a result, the demand for a larger and more challenging workforce is increasing. To handle this demand, academic institutions offer cybersecurity courses and degree programs into their curricula; however, more efforts are needed to address the high demand of the cybersecurity workforce. This work aims to bridge the gap between workforce shortage and the number of qualified graduates to fill the positions. We approach this by introducing cybersecurity concepts at the early stage of undergraduate curricula of computer science and engineering programs. Secure programming is critical as many cybersecurity incidents happen due to software vulnerabilities. However, most UG-level programming courses pay little attention to secure programming practices. As a result, many students graduate with limited knowledge of security vulnerabilities that might plague the developed software. Our goal in this work is to introduce secure programming at introductory level programming courses so that students should be aware of cybersecurity issues and use this security mindset in advanced level courses and projects in their degree programs. To accomplish this goal, we developed intuitive and interactive modules emphasizing secure programming in C++ and Java courses to help students become secure software developers. These modules will be used alongside the coursework to emphasize certain vulnerabilities within the programming environment of a specific language and allow students to learn cybersecurity topics, enforcing a solid foundation and understanding. We developed cybersecurity educational modules for C++ and Java as they are amongst the popular languages and used in introductory programming courses. While designing these modules, we kept in mind that the topics must be relevant to real-world issues in the software industry. We used a variety of resources and benchmarks to ensure the authenticity of our chosen topics, including Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) and Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE). While choosing module topics to develop, we had some restrictions. For example, the topics must be introductory and easy to understand. These modules are geared towards freshman or sophomore-level UG students who have just started programming. The developed security modules have four components: power-point slides, lab description, code template for the lab, and complete solution. The complete solution for each module will be provided to the instructors to check students’ work if they adopt the modules in their courses. The modules developed for a C++ programming course include labs on input validation, integer overflow, random number generation, function call with incorrect argument type, and dangling pointers. In Java, we developed lab modules for input validation, integer overflow, null object reference, random number generator, and data encapsulation. 
    more » « less
  3. Security is a critical aspect in the process of designing, developing, and testing software systems. Due to the increasing need for security-related skills within software systems, there is a growing demand for these skills to be taught in computer science. A series of security modules was developed not only to meet the demand but also to assess the impact of these modules on teaching critical cybersecurity topics in computer science courses. This full paper in the innovative practice category presents the outcomes of six security modules in a freshman-level course at two institutions. The study adopts a Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA) as a project for students to demonstrate an understanding of security concepts. Two experimental studies were conducted: 1) Teaching effectiveness of implementing cyber security modules and MEA projects, and 2) Students’ experiences in conceptual modeling tasks in problem-solving. In measuring the effectiveness of teaching security concepts with the MEA project, students’ performance, attitudes, and interests as well as the instructor’s effectiveness were assessed. For the conceptual modeling tasks in problem-solving, the results of student outcomes were analyzed. After implementing the security modules with the MEA project, students showed a great understanding of cybersecurity concepts and an increased interest in broader computer science concepts. The instructor’s beliefs about teaching, learning, and assessment shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered during their experience with the security modules and MEA project. Although 64.29% of students’ solutions do not seem suitable for real-world implementation, 76.9% of the developed solutions showed a sufficient degree of creativity. 
    more » « less
  4. We analyzed the data collected in a Computer Science I course to quantify the relationship between programming projects, code-tracing assignments and course grade when online tests and closed lab instruction were used in the course. We found that completion of programming projects was positively and moderately correlated with course grade; each completed project contributed nearly one sign grade to the course grade; the grade of students who had completed at least a given number of projects was four sign grades better than of those who had not and the difference was statistically significant; the mean course grade ranged from F for those who had completed 1 or fewer projects to A- for those who had completed 9 or more projects; and completion of later projects was indicative of higher grade in the course. Similarly, completion of code-tracing assignments was positively, but weakly correlated with course grade; the grade of students who had completed at least a given number of assignments was one letter grade better than of those who had not, and the difference was statistically significant; and the mean course grade ranged from C- for those who had completed 6 or fewer assignments to B+ for those who had completed 11 or more assignments. Concurrence among the course objectives, classroom instruction, assessment techniques, programming projects and assignments may be a pre-requisite for obtaining the results of this study. 
    more » « less
  5. Abstract

    The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at St. Mary's College of Maryland has scaffolded collaboration skills throughout the Biochemistry curriculum and developed several assessment tools to evaluate these skills. Biochemistry I and II have used team contracts at the beginning of extensive team projects where students identify their strengths, review expectations, and plan for group communication. At the conclusion of each project, each student assesses their own contributions and team members for various parts of the project. A common collaboration rubric was also applied in Biochemistry I and II as well as in two other courses, General Chemistry II Lab and Physical Chemistry I Lab, for students to evaluate themself and team members using the following subcategories: quality of work, commitment, leadership, communication, and analysis. In Biochemistry I and II, we used this rubric for multiple assignments that are part of the projects in the lecture courses. In the General Chemistry II Lab, we provided elements of this rubric within an evaluation form that reflects these collaboration attributes after each lab experience, so students can assess and report privately on their experiences as part of their collaboration grade for the course. A similar collaboration rubric is completed by students for each team‐based laboratory within Physical Chemistry I. We also demonstrate different ways that instructors can use the data from these assessment tools. In our department, we are using these tools to frame the importance of collaboration skills and collecting data to inform our teaching of these skills. Preliminary data suggest that our curriculum is successfully teaching students how to be good collaborators.

     
    more » « less