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1. HOW INSTRUCTORS OF UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS COURSES MANAGE TENSIONS RELATED TO TEACHING COURSES FOR TEACHERS?

   Brown, A; Herbst, P; Ion, M (November 2023, University of Nevada, Reno.)

   Lamberg, T; Moss, D (Ed.)

   For centuries, there has been a debate about the role of undergraduate education in society. Some have argued that universities should focus on practical skills and knowledge to prepare students for the workforce, while others have supported the idea that universities should prioritize providing a broad understanding of disciplinary knowledge and practices. In this paper, we leverage data collected from 32 interviews to explore how instructors of the undergraduate geometry course for teachers (GeT) talk about the various tensions they experience in their work. Three distinct ways of talking about tensions emerged from the data: the tension as a dilemma that needs to be managed, the tension as a place to take sides, the tension as an opportunity to reframe aspects of the work. In closing we draw connections between these patterns in the data and the two perspectives about the role of undergraduate mathematics courses in preparing PTs for the work of teaching. 

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2. Student Expectations of Tutors in Computing Courses

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569766  

   Lim, Rachel S.; Krause-Levy, Sophia; Villegas Molina, Ismael; Porter, Leo (March 2023, Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   Many institutions use undergraduate teaching assistants (tutors) in their computing courses to help provide more resources to students. Because of the role tutors play in students' learning experiences, recent work in computing education has begun to explore student-tutor interactions through the tutor's perspective and through direct observation of the interactions. The results suggest that these interactions are cognitively challenging for tutors and may not be as beneficial for students' learning as one might hope. Given that many of these interactions may be unproductive, this work seeks to understand how student expectations of these sessions might be impacting the interactions' effectiveness. We interviewed 15 students in a CS2 course to learn about the expectations and desires that students have when they attend tutoring sessions. Our findings indicate that there is variation in what students consider a desired result from the interaction, that assignment deadlines affect students' expectations and desires for interactions, and that students do not always want what they believe is beneficial for their learning. We discuss implications for instructors and potential guidance for students and tutors to make tutoring sessions more effective. 

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3. Preliminary Feedback on Learning in Advance Courses to Prepare Engineering Students for Gateway Courses

   Freeborn, Todd J.; Burkett, Susan; McCallum, Debra; Steele, Erika; Dunlap, Sarah; Hubner, Paul; Musaev, Aibek; Sobecky, Patricia (January 2020, ASEE Southeastern Section Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   The University of Alabama is exploring Learning in Advance (LIA) courses to introduce engineering students to concepts and correct common misconceptions prior to encountering the complex theories and concepts in three different gateway courses. These gateway courses are circuit analysis, statics, and data-structures/algorithms. The courses were identified based on analysis of institutional data. Data indicated that greater than 90% of UA students who succeed in the three courses went on to complete their undergraduate degree. Yet, each course has individually high rates of failure and/or withdrawals. The objective and intended learning outcomes of each of the three courses is to provide students with knowledge of key concepts that will strengthen the student’s critical thinking skills and establish a strong technical foundation. In this work an overview of the LIA courses is provided along with summaries of collected student feedback and the plans for future assessment to track the effectiveness of this intervention to improve student outcomes in the gateway courses. 

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4. Capstone Courses in Middle School

   Berry, Kenneth (July 2021, ASEE annual conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Capstone courses provide teachers the opportunity to address the 4 Cs for job skills: Collaboration, Creativity, Communications and Critical Thinking. These are the skills that industry has identified as important for employee success. Engineering schools have developed Introduction to Engineering Design courses to introduce students to these skills. This paper describes a school district that is attempting to add a capstone course at the end of their eighth grade year. The paper discusses their challenges and how they addressed the challenges. 

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5. Progression Highlighting for Programming Courses

   N. Alzahrani, F. Vahid (July 2021, ASEE annual conference)