Designing and delivering bioinformatics project-based learning in East Africa.

BACKGROUND: The Eastern Africa Network for Bioinformatics Training (EANBiT) has matured through continuous evaluation, feedback, and codesign. We highlight how the program has evolved to meet challenges and achieve its goals and how experiential learning through mini projects enhances the acquisition of skills and collaboration. We continued to learn and grow through honest feedback and evaluation of the program, trainers, and modules, enabling us to provide robust training even during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, when we had to redesign the program due to restricted travel and in person group meetings. RESULTS: In response to the pandemic, we developed a program to maintain "residential" training experiences and benefits remotely. We had to answer the following questions: What must change to still achieve the RT goals? What optimal platforms should be used? How would we manage connectivity and data challenges? How could we avoid online fatigue? Going virtual presented an opportunity to reflect on the essence and uniqueness of the program and its ability to meet the objective of strengthening bioinformatics skills among the cohorts of students using different delivery approaches. It allowed an increase in the number of participants. Evaluating each program component is critical for improvement, primarily when feedback feeds into the program's continuous amendment. Initially, the participants noted that there were too many modules, insufficient time, and a lack of hands-on training as a result of too much focus on theory. In the subsequent iterations, we reduced the number of modules from 27 to five, created a harmonized repository for the materials on GitHub, and introduced project-based learning through the mini projects. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate that implementing a program design through detailed monitoring and evaluation leads to success, especially when participants who are the best fit for the program are selected on an appropriate level of skills, motivation, and commitment.

Enhancing Lessons on the Internet of Things in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medical Education with a Remote Lab.

Integrating remote Internet of Things (IoT) laboratories into project-based learning (PBL) in higher education institutions (HEIs) while exploiting the approach of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is a challenging yet pivotal endeavor. Our proposed approach enables students to interact with an IoT-equipped lab locally and remotely, thereby bridging theoretical knowledge with practical application, creating a more immersive, adaptable, and effective learning experience. This study underscores the significance of combining hardware, software, and coding skills in PBL, emphasizing how IoTRemoteLab (the remote lab we developed) supports a customized educational experience that promotes innovation and safety. Moreover, we explore the potential of IoTRemoteLab as a TEL, facilitating and supporting the understanding and definition of the requirements of remote learning. Furthermore, we demonstrate how we incorporate generative artificial intelligence into IoTRemoteLab's settings, enabling personalized recommendations for students leveraging the lab locally or remotely. Our approach serves as a model for educators and researchers aiming to equip students with essential skills for the digital age while addressing broader issues related to access, engagement, and sustainability in HEIs. The practical findings following an in-class experiment reinforce the value of IoTRemoteLab and its features in preparing students for future technological demands and fostering a more inclusive, safe, and effective educational environment.

Collaborative project-based learning in global health: Enhancing competencies and skills for undergraduate nursing students.

BACKGROUND: Despite the importance of collaboration and communication in global health, existing educational approaches often rely on traditional one-way instruction from instructor to student. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a newly developed undergraduate curriculum on global health in enhancing nursing students' competencies in global health and communication, problem-solving, and self-directed learning skills. METHODS: A 15-week course "Global Health and Nursing" was designed for undergraduate nursing students, and a collaborative project-based learning method was used. Study participants were undergraduate nursing students enrolled in the course. The study was a multi-method study and included quantitative and qualitative components. It employed a one-group pretest-posttest design to quantitatively assess the impact of the curriculum. Additionally, student experiences with the learning process were qualitatively explored through a focus group interview. A total of 28 students participated in this study, and 5 of them participated in the focus group interview. RESULTS: The collaborative project-based learning method significantly improved global health competency (t = - 10.646, df = 22, p < 0.001), with a large effect size. It also improved communication skills (t = - 2.649, df = 22, p = 0.015), problem-solving skills (t = - 3.453, df = 22, p = 0.002), and self-directed learning skills (t = - 2.375, df = 22, p = 0.027). Three themes were found through the focus group interview: (a) Promoting global health competency; (b) Fostering life skills through collaborative projects; and (c) Recommendations for future classes. The focus group interview indicated that overall, the study participants were satisfied with the collaborative project-based method for global health education. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that project-based learning significantly boosts the competencies and skills of students, recommending its broader adoption in nursing education. Nursing instructors should consider adopting this teaching approach for global health education at the undergraduate level. Future studies may employ a longitudinal design to assess the prolonged effects of the collaborative project-based learning approach, particularly focusing on the long-term retention of skills and the broader applicability of this model across different educational settings.

Effects of Project-Based Learning on Entrepreneurship Skills and Characteristics of Nursing Students.

Entrepreneurship is pivotal globally, reflecting a nation's potential. Effective education management is crucial for fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in nursing students. This cross-sectional quasi-experimental study, using a one-group pretest-posttest design, examines the impact of project-based learning on nursing students' entrepreneurial skills at the Institute of Nursing, Suranaree University of Technology. The sample included 59 fourth-year nursing students from the third semester of the 2022 academic year. A validated proactive teaching and learning management plan based on project-based learning was used. Research instruments were entrepreneurship skills and entrepreneurial characteristics assessment forms, with reliability coefficients of 0.71 and 0.83, respectively. Data collection spanned 6 weeks, analyzed with paired t-tests and ANCOVA to test mean differences after controlling covariates. Findings showed a statistically significant improvement in entrepreneurial skills and characteristics post-learning (p < 0.05). ANCOVA results, accounting for baseline scores and GPA, confirmed the project-based learning intervention's significant and robust impact on entrepreneurial skills and characteristics. Active learning through project-based approaches significantly enhances entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurial characteristics among nursing students, with potential applicability across diverse disciplines.

Interactive Notebooks Improve Students' Understanding of Developmental Neurobiology, Attitudes Toward Research, and Experimental Design Competency in a Lecture-Based Neuroscience Course.

Recent efforts to engage postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students in the rigors of discovery-driven inquiry have centered on the integration of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) within the biology curricula. While this method of laboratory education is demonstrated to improve students' content knowledge, motivations, affect, and persistence in STEM, CUREs may present as cost- and/or resource-prohibitive. Likewise, not all lecture courses have a concomitant laboratory requirement. With these caveats in mind, we developed the NeuroNotebook intervention, which provided students enrolled in a standalone Developmental Neurobiology course with an immersive, semester-long "dry-lab" experience incorporating many of the same elements as a CURE (e.g., collaboration, use of experimental design skills, troubleshooting, and science communication). Quantitative and qualitative assessment of this intervention revealed positive pre-/post-semester gains in students' content knowledge, attitudes toward the research process, and development of science process skills. Collectively, these data suggest that interventions such as the NeuroNotebook can be an effective alternative to a "wet-lab" experience.

Application of project-based service-learning courses in medical education: trials of curriculum designs during the pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Due to COVID-19, face-to-face service activities in service-learning courses have become unfeasible. To address this challenge, this study aims to integrate project-based learning into medical education's service-learning curriculum. This study also seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of this instructional approach and identify factors that influence its success. METHODS: A total of 135 first-year medical students enrolled in a mandatory 1-credit service-learning course were recruited. The course involved various service activities aligned with the needs of the local community. The students were organized into 12 groups, each working on different service-learning projects, such as raising health awareness or educating the public about specific diseases. Following the completion of the course, a questionnaire was distributed among the students to gather feedback on the course, and 122 (valid responses were collected, representing a response rate of 90.3%). RESULTS: The results indicated that the project-based service-learning course significantly improved students' "interpersonal communication skills," their ability to "learn and grow from work," and their sense of "professionalism" (all p ≤ 0.037). Among the various aspects of service learning, the highest agreement was observed for "executing the project," followed by "group discussions and project formulation," "overall course review," "review of project outcomes," "outcome presentations," "teaching proposal writing and project brainstorming," "sharing of service-learning experiences by teachers," and "sharing of service-learning experiences by teaching assistants." Students also found certain factors to be beneficial in enhancing the learning effectiveness of service-learning courses, including "prize money for service-learning outcomes," "funding for service-learning activities," and "consultations from medical personnel" (all p ≤ 0.01). However, "course credit" and "photography software" did not show significant effects (both p > 0.05). The most preferred resources or activities for future service-learning courses were "course credit" and "face-to-face service-learning activities." CONCLUSIONS: The project-based learning method improved the learning effectiveness in service-learning courses. Students perceived that the number of course credits reflects the course value and plays a pivotal role in enhancing the learning effectiveness in service-learning courses. During the epidemic, students still expect to have face-to-face service activities in service-learning courses. Therefore, without the impact of the epidemic, service learning courses should return to face-to-face service activities.

Educating Engineering Students to Address Bias and Discrimination Within Their Project Teams.

What training should engineering students receive to enable them to contribute to reducing bias, discrimination and the persistent lack of diversity in engineering? Collaboration is central to professional engineering work and, consequently, teamwork and group projects are increasingly present in engineering curricula. However, the influence of unconscious bias on interactions within teams can negatively affect women and underrepresented groups and is now recognised as an important engineering ethics issue. This paper describes a workshop designed to enable engineering students to work equitably in diverse teams. Key features of the workshop include (1) the emotionally safe, empowering and warm environment created, (2) the creation of opportunities for students to discuss and apply the issues raised to their own engineering projects, and (3) the opportunities to practice the use of both proactive and reactive strategies to address bias and discrimination in teams. The evaluation of the workshop suggests that engineering students regarded both onsite and online formats as providing useful skills that they intended to apply in practice. Follow-up evaluations suggest that the workshop leads to behavioural change, especially the use of proactive teamwork strategies intended to reduce the impact of unconscious bias.

Tackle implementation challenges in project-based learning: a survey study of PBL e-learning platforms.

Project-based learning (PBL) has been identified as an effective pedagogy for instructors to help students to learn interdisciplinary knowledge, problem-solving skills, modes of thinking, and collaborative practices through solving problems in a real-world context. However, previous studies reported that instructors from K-12 to tertiary learning environments found it challenging to implement such a pedagogy for various reasons. The emergence of PBL E-learning platforms in the recent decade has attracted increasing interest in adoption and seems to provide a solution to tackle the difficulties in PBL implementation. Yet little is known about designing these platforms and how they facilitate the PBL learning process and management. In the current study, we conducted a multiple case survey study on 16 PBL learning platforms in English and Chinese, collected data on their features and functions, categorized them according to their services provided, and analyzed how they tackle the implementation challenges. Additionally, we identified four trends in PBL development as pedagogy, the skills, and competence required for teachers and students to successfully carry out PBL via e-learning platforms and provide suggestions to improve and refine the platform design for educational technologists and related stakeholders. The limitations of this study and the future research direction are included.

Enhancing the 4Cs among college students of a communication skills course in Tanzania through a project-based learning model.

The development of technology has changed the way people communicate in academic contexts as well as working places, for example from print messages to screened messages, and from face-to-face classroom and office meetings to virtual classes and offices. This has prompted the shift from traditional teaching practices to student-centered in which students are guided by their teachers to develop skills for 21st Century careers through the Project-Based Learning model. However, in Tanzania colleges, the teaching of a Communication Skills Course perpetuates traditional teaching practices, which could reduce the chance for students to participate in global democratic activities. Consequently, the present study aimed at exploring how to enhance the 4 C's (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity) among the college students of the Communication Skills Course in Tanzania through the Project-Based Learning model. Qualitative participatory action research with two cycles was adopted. Data from ten students, one teacher, and the curriculum were collected through observation, document analysis, and reflective journals. Data were analyzed thematically. Findings show that current teaching practices for Communication Skills Course in Tanzania colleges hardly enhance the development of the 4 C's among students. It was also observed that the implementation of PBL resulted in enhancing the 4 C's among college students in Tanzania colleges. However, large class sizes, poor technological infrastructure, and lack of facilities are among the challenges experienced during the implementation of PBL in enhancing the 4Cs. The study recommends the reformation of current teaching practices, to focus on developing skills needed to cope with students' real-life contexts, instead of focusing on content knowledge. Also, the study calls for the adoption of PBL in Tanzania colleges in teaching Communication Skills to develop necessary skills for the 21st Century. To cope with any potential challenges, the study suggests that there should be collaborative efforts among education stakeholders.

Do project-based learning, hands-on activities, and flipped teaching enhance student's learning of introductory theoretical computing classes?

The need for computer science (CS) education, especially computer network education, is increasing. However, the challenges of teaching students with diverse backgrounds and engaging them in hands-on activities to apply theories into practices exist in CS education. The study addressed the challenges by using project-based learning (PBL) and flipped teaching approaches to cover both theoretical and hands-on learning aspects in CS education. This study aims to demonstrate the design and development journey of a CS course and examine whether using PBL, hands-on activities, and flipped teaching approaches improves students' learning. The design-based research study was conducted in an undergraduate CS course from 2014 to 2020 at a midwestern university. The design and development trajectory in the six years were described. The descriptive statistics were used to analyze the trends of the course evaluation results, and ANOVA were conducted to examine whether the evaluation differs from each semester. The results indicated that using PBL, hands-on activities, and flipped teaching increased students' learning motivation and their perceptions of their learning. Combining PBL and flipped teaching appropriately can enhance students' learning motivation and perceived learning in CS education, but further research is needed to examine how each individual intervention influence students' learning motivation and learning outcomes.

Undergraduates' lived experience of project-/problem-based learning in introductory biology.

Recommendations for enhancing scientific literacy, inclusivity, and the ecosystem for innovation call for transitioning from teacher-centered to learner-centered science classrooms, particularly at the introductory undergraduate level. Yet little is documented about the challenges that undergraduates perceive in such classrooms and the students' ways of navigating them. Via mixed methods, we studied undergraduates' lived experience in one form of learner-centered teaching, hybrid project-/problem-based learning (PBL), in introductory organismal biology at a baccalaureate institution. Prominent in qualitative analyses of student interviews and written reflections were undergraduates' initial expectation of and longing for an emphasis on facts and transmission of them. The prominence diminished from semester's middle to end, as students came to value developing ideas, solving problems collaboratively, and engaging in deep ways of learning. Collaboration and personal resources such as belief in self emerged as supports for these shifts. Quantitative analyses corroborated that PBL students transformed as learners, moving toward informed views on the nature of science, advancing in multivariable causal reasoning, and more frequently adopting deep approaches for learning than students in lecture-based sections. The qualitative and quantitative findings portray the PBL classroom as an intercultural experience in which culture shock yields over time to acceptance in a way supported by students' internal resources and peer collaboration. The findings have value to those seeking to implement PBL and other complex-learning approaches in a manner responsive to the lived experience of the learner.

Using "evidence-based practice" to integrate physiological knowledge with practical application in an introductory undergraduate exercise physiology course.

Critical thinking and scientific communication are common learning objectives in physiology education. However, a lack of real-world application can limit the transfer of these skills to professional settings. For example, health and wellness professionals are often asked to give advice to clients and patients regarding the use of nutritional supplements, diets, and exercise programs. Giving sound advice on these questions requires the ability to find, interpret, and communicate the evidence to support or reject the use of a given intervention. "Evidence-based practice" (EBP) provides a philosophical framework for combining personal experience, client/patient values, and scientific evidence to give informed advice in a professional setting. Here, we describe the development and implementation of a semester-long EBP project in an introductory exercise physiology course. We discuss how specific components of the project are designed to enhance classroom equity, improve scientific communication, and integrate course content with the student's lived experience and personal interests.

Computational Thinking and Educational Robotics Integrated into Project-Based Learning.

In the context of the science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics disciplines in education, subjects tend to use contextualized activities or projects. Educational robotics and computational thinking both have the potential to become subjects in their own right, though not all educational programs yet offer these. Despite the use of technology and programming platforms being widespread, it is not common practice to integrate computational thinking and educational robotics into the official curriculum in secondary education. That is why this paper continues an initial project of integrating computational thinking and educational robotics into a secondary school in Barcelona, Spain. This study presents a project-based learning approach where the main focus is the development of skills related to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics and the acquisition of computational thinking knowledge in the second year of pupils' studies using a block-based programming environment. The study develops several sessions in the context of project-based learning, with students using the block-programming platform ScratchTM. During these sessions and in small-group workshops, students will expand their knowledge of computational thinking and develop 21st-century skills. We demonstrate the superior improvement of these concepts and skills compared to other educational methodologies.

Teaching PSE mastery during, and after, the COVID-19 pandemic.

After more than a year of online teaching resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is time to take stock of the status quo in teaching practice in all things concerning process systems engineering (PSE), and to derive recommendations for the future to harness what we have experienced to improve the degree to which our students achieve mastery. This contribution presents the experiences and conclusions resulting from the first COVID-19 semester (spring 2020), and how the lessons learned were applied to the process design course taught in the second COVID-19 semester (winter 2020) to a class of 53 students. The paper concludes with general recommendations for fostering active learning by students in all PSE courses, whether taught online or face to face.

Training the Next Industrial Engineers and Managers about Industry 4.0: A Case Study about Challenges and Opportunities in the COVID-19 Era.

Training the next generation of industrial engineers and managers is a constant challenge for academia, given the fast changes of industrial technology. The current and predicted development trends in applied technologies affecting industry worldwide as formulated in the Industry 4.0 initiative have clearly emphasized the needs for constantly adapting curricula. The sensible socioeconomic changes generated by the COVID-19 pandemic have induced significant challenges to society in general and industry. Higher education, specifically when dealing with Industry 4.0, must take these new challenges rapidly into account. Modernization of the industrial engineering curriculum combined with its migration to a blended teaching landscape must be updated in real-time with real-world cases. The COVID-19 crisis provides, paradoxically, an opportunity for dealing with the challenges of training industrial engineers to confront a virtual dematerialized work model which has accelerated during and will remain for the foreseeable future after the pandemic. The paper describes the methodology used for adapting, enhancing, and evaluating the learning and teaching experience under the urgent and unexpected challenges to move from face-to-face university courses distant and online teaching. The methodology we describe is built on a process that started before the onset of the pandemic, hence in the paper we start by describing the pre-COVID-19 status in comparison to published initiatives followed by the real time modifications we introduced in the faculty to adapt to the post-COVID-19 teaching/learning era. The focus presented is on Industry 4.0. subjects at the leading edge of the technology changes affecting the industrial engineering and technology management field. The manuscript addresses the flow from system design subjects to implementation areas of the curriculum, including practical examples and the rapid decisions and changes made to encompass the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on content and teaching methods including feedback received from participants.

Differences in personalized learning practice and technology use in high- and low-performing learner-centered schools in the United States.

The Every Student Succeeds Act supports personalized learning (PL) to close achievement gaps of diverse K-12 learners in the United States. Implementing PL into a classroom entails a paradigm change of the educational system. However, it is demanding to transform traditional practice into a personalized one under the pressure of the annual standardized testing while it is unclear which PL approaches are more likely to result in better academic outcomes than others. Using national survey data of ELA teachers in identified learner-centered schools, this study compared high and low-performing learner-centered schools (determined by their standardized test results) in terms of their use of five PL features (personalized learning plan, competency-based student progress, criterion-referenced assessment, project- or problem-based learning, and multi-year mentoring) and their use of technology for the four functions of planning, learning, assessment, and recordkeeping. Generally, teachers in high-performing schools implemented PL more thoroughly and utilized technology for more functions than those in low-performing schools. Teachers in high-performing schools more frequently considered career goals when creating personal learning plans, shared the project outcomes with the community, and assessed non-academic outcomes. They stayed longer with the same students and developed close relationships with more students. Also, they more frequently used technology for sharing resources and reported having a more powerful technology system than those in low-performing schools. This study informs educators, administrators, and researchers of which PL approaches and technology uses are more likely to result in better academic outcomes measured by standardized assessments.

Fostering Environmental Awareness with Smart IoT Planters in Campuses.

The decrease in the cost of sensors during the last years, and the arrival of the 5th generation of mobile technology will greatly benefit Internet of Things (IoT) innovation. Accordingly, the use of IoT in new agronomic practices might be a vital part for improving soil quality, optimising water usage, or improving the environment. Nonetheless, the implementation of IoT systems to foster environmental awareness in educational settings is still unexplored. This work addresses the educational need to train students on how to design complex sensor-based IoT ecosystems. Hence, a Project-Based-Learning approach is followed to explore multidisciplinary learning processes implementing IoT systems that varied in the sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, plants, soils and irrigation system they used. Three different types of planters were implemented, namely, hydroponic system, vertical garden, and rectangular planters. This work presents three key contributions that might help to improve teaching and learning processes. First, a holistic architecture describing how IoT ecosystems can be implemented in higher education settings is presented. Second, the results of an evaluation exploring teamwork performance in multidisciplinary groups is reported. Third, alternative initiatives to promote environmental awareness in educational contexts (based on the lessons learned) are suggested. The results of the evaluation show that multidisciplinary work including students from different expertise areas is highly beneficial for learning as well as on the perception of quality of the work obtained by the whole group. These conclusions rekindle the need to encourage work in multidisciplinary teams to train engineers for Industry 4.0 in Higher Education.

Flipping Out and Digging in: Combining the Flipped Class and Project-Based Learning to Teach Adult Development.

The urgent need for a worldwide workforce trained in gerontology (Silverstein, N. M., & Fitzgerald, K. G. (2017). Educating a new generation of professionals in agingworldwide. Gerontology & Geriatrics Education, 38, 1-4) has lead for a call by gerontology educators to employ creative, innovative, novel, and engaging pedagogy in gerontological education (Brown,P. P. (2016). From pedagogy to practice: Adventures in student engagement. Gerontology & Geriatrics Education, 37, 105-107; Niles-Yokum, K., & Howe, J. L. (2015). Making aging real through reflective teaching and learning strategies. Gerontology & Geriatrics Education, 36, 107-108; Siegal, B., & Kagan, S. (2012). Teaching psychological and social gerontology to millennial undergraduates. Educational Gerontology, 38, 20-29). This article outlines a novel approach to teaching-combining the flipped classroom with project-based learning-that not only fosters deep learning but also fosters the development of skills applicable to real life. This article describes how to turn traditional lectures into online lectures to "flip" the classroom and also provides a guide for setting up project-based learning, providing suggestions for group formation, project topics, and examples of project contracts and evaluation sheets. When employed together, these powerful teaching tools can provide students with an active, participatory, class experience with the potential to inspire a lifelong interest in adult development and gerontology.

Chick Embryonic Primary Astrocyte Cultures Provide an Effective and Scalable Model for Authentic Research in a Laboratory Class.

Cell culture provides an impactful tool for undergraduates to study a range of neurobiological processes. While immortalized or cancer cell lines offer a level of convenience for undergraduate research, particularly for larger scale course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) or project-based learning (PBL), primary cell cultures more closely retain the characteristics of the tissue of origin, allowing students to engage in a wider range of authentic research projects. Astrocytes have gained increasing attention for their role in modulating neuronal viability and are at the forefront of neuroprotection research. Here we describe a method of primary astrocyte culture preparation, derived from embryonic day 8 chicken embryos, optimized for a cell biology laboratory class. The primary astrocytes, prepared and maintained by undergraduates, were used as the model system for student-centered research projects in which students investigated cytoskeletal changes in response to drug treatments. Students reported several learning gains from the experience. The ease of the primary culture method for novice research students allows greater flexibility in designing authentic and scalable research experiences.

The Mysterious Case of Patient X: A Case Study for Neuroscience Students.

The Mysterious Case of Patient X is adapted from an actual clinical case of a famous American writer whose symptoms initially presented as Parkinson's disease. His complex medical history challenges students to investigate alternative diagnoses. Students confront the complexity of biomedical systems from the molecular and cellular processes that underlie neuronal degeneration to the organization and integration of brain regions that control the symptoms of disease. The case is written for upper-level undergraduate or beginning graduate students in biology or neuroscience but could be adapted for introductory neuroscience courses.