Am I getting through? Surveying students on what messages they recall from the first day of STEM classes

Background The first day of class helps students learn about what to expect from their instructors and courses. Messaging used by instructors, which varies in content and approach on the first day, shapes classroom social dynamics and can affect subsequent learning in a course. Prior work established the non-content Instructor Talk Framework to describe the language that instructors use to create learning environments, but little is known about the extent to which students detect those messages. In this study, we paired first day classroom observation data with results from student surveys to measure how readily students in introductory STEM courses detect non-content Instructor Talk. Results To learn more about the instructor and student first day experiences, we studied 11 introductory STEM courses at two different institutions. The classroom observation data were used to characterize course structure and use of non-content Instructor Talk. The data revealed that all instructors spent time discussing their instructional practices, building instructor/student relationships, and sharing strategies for success with their students. After class, we surveyed students about the messages their instructors shared during the first day of class and determined that the majority of students from within each course detected messaging that occurred at a higher frequency. For lower frequency messaging, we identified nuances in what students detected that may help instructors as they plan their first day of class. Conclusions For instructors who dedicate the first day of class to establishing positive learning environments, these findings provide support that students are detecting the messages. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of instructors prioritizing the messages they deem most important and giving them adequate attention to more effectively reach students. Setting a positive classroom environment on the first day may lead to long-term impacts on student motivation and course retention. These outcomes are relevant for all students, but in particular for students in introductory STEM courses which are often critical prerequisites for being in a major.

Supporting Non-traditional Students in Online Environments

In ever-evolving electronic learning environments, course retention of students in online courses is significantly lower than those studying in traditional classroom contexts. Through a research synthesis, three major factors seem to impact online course retention: levels of student engagement, the student's ability to self-regulate, and quality teacher interaction and feedback. If any of these factors are missing from the student's online learning experience, it will be more difficult to keep the student engaged in the material, stay motivated, and feel connected to the teacher and other classmates.

Delayed Start for a Shortened Remedial Mathematics Course

Much research has demonstrated an inverse relationship between appointment delay and one-shot appointment-keeping behavior. In the present study, we investigated whether such relationship is observed with recurrent behavior, such as class attendance and retention within a college course. When a 4-week remedial arithmetic course at an urban community college started at three different times in a semester, the within-course retention rate of the group that started the latest, hence had the longest delay, was the lowest. The aforementioned inverse relationship was observed, while there was no significant difference among the groups in terms of students’ final exam scores. A few suggestions for possible future studies, along with implications for practice, are made. We recommend the use of various forms of reminders to offset the negative impact of delayed start of a course.

Use ofNNatural Abundance and N Species Concentrations to Assess N-Cycling in Constructed and Natural Coastal Wetlands

Natural abundance of N stable isotopes used in combination with concentrations may be useful indicators of N-cycling in wetlands. Concentrations andNsignatures ofNO3−,NH4+, and sediment organic nitrogen (SON) were measured in two impacted coastal golf course retention ponds and two natural marshes. LimitedNO3−was detected in natural site surface water or pore water, but both isotopic signature and concentrations ofNO3−in surface water of impacted sites indicated anthropogenic inputs. In natural sites,NH4+concentrations were greatest in deeper pore water and least in surface water, suggesting diffusion predominates. The natural sites had greater %SON, andNindicated that the natural sites also had greaterNH4+released from SON mineralization than impacted sites. InNO3−-limited systems, neither concentrations norNnatural abundance was able to provide information on N-cycling, while processes associated withNH4+were better elucidated by using both concentrations andNnatural abundance.