Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Education

Motivation For Faculty Community Engagement: Learning From Exemplars, Kerryann O'Meara Jan 2008

Motivation For Faculty Community Engagement: Learning From Exemplars, Kerryann O'Meara

KerryAnn O'Meara

This explorative study examines the motivations of sixty- eight faculty exemplars in community engagement. Analysis of personal narrative essays reveals a great diversity in personal and professional motivation, including but not limited to the desire to teach well, personal commitments to specific issues, neighborhoods, and people, a perceived fit between community engagement and disciplinary goals, and a desire for meaningful collaboration. This study reports the first phase in a multiphase study and finds that faculty exemplars have a rich reservoir of motivations that are both intrinsic and extrinsic, rooted in personal goals and identity as well as some organizational cultures. …


Creating Pedagogical Agents As Social Models In An Online Learning Environment Mathgirls, Yanghee Kim, B. Xu, A. Sharif Jan 2008

Creating Pedagogical Agents As Social Models In An Online Learning Environment Mathgirls, Yanghee Kim, B. Xu, A. Sharif

Yanghee Kim

This paper introduces the learning environment MathGirls for high school girls learning fundamentals of algebra. Grounded in social cognitive theories of learning, MathGirls utilizes pedagogical agents to create a girl-friendly virtual learning environment. The design constituents of pedagogical agents are reviewed. These constituents are likely to influence building agent/learner relations. The agent design and system architecture of the MathGirls environment are developed to integrate some of the design constituents. Empirical findings from MathGirls deployment in classrooms support the efficacy of the presence of pedagogical agents in shaping affective and cognitive characteristics of the learner. The paper concludes with the discussions …