Education Commons^™

Student And Instructor Experiences With Types Of Teaching And Learning In A Computer Course, Emily Carter Gray

Doctoral Dissertations

Research has shown that active classroom engagement increases the learning performance of students in higher education (Cross, 2000; Reese, 2013). This study sought to examine the experiences of students and instructor in a computer applications course in which the pedagogy was changed to encourage additional interaction among students and between students and the instructor. The goal of the study was to generate useful, practical knowledge (Reason & Bradbury, 2001) to help the instructor better understand her pedagogy with the intention of improving both her teaching practice and student learning outcomes, as well as to contribute to related literature in adult …

Role-Playing: A Smorgasbord Of Learning Types, Peter W. Kilgour, Jason Hinze, Kevin Petrie, Warrick R. Long, Kevin C. De Berg

Peter Kilgour

One tertiary institution sought to research the perceptions that tertiary students have of role-plays as a means of learning. Role-plays were used across a range of disciplines at that institution including: teacher training, business and chemistry. Each of these disciplines used a role-play in their classes and then collected opinions from the students on the usefulness of the activity. It was discovered that students value role-plays as a means to challenge preconceived ideas, encourage creative thinking, assist students in applying theory to practice, make lessons fun and provide active learning experiences that increase student learning and engagement.

Role-Playing: A Smorgasbord Of Learning Types, Peter W. Kilgour, Jason Hinze, Kevin Petrie, Warrick R. Long, Kevin C. De Berg

Jason Hinze

One tertiary institution sought to research the perceptions that tertiary students have of role-plays as a means of learning. Role-plays were used across a range of disciplines at that institution including: teacher training, business and chemistry. Each of these disciplines used a role-play in their classes and then collected opinions from the students on the usefulness of the activity. It was discovered that students value role-plays as a means to challenge preconceived ideas, encourage creative thinking, assist students in applying theory to practice, make lessons fun and provide active learning experiences that increase student learning and engagement.

Role-Playing: A Smorgasbord Of Learning Types, Peter W. Kilgour, Jason Hinze, Kevin Petrie, Warrick R. Long, Kevin C. De Berg

Kevin Petrie

One tertiary institution sought to research the perceptions that tertiary students have of role-plays as a means of learning. Role-plays were used across a range of disciplines at that institution including: teacher training, business and chemistry. Each of these disciplines used a role-play in their classes and then collected opinions from the students on the usefulness of the activity. It was discovered that students value role-plays as a means to challenge preconceived ideas, encourage creative thinking, assist students in applying theory to practice, make lessons fun and provide active learning experiences that increase student learning and engagement.

Role-Playing: A Smorgasbord Of Learning Types, Peter W. Kilgour, Jason Hinze, Kevin Petrie, Warrick R. Long, Kevin C. De Berg

Warrick Long

One tertiary institution sought to research the perceptions that tertiary students have of role-plays as a means of learning. Role-plays were used across a range of disciplines at that institution including: teacher training, business and chemistry. Each of these disciplines used a role-play in their classes and then collected opinions from the students on the usefulness of the activity. It was discovered that students value role-plays as a means to challenge preconceived ideas, encourage creative thinking, assist students in applying theory to practice, make lessons fun and provide active learning experiences that increase student learning and engagement.

Can The Use Of Web 2.0 Tools Help Deliver 21st Century Learning?, Peter Beamish, Bobby Mcleod

Peter Beamish

It has long been recognized that people need to be literate to function optimally within society. The 21st century has seen technology increase the complexity of environments, so that a literate person must now possess a wide range of abilities, competencies, and literacies. These have often been referred to as “21st-century skills” and while many of them are not new, the extent to which individual success depends on having such skills is new. The current study seeks to explore ways in which technology can be used to increase literacy and enhance 21st century skills in students.

1193 students attending Sahmyook …

Teaching Leaders, Lisa Deangelis, Sherry H. Penney

Sherry Penney

In an age of instantaneous information sharing and increased interdependence, today’s leaders must learn to work collaboratively, leveraging the strengths, skills, and experiences of those around them, in order to address the challenges they face. The Center for Collaborative Leadership is uniquely situated in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The purpose of the Center’s Emerging Leaders Program is to challenge and inspire the adult participants in the program to act collaboratively, identify and rethink boundaries, build purposeful relationships, and become better leaders and citizens. In this brief, the authors reflect on how this program is …

Technology Invasion: Apps To Revolutionize The Diverse 21st Century Classroom. Time To Launch!, Jennifer Lesh Ph.D., Kelly Burlison Ed.D, Carmen Ronnie, Anika Smith, Nicola Gomez

South Florida Education Research Conference

Professors of pre-service teachers are usually referred as digital immigrants, while their students are typically described as digital natives. The presentation delivered by professors and students will discuss the integration of cutting-edge technology in Higher Education classrooms. As digital immigrants, teachers and their students learn to become seasoned professionals in innovation, through the use of apps on iPads that assist with productivity, efficiency and convenience, allowing students to thrive as digital natives and meet the demands of a diverse 21st century classroom

An Examination Of The Employment Of The Pair Programming Methodology As A Collaborative Instructional Scaffold On College Student Procedural Learning And Programming Self-Beliefs, Ronald Erdei

Open Access Dissertations

Using a concurrent mixed methods case study approach, this study investigated the impact of employing the pair programming methodology as a collaborative instructional scaffold on student programming procedural knowledge and programming-related self-beliefs in an introductory computer programming course offered at a large university located in the Midwestern United States. Employing a design research theoretical perspective in a natural educational setting, the study used course performance data, survey data, and researcher observations to educe that employment of the pair programming methodology as a collaborative instructional scaffold facilitated a more efficient learning process as well as a learning process less reliant on …

Engaging Msw Students In Faculty Research: Students’ Perspectives Of Involvement In A Program Evaluation, Rebecca Thomas, Christina M. Chiarelli-Helminiak, Kyle Barrette, Brunilda Ferraj

Christine Chiarelli-Helminiak

Engaging social work students in research is challenging, in part, because of the way research is taught in the classroom and the need for learners to effectively develop connections between the “abstract world” of research concepts with the “real world” of professional experiences. This article describes the experiences of graduate social work students involved in a process and outcome evaluation of a community-based program. Analysis of student learning outcomes and the team-based model used to engage students in the evaluation are provided to put forth a paradigm of teaching social work research through direct, supervised, and collaborative engagement.

Improved Student Outcomes In A Flipped Statistics Course, Laura Phillips, Mark Phillips

Administrative Issues Journal

Statistics is a required competency in numerous college majors, but students frequently approach the topic with anxiety. This paper describes an undergraduate statistics course that was "flipped," with most of the content delivery moved online and class time devoted to application and practice. Students were given a menu of learning tools from which to choose and were free to utilize as many or as few as they felt was appropriate, giving them ownership of their learning experience and the opportunity to tailor the course to their personal needs. The classroom experience included brief segments of lecture but consisted primarily of …

Sonatas, Rondos, And Cupcakes: The Efficacy Of Collaborative Learning In Undergraduate Music Theory Courses, Kyle Gullings

Kyle Gullings

This paper examines the efficacy of collaborative and creative learning models in undergraduate music theory courses, using as comparative case studies group projects I assigned in three consecutive Form and Analysis classes from 2011 through 2014. I make the case that creative group projects, when executed correctly, have a net benefit for students, and that we as educators should make more effective use of them in our courses.

Transforming Organizational Change Through Collaborative Digital Storytelling, William Tate Brendel, Chientzu Candace Chou

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Planned or unplanned, organizational change can be an arduous, confusing, and lonely endeavor, unless individuals are afforded a platform for making sense of their unique relationship with change. Through the lens of Transformative Learning Theory, which views adult learning as a process of meaning-making, this article demonstrates how contextual facets of digital (online) storytelling may assist individuals, departments, and the organization as-a-whole. Particular, in sharing their storied relationships with change, reflecting upon habits of mind, and coming to consensus on a creative and cohesive path forward.

Bounded Community: Designing And Facilitating Learning Communities In Formal Courses, Brent G. Wilson, Stacey Ludwig-Hardman, Christine L. Thornam, Joanna C. Dunlap

Joanna Dunlap

Learning communities can emerge spontaneously when people find common learning goals and pursue projects and tasks together in pursuit of those goals. Bounded learning communities (BLCs) are groups that form within a structured teaching or training setting, typically a course. Unlike spontaneous communities, BLCs develop in direct response to guidance provided by an instructor, supported by a cumulative resource base. This article presents strategies that help learning communities develop within bounded frameworks, particularly online environments. Seven distinguishing features of learning communities are presented. When developing supports for BLCs, teachers should consider their developmental arc, from initial acquaintance and trust-building, through …

Complementary Lenses: Using Theories Of Situativity And Complexity To Understand Collaborative Learning As Systems-Level Social Activity, Steven J. Zuiker, Kate T. Anderson, Michelle E. Jordan, Olivia G. Stewart

Education Specialties Faculty Publications

This article highlights possibilities for understanding challenges related to collaborative learning by bringing two complementary lenses into theoretical and empirical conversation—complexity and situativity. After presenting a theoretical comparison that characterizes complementarity between complexity and situativity in order to frame their relative contributions to a systems-level understanding of learning processes, we examine persistently unproductive social activity during a 14-session, collaborative engineering design project in a fifth-grade peer group from both perspectives. We do so in order to demonstrate the value of these complementary perspectives for understanding collaborative learning processes and to suggest different explanations of why unproductive social activity sometimes persists …

Engaging Msw Students In Faculty Research: Students’ Perspectives Of Involvement In A Program Evaluation, Rebecca Thomas, Christina M. Chiarelli-Helminiak, Kyle Barrette, Brunilda Ferraj

Social Work (Graduate) Faculty Publications

Engaging social work students in research is challenging, in part, because of the way research is taught in the classroom and the need for learners to effectively develop connections between the “abstract world” of research concepts with the “real world” of professional experiences. This article describes the experiences of graduate social work students involved in a process and outcome evaluation of a community-based program. Analysis of student learning outcomes and the team-based model used to engage students in the evaluation are provided to put forth a paradigm of teaching social work research through direct, supervised, and collaborative engagement.

Developing Critical Collaboration Skills In Engineering Students: Results From An Empirical Study, Pilar Pazos, Nina Magpili, Zikai Zhou, Luis J. Rodriguez

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In highly technical organizations, work is becoming increasingly distributed; requiring practicing engineers to master virtual collaboration skills while acquiring expertise in a range of collaboration technologies. Although there has been great emphasis on developing collaboration competencies in the engineering curriculum, empirical evidence of successful strategies for distributed team settings is scarce. As an attempt to fill this gap this study investigates the impact of a scalable intervention in developing virtual collaboration skills. The intervention, based on instructional scaffolds embedded with collaboration technologies, is aimed at supporting specific processes including planning, goal setting, clarifying goals and expectations, communication, coordination and progress …