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Full-Text Articles in Curriculum and Instruction

Helping Students With Cross-Cultural Communication: An Experiential Activity, C. Fender, Jane Murray Aug 2010

Helping Students With Cross-Cultural Communication: An Experiential Activity, C. Fender, Jane Murray

Jane Murray

This presentation details an activity that can be utilized to assist students understand and experience the issues surrounding cross-cultural business communications. Student groups are set the task of constructing short (5-10) minute role-plays to illustrate cultural communication styles and values. Groups are assigned two different cultures to research, with the role-play focused on an initial business meeting between individuals from those cultures. Role-plays are then "acted out" in a class fishbowl, with observers identifying specific cultural features of the communication. The activity's design allows it to be easily tailored to varying class sizes, or incorporated into assessment pieces and examinations.


A Sustainable Future For Open Textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge Story, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley Aug 2010

A Sustainable Future For Open Textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge Story, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley

Faculty Publications

Many college students and their families are concerned about the high costs of textbooks. E–books have been proposed as one potential solution; open source textbooks have also been explored. A company called Flat World Knowledge produces and gives away open source textbooks in a way they believe to be financially sustainable. This article reports an initial study of the financial sustainability of the Flat World Knowledge open source textbook model.


A Phenomenographic Study Of Introductory Physics Students: Approaches To Their Learning And Perceptions Of Their Learning Environment In A Physics Problem-Based Learning Environment, Paul Irving Jan 2010

A Phenomenographic Study Of Introductory Physics Students: Approaches To Their Learning And Perceptions Of Their Learning Environment In A Physics Problem-Based Learning Environment, Paul Irving

Doctoral

This phenomenographic study describes students’ approaches to learning and their perceptions of the learning environment in an introductory physics course which is taught using a problem-based learning approach. This research builds on previous studies which showed that these students develop a greater conceptual knowledge than their counterparts in a more traditional learning environment while others showed very little development even though they engaged fully with the pedagogy. This study aimed to examine and describe the students’ approaches to learning. The definitions of surface, strategic and deep approaches to learning are not appropriate in this context and could not be applied …