Education Commons^™

Teaching Research: Encouraging Discoveries, Francis E. Su

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

What does it take to turn a learner into a discoverer? Or to turn a teacher into a co-adventurer? A handful of experiences—from teaching a middle-school math class to doing research with undergraduates—have changed the way that I would answer these questions. Some of the lessons I’ve learned have surprised me.

Will Second Life Help Me Survive In Italy, Carmela Dell'aria, Susanna Nocchi

Conference Papers

This paper aims at sharing the experience we had in the design and implementation of a short pilot course of Italian in Second Life® (SL). The paper will provide a description of the course mentioning preliminary findings, discussed in relation to the theories adopted by the two researchers. The paper is the result of the course, La Lingua in gioco: dire, fare e giocare in SL, that had a strong focus on the development of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) and Oral Language Proficiency and was aimed at a group of third-level Irish students of Italian in the Technological University Dublin …

Teaching Toward Wholeness: The Aesthetic In Education, Kathleen Kristin Ruen

Articles and Other Publications

"Teaching toward wholeness is a commitment by the teacher to view each child as a whole person who is in the process of change and growth and to create a classroom environment that supports the many ways that children grow."

Tackling The Pic: Successes And Challenges In Teaching The Prison-Industrial Complex, Melissa Ooten

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

“But they’re criminals. We should lock them up and throw away the key!” my student, using a tired refrain, declared. She soon had a classroom of her peers— thoughtful, engaged students who often enjoyed analyzing complicated and difficult social issues—nodding in support. Thus began my entry into teaching and discussing the prison industrial complex (PIC) and abolitionism in a college classroom. Luckily, the class moved beyond this knee-jerk reaction, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. While I regularly engage students in thinking critically about poverty, social justice, race relations, feminism, and inclusion, exploring the possibilities of abolishing a …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel A. Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Security Studies & International Affairs - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

Development Of An Outcomes-Based Undergraduate Curriculum In Homeland Security, James D. Ramsay, Daniel Cutrer, Robert Raffel

Applied Aviation Sciences - Daytona Beach

As a professional discipline, homeland security is complex, dynamic, and interdisciplinary and not given to facile definition. As an academic discipline, homeland security is relatively new and growing, and its workforce aging. As such, there is an acknowledged need to develop academic homeland security programs to try and meet anticipated workforce needs. However, the lack of an accreditation system or a set of available published outcomes (or standards) have complicated efforts towards homeland security program development. At present, determining which courses to teach and which outcomes in each course to pursue must be left to anecdotal conversations, reviews of the …

The Writing On The Wall: Celebrating National Day On Writing At Hostos Community College, Andrea Fabrizio, Linda Hirsch

Touchstone

Since its participation in the 1999 CUNY Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) Initiative, Hostos has sought to foster a campus-wide recognition of the value of writing and its place in the academic, professional and personal lives of both faculty and students. Today, with over 75 Writing Intensive (WI) sections, an appreciation of the connection between reading and writing, ongoing professional development, and WAC principles and practices incorporated into both Englishlanguage and Spanish-language courses across a wide range of disciplines, Hostos has made great strides in fulfilling the CUNY Board of Trustees mandate to provide students with frequent and meaningful opportunities to write. As …

Creating Venues For Student Interactions With The Community College, Flor Henderson

Touchstone

No abstract provided.

Confessions Of A Wac (Writing Across The Curriculum) Groupie, Sandy Figueroa

Touchstone

No abstract provided.

Questioning Cliches: Gender Analysis In History, Ernest Ialongo

Touchstone

No abstract provided.

Talking Until We Are "Flu" In Our Faces (Taking Microbiology From Theory To Reality), Julie Trachman

Touchstone

No abstract provided.

Teaching Western Philosophy: An Anti-Authoritarian Approach, James Magrini

Philosophy Scholarship

No abstract provided.

“Math Is Hard,” Said Mrs. Ford; “Not For Me,” Said Mrs. Honda: Does Culture Matter In Teaching And Learning In Elementary Mathematics?, Shamah Md-Yunus

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This article is a discussion of the practices of teaching and learning in elementary mathematics from the perspectives of Eastern and Western cultures. It focuses on the differences in teaching pedagogy in math between the United States and three Asian countries: Singapore, Japan, and China.

Voice In Teaching: Improving Your Classroom Connection, Bob Schoofs

Scholarly Papers and Articles

Originally published in College and Research Libraries News (C&RL News) on 2/24/10. Original can be found at: http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/3/143.full

Foundation To Promote Scholarship And Teaching 2009-2010 Awards, Office Of The Provost, Roger Williams University

Foundation to Promote Scholarship & Teaching

Proposal abstracts of 2009-2010 award recipients in a wide range of disciplinary areas.

Universal Truths I Learned On The Mat: What Being A Yoga Instructor Taught Me About Teaching, Jill A. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dit Teaching Fellowship Reports 2009-2010, Jen Harvey

Teaching Fellowships

No abstract provided.

Building Better Scientists Through Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration In Synthetic Biology: A Report From The Genome Consortium For Active Teaching Workshop 2010, Michael J. Wolyniak, Consuelo J. Alvarez, Vidya Chandrasekaran, Theresa M. Grana, Andrea Holgado, Christopher J. Jones, Robert W. Morris, Anil L. Pereira, Joyce Stamm, Talitha M. Washington, Yixin Yang

Biological Sciences Research

A common problem faced by primarily undergraduate institutions is the lack of funding and material support needed to adequately expose students to modern biology, including synthetic biology. To help alleviate this problem, the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT) was founded in 2000 by Malcolm Campbell at Davidson College to bring genomics into the undergraduate curriculum. GCAT’s first tangible activity was to serve as a central clearinghouse both for the purchase and reading of DNA microarrays and for information on how to execute genomics experiments at undergraduate institutions. In response to the evolution of molecular biology in the last decade, …

Interactive Whiteboards: Interactivity, Activity And Literacy Teaching, Lisa K. Kervin, Irina Verenikina, Kris Wrona, Pauline T. Jones

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores the implementation and the use of the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) in literacy teaching in an Australian primary school. A socio-cultural approach (Vygotsky, 1978) and Activity Theory (Engestrom, 2001) are used to explore the integration of the IWB in the literacy classroom environment where the individual, classroom and the whole school contexts are considered. A socio- cultural conceptualisation of technology allows us to view the IWB as a tool that can be used to enhance teachers’ pedagogical practices. The paper is based on a case study in an independent primary school located in a South - Western suburb …

The 5 Rs: A New Teaching Approach To Encourage Slowmations (Studentgenerated Animations) Of Science Concepts, Garry Hoban, Wendy Nielsen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

“Slowmation” (abbreviated from “Slow Animation”) is a simplified way of making an animation so that students can create one as a new way of learning about a science concept. The teaching approach guiding slowmation encourages students to create a sequence of five multimodal representations (the 5 Rs) by making: (i) written notes being background knowledge from researching a topic or from direct instruction; (ii) a storyboard to design the animation; (iii) 2D or 3D models; (iv) images from digital still photographs of the models; and (vi) the final animation. The 5 Rs helps students to develop understanding of a science …

Interactive Whiteboards As A Tool For Teaching Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Irina Verenikina, Kathleen Tanner, Roselyn M. Dixon, Elleni De Graaf

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents part of a research study on the affordances of digital technologies in the learning of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) undertaken in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. The study is framed around the understanding of modern digital technologies, and Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in particular, as cognitive tools for teaching and learning based on the theory of social and cultural mediation of children’s development and learning (Vygotsky, 1978; Engestrom, 2001). The view of the IWB as a teaching and learning tool is twofold: firstly, the IWB is analysed as a tool that can be used …

Teaching, Learning And Talking: Mapping "The Trail Of Fire", Pauline T. Jones

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper addresses the current resurgence of interest in classroom talk and its place in pedagogy; in particular the role of teachers in shaping students’ learning through the design of classroom interactivity. The importance of teacher agency with respect to pedagogic design is highlighted in recent studies of pedagogy in the UK (Alexander, 2008; Mercer, 2008) and in linguistically oriented studies of pedagogic discourse undertaken in the Australian context (Christie, 2002; Jones, 2005). The paper presents a case study of classroom talk to explore how such work might be brought into alignment in order to shed further light on the …

Slowmation As A Pedagogical Scaffold For Improving Science Teaching And Learning, Stephen Keast, Rebecca Cooper, Amanda Berry, John Loughran, Garry Hoban

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In this study, two classes of General Science Teaching Method preservice secondary teachers at Monash University (n = 38 in 2007 and n = 34 in 2008) developed Slowmation movies as part of their course work, then introduced Slowmation into the their science classrooms during their school practicum. On returning to university following their practicum these preservice teachers shared the Slowmations created by their students during the practicum, and discussed the impact of introducing this procedure on their students’ learning about science concepts. The classroom presentations and discussions of school students’ Slowmation movies post practicum provided valuable feedback to the …

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 …

“Math Is Hard,” Said Mrs. Ford; “Not For Me,” Said Mrs. Honda: Does Culture Matter In Teaching And Learning In Elementary Mathematics?, Shamah Md-Yunus

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This article is a discussion of the practices of teaching and learning in elementary mathematics from the perspectives of Eastern and Western cultures. It focuses on the differences in teaching pedagogy in math between the United States and three Asian countries: Singapore, Japan, and China.

Teaching Functional Life Skills To Children With Developmental Disabilities: Acquisition, Generalization, And Maintenance, R. Detrich, Thomas S. Higbee

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nonmath Analogies In Teaching Mathematics, Vera Sarina, Immaculate Kizito Namukasa

Education Publications

Way too often, students find some concepts too abstract to comprehend. One of the strategies used to assist students with building conceptual knowledge is to use analogies. We investigate the place of nonmath analogies in teaching school mathematics. First, we demonstrate the widespread use of analogies by drawing examples through context analysis of tutoring websites, textbooks, and teaching experiences. Second, we argue that analogies reflect the grounded nature of mathematical concepts in common life experiences and, thus, have an essential place in instruction. To support our argument we offer a theoretical rationale based on research literature and historical sources.

A Self-Study Of Virtual Teaching: Making The Leap From Distance Face-To-Face To Wimba Technology, Susan A. Turner

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

How do I best make the shift from teaching a graduate course currently using distance face-to-face technology to WIMBA technology?

Multiple Intelligences In The Gospel Classroom, John Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

In a worldwide training broadcast, Elder W. Rolfe Kerr taught, “We cannot expect our students to learn all that we hope they will learn by just hearing a concept or principle one time. Multiple presentations, utilizing various approaches, often appealing to multiple senses, increase the likelihood of our students actually learning and internalizing the concepts we teach.”

Our Top 12 "Key Instructional Elements" That Help To Build An Excellent Lesson And High Quality Physical Education Program, Robert S. Christenson, David C. Barney

Faculty Publications

One of the most fundamental issues in teaching, arguably the biggest, is discovering the most effective lesson elements for each group of learners. This includes a solid curriculum, performance objectives, age-appropriate pedagogical ingredients, ability-level activities and assessments focused on measuring learning to create a great lesson. When these elements are blended artistically with a variety of classroom management skills, necessary equipment, instructional support resources, behavior management rules and high expectations in a nurturing environment, the teacher has created the best possible learning atmosphere for each individual student.

Below, the authors have identified twelve important instructional elements for teachers to incorporate …