In many areas of applied sciences, such as management and engineering, the generation and dissemination of theory and knowledge is increasingly woven into practice. This leaves teaching and research institutions with the challenge of developing and organising teaching activities that are effective from a student learning perspective. This paper…

Information and communications technology (ICT) is affecting every part of our society. Education is no exception, but here the impact of ICT is fragmented at best. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize and develop the idea of the smart classroom that integrates emerging information technologies with advanced pedagogies. System…

Popular movies were used in a doctoral-level qualitative research methods course as a way to help students learn about how to collect and analyze qualitative observational data in order to develop a grounded theory. The course was designed in such a way that collaboration was central to the generation of knowledge. Using media depictions had the…

Many different versions of Problem-based Learning (PBL) are used today. To be consistent in evaluating the effectiveness of PBL, the focus in this paper is on what Howard Barrows called authentic PBL (aPBL). In aPBL students are empowered with the learning process; key distinguishing features are that the students teach each other the new…

When a course designed around cooperative, problem-centered instruction attracts learners with a wide range of experience in the topic, should learners be grouped heterogeneously or homogeneously in terms of their relative expertise? In this study, learners were randomly distributed between the two types of groups; learning gains, satisfaction,…

Between 2000 and 2009, 243 students in 11 cohort groups participated in the Internet-Based Masters in Educational Technology (iMet) Program. iMet is a hybrid masters program in education with an emphasis in educational technology. Students in the program work collaboratively in a problem-based approach to the integration of technology into…

Engaging teachers in discussing and analyzing problems of practice has great potential for teacher professional development, yet little is known about how to facilitate such discussion. This study examined the strategies that experienced facilitators used to promote productive discussion among science teachers. Participants were 6 facilitators and…

For a child to learn through Problem-Solving in Serious games, the game scaffolding mechanism has to be effective. Scaffolding is based on the Vygotzkian Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) concept which refers to the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as…

Successful strategies for incorporating engineering design challenges into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in American high schools are presented in this paper. The developers have taken the position that engineering design experiences should be an important component of the high school education of all American…

Critical pedagogy is a by product of postmodernism, which argues that reality is always subjective, and truth is identified through each person's experiences and environment. Can critical pedagogy be applied to faith-based education? The authors claim that it can. First, the theories and practices of critical pedagogy have strengthened faith-based…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate online problem-based learning (PBL) as a route to achieving sustainability education using sponsored projects. Design/methodology/approach: The Royal Academy of Engineering sponsored project at Manchester; to foster education in sustainability through inter-disciplinary problem-based approaches,…

I explore a belief about learning and teaching that is commonly held in education and society at large that nonetheless is deeply flawed. The belief asserts that mastery of "formalisms"--specialized representations such as symbolic equations and diagrams with no inherent meaning except that which is established by convention--is prerequisite to…

When problem based learning occurs in a social context it is open to a common social behaviour, scrounging. In the animal behaviour literature, scroungers do not attempt to find resources themselves but rather exploit resources found by other group members (referred to as producers). We know from studies of animal behaviour (including humans) that…

Open education, as embodied in open educational resources (OER) and OpenCourseWare (OCW), has met and dealt with several key problems. The movement now has a critical mass of available content. Leveraging no small amount of funding and associated development, open education has the tools to collect, disseminate, and support the discovery of open…

Developing reflective teachers who will be committed to their professional mission and whose own development will represent a value is an important objective of the professional training of future teachers. This article deals with an evaluation of the module of instruction in teacher training that was directed at raising students' awareness of the…