Higher education institutions utilize faculty who possess subject-matter expertise and terminal degrees in specific disciplines. Often, faculty are not formally trained in educational theory, pedagogy, or best practices related to student learning. Best practices in course design standards are available to faculty who seek them out. However, with…

Language teachers of the future, our current students, live in an increasingly technology-rich world. However, language students do not necessarily see their own digital practices as having relevance for guiding language learning. Research in the fields of CALL and language education more generally indicates that teaching practices change slowly…

Data visualizations designed for academic scientists are not immediately meaningful to everyday scientists. Communicating between a specialized, expert audience and a general, novice public is non-trivial; it requires careful translation. However, more widely available visualization technologies and platforms, including new three-dimensional…

Educational Badges are touted as an alternative assessment that can increase learner motivation. We considered two distinct models for educational badges; merit badges and videogame achievements. To begin unpacking the relationship between badges and motivation, we conducted a study using badges within an intelligent-tutor system for teaching…

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,…

Students learn new instructions well by building on relevant prior knowledge, as it affects how instructors and students interact with the learning materials. Moreover, studies have found that good prior knowledge can enable students to attain better learning motivation, comprehension, and performance. This suggests it is important to assist…

Education in nanotechnology presents major challenges in science literacy. One of these challenges relates to conveying size and scale-related concepts. Because of the potential difficulties in conveying concepts and ideas that are not visible to the naked eye, multimedia for learning could be an appropriate vehicle to deliver curricular materials…

Tasks with a complex, dynamic visual component require not only the acquisition of conceptual/procedural but also of perceptual/attentional skills. This study examined expertise differences in perceiving and interpreting complex, dynamic visual stimuli on a performance and on a process level, including perceptual and conceptual strategies.…

Personal learning environment (PLE) solutions aim at empowering learners to design (ICT and web-based) environments for their learning activities, mashing-up content and people and apps for different learning contexts. Widely used in other application areas, recommender systems can be very useful for supporting learners in their PLE-based…

The serious games community is moving toward research focusing on direct comparisons between learning outcomes of serious games and those of more traditional training methods. Such comparisons are difficult, however, due to the lack of a consistent taxonomy of game attributes for serious games. Without a clear understanding of what truly…

The study adds to the body of knowledge about different types of feedback. Feedback is considered a fundamental component for supporting and regulating learning processes. Especially in computer-based and self-regulated learning environments, the nature of feedback is of critical importance. Hence, this study investigates different types of…

I. Analyzing and comparing student-generated inscriptions in chemistry is crucial to gaining insight into students' understanding about chemistry concepts. Thus, we developed two methods of analyzing student-generated inscriptions: features analysis and thematic analysis. We have also demonstrated how these methods are able to discern differences…

The success of Web 2.0 inspires e-learning to evolve into e-learning 2.0, which exploits collective intelligence to achieve user-centric learning. However, searching for suitable learning paths and content for achieving a learning goal is time consuming and troublesome on e-learning 2.0 platforms. Therefore, introducing formal learning in these…

A major challenge for learning theories is to illuminate how particular kinds of learning experiences and environments promote the development of expertise. Research has been conducted into novice-expert differences in various domains, but few studies have examined the processes involved in learners' expertise development. In an attempt to…

A new trend in e-learning development is to have subject matter experts use rapid development tools to create training simulations. This type of training is called rapid e-learning simulation training. Though companies are using rapid development tools to create training quickly and cost effectively, there is little empirical research to indicate…