We apply Carroll's model of school learning, which theorizes about the relationship between time and learning, to motivate the design of a large, first-year, university mathematics course, where students have the choice to attend lectures and/or watch online videos. The theoretical model informs how the course and resources are designed in order…

It has been well-establishing in the field of educational research that traditional educational methods such as passive lectures and labs where students follow pre-designed procedures to verify information already told to them are not effective for promoting meaningful and lasting conceptual understanding. Alongside this knowledge have come a…

Background: Research illustrates that student motivations influence learning engagement, persistence, and achievement in powerful ways and that positive motivations are linked to deeper learning, critical thinking, pro-social behavior, and better performance. Most studies of learner motivation, however, are conducted outside of STEM and are…

In the past several decades, higher education has witnessed the exponential growth of online learning. New technology has dramatically transformed the way education is delivered compared to what takes place in the traditional classroom. It has enabled online delivery of course materials to students outside of face-to-face classroom in an…

To augment traditional lecture with instructional tools that provide options for content representation, learner engagement, and learning expression, we followed the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to design and implement a learning environment for teaching and learning in large lecture classes. To this end, we incorporated four…

Active learning has been championed in academic circles as the pedagogical fix to boring lectures typically found in introduction to information systems courses. However, the literature on active learning is mixed. In this paper, we critically examine active learning research and discover a misplaced emphasis leading to paradoxical findings in…

We describe the development and implementation of an instructional design that focused on bringing multiple forms of active learning and student-centered pedagogies to a one-semester, undergraduate introductory biology course for both majors and nonmajors. Our course redesign consisted of three major elements: 1) reordering the presentation of the…

Public universities are currently facing a challenge in determining how to deliver quality instruction in the face of severe fiscal constraints. With recent technological advances, courses streamed over the Internet (i.e., lecture capture) are now becoming common. However, little research has been published that specifically examines student…

The authors investigate the relationship between student learning choices and learning styles in the use of an innovative learning environment for statistics. For teaching introductory statistics to first-year students in economics and business, Maastricht University uses a blended learning environment. It allows students to individualize learning…

The current status and frequency of nonmajor biology courses offered in colleges and universities in the United States and Canada were investigated. A random sample of 300 four-year colleges was sent a questionnaire and a request for copies of their syllabi for nonmajor biology courses and other nonmajor science courses. Of the 134 respondents,…

This book presents a wide selection of issues currently of interest and concern in higher education institutions in Ireland. The chapters are snapshots of the intersection between theory, practice and research in particular settings; they are not meant to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, they present practice approaches, new theoretical…