Insignificant numbers of college students declaring STEM majors creates concern for the future of the U.S. economy within the global marketplace. This study highlights the educational development and teaching strategies employed by STEM faculty in teaching first-year students in contextualized life science courses, such as animal, plant, and food…

Rather than a rational, technical activity, evaluation reflects the socio-political dynamics of the evaluative context. This presents a challenge for universities and the individuals within them, who may assume that plans or policies for evaluation will result in straightforward outcomes. This small-scale study in one institution looks at the…

The "Change" undergraduate teaching program identifies and describes some of the best undergraduate teaching now going on in American colleges and universities. The basis for election is a set of carefully developed criteria that define improved teaching in terms of learning goals and outcomes, with special emphasis on the adaptability of the…

Edgar Dale's (1946) Cone of Experience model-and various adaptations-have been used by practitioners for decades. However, little has been accomplished by way of examining and refining the model (and its associated theories). This article suggests several philosophical perspectives by which gaps in the prevalent version of Dale's Cone could be…

Analyzes the change process which has taken place at Thames Valley University, England in learning and teaching strategies. Identifies constructivist approaches to learning as particularly influential in the development of distance education and supporting quality frameworks. (Author/AEF)

We welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2014, taking place in Madrid, Spain, from 28 to 30 of June, 2014. Education, as an important right in our contemporary world, began since we exist. Knowledge and skills were passed by adults to the young, and cultures began to extend their experiences through various…

This paper examines strategies to enhance learning, based on innovations in technology. It represents an evolution of thought from the ancient masters, great thinking, and the Great Learning all the way to the present. A syllabus for the future is constructed, using a model of communication, the Rhetorical Systems Model. The model is based on a…

This paper aims to debunk the metaphysics of presence informing modernist pedagogical assumptions. Systematic instructional design, predicated on teleological and eschatological modern metaphysics, superordinates designers' goals at the expense of learners. Tracing structuralist pedagogical theory to Bobbitt (1997) and Tyler (1949), one can…

As a new century approaches it is time to re-assess the foundations on which instructional design currently rests, as well as the "mode of thinking" that it promotes. Traditional theories regarding instructional design have largely been implicitly based on out-moded eighteenth century conceptions of the physical universe (a mechanistic world view)…

To travel is one of the greatest ways to learn about the world. It is the "getting there" that provides the learning experience, not so much as the destination itself. Education is also a journey, one that should last a lifetime, but for many students today, it is one that lasts only as long as they are in the classroom. In such short…

This book provides an analysis of teaching and learning and the network of issues and concerns that underpin distance education. It reviews several existing models that permeate current practice, and that will influence future practice, and relates these to pedagogics. The book provides not only an overview of historical developments but explains…

Elaborates on the nature of the new paradigm of instructional theories (May-June 1996 issue) by summarizing 21 theories that are described in "Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory." Divides theories into seven broad categories: understanding, problem-based learning, community of learners,…

The introduction of communications and information technologies in the area of education tends to create a totally different environment, which is marked by a change of the teacher's role and a transformation of the basic components that make up the meaning and content of the learning procedure as a whole. It could be said that, despite any…

Community colleges are on the cutting edge of the multidirectional change with the coming of a new century. Peters and Waterman, two management consultants, have spawned thousands of models, designs, and strategies for using organizational excellence as a gyroscope for navigating the turbulence of change. This paper presents Waterman's four-step…