The theory of evolution can be a useful basis for developing students' understanding of ecology. Our study used concept maps to examine the development of sixth-grade students' understanding of the Antarctic ecosystem following several evolution 'Science Days' conducted at 'Nature Campus' -- an informal learning environment comprised of a natural…

Graduate nurses have experienced a difficult transition to clinical practice. With the continuing gap in educational preparation and clinical nursing practice leading to errors in health care delivery, the nurse faculty remains challenged in performing innovative changes to the curriculum to improve and maintain quality and safe patient care. The…

Many teaching strategies have been used to promote the development of critical thinking skills, among which the most frequently used are group discussion, concept mapping, and analytical questioning. The study aims to explore learners' voice and learning experience in the pedagogical contributions of these strategies to the development of critical…

Technology, digital media and popular culture form an important aspect of young children's life-worlds in contemporary post-industrial societies. A problem for early childhood educators is how to most effectively integrate these aspects of children's life-worlds into the provision of play-based learning. Traditionally, research has considered…

Online learning has become increasingly popular in recent years. This interest in online education has brought about new learning opportunities for both educators and learners. Technology has enabled higher education institutions the ability to provide quality education reaching learners that might otherwise be impossible. When developing online…

Like any other educational resource, the integration of OER in teaching and learning requires careful thought and support for the teaching staff. The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka approached this challenge with the help of a professional development course on OER-based e-Learning. Modules in the course incorporated the…

Recent studies in learning programming have largely focused on high school and college students; less is known about how young children learn to program. From video data of 20 students using a graphical programming interface, we identified ideas that were shared and evolved through an elementary school classroom. In mapping these ideas and their…

The ability to appreciate the inter-connectedness of complex biological relationships can be difficult for many students. Graphical knowledge in the form of concept maps and flow charts are learning tools which can assist students to recognise the inter-connectivity. This report focuses on a trial which incorporates these two related visual…

Multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) like Second Life present unparalleled opportunities to help students connect knowledge by description to knowledge by experience; in a MUVE, students can experience phenomena rather than only reading about them. Baba Kofi Weusijana, Vanessa Svihla, Drue Gawel, and John Bransford describe their use of a maze…

The work described here draws on the emerging need to internationalize the curriculum in higher education. The focus of the study is on the evaluation of a Management Information Systems (MIS) Module, and the specification of appropriate course of action that would support its internationalization. To realize this goal it is essential to identify…

Even though comprehension of human physiology is crucial in the clinical setting, students frequently learn part of this subject using rote memory and then are unable to transfer knowledge to other contexts or to solve clinical problems. This study evaluated the impact of articulating the concept map strategy with the mediated learning experience…

The development of teaching in higher education towards a more learner-orientated model has been supported by the literature on individual learning differences and on learning styles in particular. This has contributed to the evolution of university pedagogy away from a medieval transmission model than runs counter to contemporary understanding of…

This paper reports on the work of a six-month review project commissioned by the Higher Education Academy which aimed at mapping the research base around the student learning experience in higher education (HE). The project aimed to: (1) provide an overview of the ways in which the student learning experience in HE has been and is conceptualised;…

This article explores the synergy that can be created when concept-mapping techniques are used in collaboration with the construction of PowerPoint presentations to increase the richness of the learning experience. Some weaknesses of the typical PowerPoint format are highlighted with a description of how they can be overcome through a more…

For the thirty-first year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) sponsored the publication of these Proceedings. Papers were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Orlando, Florida. This year's Proceedings has two sections--Section 1 includes research and development papers and…