This study examined specific classroom events and teaching practices that promoted positive attitudes and emotions by students in college computer courses. Analysis of student journals and interviews indicated specific classroom events and teaching practices lessened students' computer anxiety, promoted understanding of computers, and increased…

"Gedankensimulation" is a term adapted from Einstein's "thought experiments" to indicate mentally created simulations that can help conceptualize ideas. Presents seven examples of simulations that can be utilized to solve problems or illustrate concepts in probability and statistics. Problem contexts include games of chance,…

Results from an experiment with 28 experimental and 28 matched control college students taking a 13-week computer science course support the potential of modeling and coaching students in metacognitive strategies to enhance learning. The instructional method had significant long-term and short-term effects on cognitive and affective learning…

In educational research, investigators in one field are often ignorant of similar research in other fields. Physics education in particular has undergone dramatic reforms in recent years, all based on insights gained from conducting educational research. Often, pedagogical methods resulting from research in one field can be revised and transferred…

In the first of two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshops, 30 professors of biology and computer science from 18 institutions met at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, on June 6-7, 2002, to share ideas on how to incorporate genomics research into undergraduate curricula. The participants included nine pairs or trios of…

Since its inception in 1997, Cisco's curriculum has entered thousands of high schools across the U.S. and around the world for two reasons: (1) Cisco has a large portion of the computer networking market, and thus has the resources for and interest in developing high school academies; and (2) high school curriculum development teams recognize the…

A computer curriculum guideline for Taiwan junior high schools was announced in 1994 and will be nationally implemented in 1998. Due to the specific educational system in Taiwan, the guideline will affect computer textbook writing, computer teaching and learning, computer teachers' professional development, and computer education research. This…

This research study examined the differences of students' improvements for computer courses while they have get constructivist based teaching-learning process with measuring their attitudes during the period of beginning of the term and end of the term. Today's learning-teaching process becomes technology based and provides students to catch…

This brochure offers answers to 13 questions about using computers in the social studies classroom. Written by teachers for teachers, its goal is to provide a foundation to consider whether or not computers have a place in the classroom and how to go about using them if they do. The questions are: "What's in this booklet?""Should I…

To explore the problem of designing an automated system for instruction in programing, and to study the problem-solving behavior of students, computer programs written by 40 college students as part of a CAI course in Algebraic Interpretive Dialogue were analyzed. The self-contained course consisted of 50 tutorial lessons; the analysis covers…

The high cost of providing on-line computing to all students individually makes it necessary to use some means of group viewing of one user's interaction with the computer. While the author suggests that group viewing of computer output is not a replacement for individual direct experience with the computer, it can be a useful and economical…

A three-year project involving 4,000 students from 15 schools for deaf students supported the development and evaluation of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for the hearing-impaired. Activities ranged from evaluations of specific curriculums to theoretical studies of language use by the deaf. The project demonstrated that CAI can benefit deaf…

A report recently released by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education promotes the use of technology in colleges of education. In order to provide the best instruction on technology use, it is important to explore technology courses at colleges of education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the one course that is…

Proposes using computer programing teaching problem solving. Describes the problem-solving technique of Top-Down Design, discusses its application to LOGO, and provides examples of programs using LOGO. (MDH)

For beginning programmers, inadequate problem solving and planning skills are among the most salient of their weaknesses. In this paper, we test the efficacy of natural language tutoring to teach and scaffold acquisition of these skills. We describe ProPL (Pro-PELL), a dialogue-based intelligent tutoring system that elicits goal decompositions and…