As asynchronous discussion forums become more prevalent in online and flexible-delivery modes of teaching, understanding the role that instructors play in student learning in these forums becomes an important issue. Whether the instructor chooses to lead discussions or to keep a low profile can affect student participation in surprising ways. In…

The purpose of this paper is to provide background information about the spread of viruses in a population, to introduce an adaptable procedure to further the understanding of epidemiology in the high school setting, and to show how hypothesis testing and statistics can be incorporated into a high school lab exercise. It describes a project which…

No one can doubt nowadays that ethics in business is an important issue. Recent corporate scandals involving corporations such as Enron, WorldCom, and Freddie Mac, to name just a few, have exposed highly questionable business practices and criminal behavior. In this paper, the author would like to distinguish between illegal practices and legal,…

In recent years, there has been a movement in the USA towards performance-based evaluation of teachers. As a result, many schools, colleges, and departments of education have moved towards integrating performance-based approaches into their programs. This has involved many promising practices, but none have caught on more than the use of teaching…

This classroom scholarship report presents a group of elementary students' experiences learning the traditional long division algorithm. The traditional long division algorithm is often taught mechanically, resulting in the student's performance of step-by-step procedures with no or weak understanding of the concept. While noting some initial…

This paper discusses an innovative blended learning strategy which incorporates online discussion in both in-class face to face, and off-classroom settings. Online discussion in a face to face class is compared with its two counterparts, off-class online discussion as well as in-class, face to face oral discussion, to examine the advantages and…

"The Chemedian and the Crazy Football Match" is a comic strip developed by the authors to bring humor to aspects of the UK primary science curriculum. The comic strip was tested in six English primary school classes (years 3-5; ages 7-10); over 150 children participated in the project, together with six teachers. Children found the comic…

In this article, the author talks about big questions of meaning and value that young people pose and how to respond to their concerns about big questions. He relates the story of his granddaughter, Charlotte, who, at the age of one, would climb up on the stairs not from choice or whim, but "because they're there." For her, it was not play, but…

In support of online discussions research, this review classifies and describes instructional interventions and learner characteristics that affect the quality of discussions. The review will help educators better understand factors such as group structure, mentoring, argumentation, and learner characteristics that play a role in shaping online…

This paper explores the use of learning management systems (LMS) at colleges and universities in the United States of America. The study explores which systems are in use including both commercial and self-developed systems. The findings are based upon a random sample of 100 of the approximately 2,000 institutions of higher learning in the United…

Punking is a practice of verbal and physical violence, humiliation, and shaming usually done in public by males to other males. This definition is based on interviews and discussion groups with 32 adolescent boys and on media sources within which adolescent males are embedded. Discourse analysis findings reveal that punking terminology and…

The authors present results from an experiment that tested the effect of seat location on student performance and attitudes in an undergraduate biology class. The seat assignments were randomly assigned on the first day of class. The authors did not find that students sitting in the front did any better than students sitting in the back. (Contains…

Presents background information on Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin could not compel Amish students to attend high school. Outlines a lesson plan for simulating the court's decision. Includes discussion questions that distinguish between the First Amendment establishment and free exercise clauses and…

Can "Information Age" learners effectively multi-task in the classroom? Can synchronous classroom activities be designed around conceptually related tasks, to encourage deeper processing and greater learning of classroom content? This research was undertaken to begin to address these questions. In this study, we explored the use of…

The "Learning Trail" is an innovative application of peer-mediated instruction designed to enhance student learning in large practical classes. The strategy specifically seeks to improve participants' attention to details of protocol that are often difficult to observe during teacher-centered demonstrations to large groups. Students…