Game-based learning (GBL) combines pedagogy and interactive entertainment to create a virtual learning environment in an effort to motivate and regain the interest of a new generation of "digital native" learners. However, this approach is impeded by the limited availability of suitable "serious" games and high-level design…

Physiology is a core requirement in the undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum. In one or two introductory physiology courses, engineering students must learn physiology sufficiently to support learning in their subsequent engineering courses and careers. As preparation for future learning, physiology instruction centered on concepts may…

Does learner participation vary depending on the learning context? Are there characteristic features of participation evident in formal, non-formal, and informal online learning environments? Six online learning environments were chosen as epitomes of formal, non-formal, and informal learning contexts and compared. Transcripts of online…

Sudoku is an intelligence game that has fascinated many people. In addition to offering entertainment, it also attracts players to solve more challenging Sudoku questions. Sudoku novices tend to fail to focus on understanding the operation rules because the grid, words, and numbers of Sudoku are too complicated. The main purpose of this study is…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine perceptions of East Tennessee State University (ETSU) cohort members on the experience of redesigning the leadership preparation program requirements. Particularly, cohort participants in the "Greene-King" cohort were chosen by an admission process to participate in a grant…

Instructional designers must design and develop online learning environments that present the content in a way that learners will find important and useful. Faculty and novice designers are being tasked to design and develop online learning environments without having the necessary knowledge or experience in instructional design in order to select…

It is not sufficient to just make changes in a nursing curriculum without a plan to evaluate the impact on program outcomes. This study sought to determine the outcomes of teaching the nursing process to Foundation of Nursing students in an Associate Degree Nursing program using a factorial design study. Four groups of students were taught the…

Government entities set criteria for institutions that have teacher educator programs to use online assessment tools to show continuous ongoing evaluation, and use data from the tools to guide the improvement of courses. The purpose of this qualitative, multi-case study was to discover how Instructional Designers-by-Assignment (IDBA) are using…

Due to the long-duration and long distance nature of future exploration missions, coupled with significant communication delays from ground-based personnel, NASA astronauts will be living and working within confined, isolated environments for significant periods of time. This extreme environment poses concerns for the flight crews' ability to…

Business students typically do not read James Madison's "Federalist #10", a seminal work in political theory on the causes of and remedies for factions. I make the case that they should and offer suggestions for teaching and assessment. Factions are a subset of stakeholders that have interests "adverse" to the…

This article describes an approach to identifying, capturing, and implementing the active ingredients that account for the differences found when instructional and motivational research interventions are compared in empirical research. The goal of the article is to describe a research-to-practice model and questions that support the effective…

This article outlines an instructional paradigm that guides the design of interventions that build skills in computer-mediated communication (CMC). It is applicable to learning at multiple levels of communicative proficiency and aims to heighten awareness, the understanding of the impact of media configurations, the role of cultures and social…

Teachers, educational managers and learners must realize that new opportunities are offered by modern on-line communication. A person with basic Internet and Web skills is open to a new world of knowledge, from free Web surfing and self-organized education--through on-line resources and familiarization with Internet culture, its places, sites,…

The wider context (political and economic) for developing sustainable distance learning in UK universities is encouraging and new learning technologies promise much improved products and services. But conventional campus-based universities struggle to build and/or expand sustainable distance learning provision. This article identifies the core…

Textbooks play an important part in the design of instruction. This study analyzed the presentation of fractions in textbooks designed for the elementary grades in Kuwait, Japan, and the USA. The analysis focused on the physical characteristics of the books, the structure of the lessons, and the nature of the mathematical problems presented.…