Motivating adolescents to learn can be a challenge! Often distracted and easily bored, these kids are also critical thinkers capable of thriving in the classroom while learning 21st century skills. How do we hold their attention and develop their abilities? Research shows that all students--regardless of learning style, disability category, or…

Experts in the field have had a difficult time finding a conclusive set of attributes of high-quality gifted teachers using collaborative technology. The purpose of this multiple, exploratory case study was to examine the views of selected educators regarding the teacher characteristics and technology most relevant to the development of shared…

Learner autonomy has been one of the most popular terms in the language learning field lately. Researchers have been conducting studies to see different aspects of learner autonomy and to bring different suggestions to teachers to promote autonomous learning in their classrooms. Students of a particular cultural background would not show the same…

This article is an autoenthnographic account of the yearlong journey of two undergraduates and their instructor when the traditional classroom structures associated with the banking concept of education were altered in an upper division class and follow-on research experiences. These changes focused on foregrounding students' experiences of the…

During the 2006-2007 academic year, five faculty members from the College of Engineering at Boise State University initiated a curriculum augmentation project using new instructional technologies with the intention to help improve undergraduate engineering students' cognitive and affective preparedness for their classroom learning. The…

Self-directed learning has contributed significantly to adult learners' personal and professional growth. Approximately 70% of adult learning is through a self-directed learning context (Heimstra, 2008). This quantitative correlational study involved an attempt to determine the nature of the relationship between situational, dispositional, and…

This paper examines the key issues regarding The Interaction Equivalency Theorem posited by Anderson (2003a), which consists of the three interaction elements found in formal education courses among teacher, student, and content. It first examines the core concepts of the theorem and argues that two theses of different dimensions can be…

Workplace simulations (WPS), authentic learning environments at school, are increasingly used in vocational education. This article provides a theoretical analysis and synthesis of requirements considering learner skills, characteristics of the learning environment and the role of the teacher that influence good functioning in WPS and foster…

My Environmental Education Evaluation Resource Assistant or "MEERA" is a web-site designed to support environmental educators' program evaluation activities. MEERA has several characteristics that set it apart from other self-directed learning evaluation resources. Readers are encouraged to explore the site and to reflect on the role that…

Students in a graduate geometry class used items such as paper, ribbon, plastic spheres, cardboard tubes, and markers to carry out investigations in spherical geometry. The hands-on activities helped students develop a new appreciation of geometry as a study of shape and space; however, the difficulty of subduing wayward elastics and drawing lines…

Evidence supporting Problem-based learning (PBL) fostering students' self-directed learning (SDL) in hybrid PBL curricula is inconsistent. To explore the influence of PBL in a hybrid curriculum on students' SDL, the authors investigated the following: (1) students' self-assessed SDL ability, (2) students' perceptions of the influence of curricular…

This experimental study examined students' comprehension of challenging, ecologically valid, history text. We examined the benefits of the elaborative interrogation (EI) comprehension strategy and the main idea (MI) strategy when compared to an independent study (IS) control. This work extended previous research and explored the ecological…

In this article the author describes her experiences in an effective, and cost-efficient way of teaching developmental mathematics online in a course that runs on its own once it is set up. The online course described here was created and implemented at Ramapo College. The course is an innovative method of teaching developmental mathematics in…

This longitudinal study investigated associations between children's learning-related behaviors and literacy achievement in an ethnically diverse sample of low-income children throughout elementary school. Children's literacy and learning-related behavior (e.g., working independently, seeking challenges) were assessed when they were in…

This article considers the application of selected components of self-regulated learning (SRL; Zimmerman 2000) to student-content interaction in online learning and distance education (DE). In particular we discuss how, when interacting with electronically enhanced text, students must carefully employ self-regulated learning strategies that…