In recent years, many "traditional" Higher Education Institutes (HEI's) have been seeking to increase the participation of "non-traditional" learners. In the context of this paper, "traditional" institutions are those which mainly offer programmes on a full-time day basis for school leavers and…

This study investigates how trainee teachers perceive their supervising teachers' supervisory competency. Through a questionnaire that was specifically developed for this study and which contained open-ended questions, student teacher candidates were asked to comment on their supervising teachers' competency in preparation for supervision,…

Purpose: Today's technology supports the design of more and more sophisticated interactive learning environments. This paper aims to argue that such design should develop from first principles. Design/methodology/approach: In the paper by first principles is meant: learning theory and principles of course design. These principles are briefly…

Lesson planning is integral to teachers' professional development in China. It includes their individual reflection and study as well as the collegial activities undertaken to prepare the lesson. In China, organizational structures for both individual teachers and a school's professional community embed lesson preparation in two activities:…

There are more similarities than differences among learning management system (LMS) software products. In a recent study, Carriere, Challborn, and Moore compared a variety of LMSs and went as far as to suggest that the only real differences between systems lie in marketing approaches. In addition, because LMSs have interchangeable parts, those…

Many teachers find developing a new lesson or course quite difficult. It would be nice to have all necessary information, lesson plans and assessment materials ready at hand. But most often, they find themselves on their own when it comes to lesson and course development. The author faced this situation when he was asked to develop a lesson on…

This article describes the design and formative evaluation of a Web-based tool that supports curriculum developers in constructing competence maps. Competence maps describe final attainment levels of educational programs in terms of--interrelated--competencies. Key requirements for the competence-mapping tool were validity and practicality.…

Objectives: Comprehensive training in the area of tobacco control and prevention has not been available to public health students receiving professional degrees. This study describes findings of a project designed to develop and evaluate an integrated approach to the education of Masters of Public Health (MPH) students at the University of Iowa…

This article explores the decision making in developing and starting a partnership between three universities using the decision-making models developed by Graham Allison in 1971 and updated in 1999. University partnerships are complicated and require more than one decision-making model to explain all the significant decisions that are make in…

Drawing on research literature on online discussion and on reading and learning from the text, we argue that research on learning from text has much to offer but has been largely absent in informing the design and study of online learning environments. We propose several key issues to be considered in research and development of online discussion,…

This paper presents guidelines for writing a syllabus for college courses for both experienced and novice teachers. The purpose of the syllabus in communicating course content, purpose, direction and requirements is discussed, as is the necessity of planning the course before syllabus writing. Major content areas of the syllabus are reviewed,…

This paper describes the author's views on and approach to teaching about educational technology. The author teaches concepts, with an emphasis on "teaching about" rather than "teaching how". The author's educational background and experiences, and their influence on his current views are described. While the definitions of educational technology…

This paper presents classroom management practices that can be used to avoid the "revolving classroom door." In the revolving classroom door, misbehaving students are sent to the principal, and eventually returned to the classroom with no gains in student behavior or opportunity for learning. The paper begins by discussing the meaning of classroom…

Integrating computer-based communication into the delivery of a course is not a simple task, but it need not be a daunting one. With conscientious planning, coordination with institutional resources, preparation of training materials, and flexible responses to student learning, an instructor can readily succeed. Concerns and problems encountered…

Instructional Communications Systems (ICS), an academic support unit for the University of Wisconsin System, has been a leader in teleconferencing for more than 30 years. ICS personnel have been heavily involved with videoconferencing during the past 2-1/2 years, working with clientele at all of the various training levels--orientation, planning…