According to activity theory, activities are at the center of human behavior. Extensive attention has been given in literature to the success and effectiveness of online learning programs. Value theory suggests that human perceived value is a critical construct in investigating what is important to individuals. However, very limited attention has…

This instructional resource utilizes consumer product information by which students compare theoretical stoichiometric calculations to CO[subscript 2] car emissions and fuel consumption data. Representing graphically the emission of CO[subscript 2] versus consumption of fuel provides a tangible way of connecting concepts studied in chemistry…

It is a challenge for schools with large populations of students from low-income, migrant, and international families to ensure that every student reaches proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. Traditionally, schools across the country have tended to cope with this challenge by offering a…

"Concept study" is described in this article as a collaboration of teachers to investigate images, analogies, metaphors, exercises, and other experiences that are used to support students' understandings of concepts. The discussion is illustrated with the examples of multiplication and prime numbers. (Contains 3 figures.)

The purpose of this paper is to report on a usability study for ESL websites conducted to gain insights from learners of English as a second language (ESL) as they interacted with specific sites. Five carefully selected ESL sites were tested by 10 different users generating a total of fifty testing sessions. Two major research questions guided the…

Research in cognitive neuroscience suggests that the brains of mathematically gifted children are quantitatively and qualitatively different from those of average math ability. Math-gifted children exhibit signs of enhanced right-hemisphere development, and when engaged in the thinking process, tend to rely on mental imagery. They further manifest…

This paper presents a blended learning model in which the online component is not used to replace some of the traditional on-campus activities of a course but to "introduce new teaching objectives" that would not have been possible to achieve, because of class time limitations and the nature of the course. The instructional model was aimed at…

An in-class activity has been developed to assist students in discovering chromatographic separations. Designed on the basis of plate theory, the game has students use instructor-provided partition coefficients to establish equilibrium for two different items between a stationary and mobile phase. As students work through equilibration and mobile…

The purpose of this study was to understand the perspectives of instructors as they participate in an online classroom setting. It sought to find the purposes, goals, and objectives set by online instructors for the utilization of threaded discussions. The methodology employed was qualitative. A case study of a public two-year and four-year degree…

In a series of investigations, the author and his colleagues have examined ways that students who once did poorly in school made progress and how their teachers nurtured their accomplishments. They have chronicled ways that successful teachers learned to understand why students are reluctant to do their work, how to help them think through their…

Previous research has shown that second language (L2) learners reflect on language form when carrying out collaborative activities in L2 classrooms. This study explored which language forms Korean as a second language (KSL) learners focused on and how their linguistic issues were resolved when collaborating with interlocutors from different…

Affective learning is a key dimension of health professional education and involves teaching topics such as empathy or grief that impact student attitudes and beliefs to prepare them to be novice practitioners. The move in higher education toward online and "blended" learning (a mix of online and traditional, classroom based learning)…

This qualitative study explores how using Peer Learning Forums (PLF) in an online asynchronous computer programming course can be analyzed to derive information about Student Activity Focus (SAF) for adult Information Technology students. Three instruments are proposed to assist instructors classify questions posted by students on these forums,…

In this article we try to show how new devices and methods can help in the education of programming. At Kecskemét College programmable mobile robots and instead of behavioral, the constructivist pedagogical methods were used. Our experiments have proved our hypothesis as the improved new methodical education using devices can give more practical…

The present study focused on investigating (a) what authentic texts were used and (b) how they were used for instruction in three elementary schools, where learners' L1/D1 was a Caribbean Creole. Three findings emerged: First, teachers focused considerable attention on developing students' vocabularies and knowledge of English grammar. Second,…