Research conducted in various settings suggests that preparation and support for online instructors should be considered separately from comparable efforts for instructors in face-to-face environments. However, few studies provide empirical data that outline the ways in which preparation to teach online should differ, and only a handful link these…

Every quarter at California State University East Bay, a special event-planning course is offered in a hybrid format (face-to-face and online) and uses interactive Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activities designed to challenge and inspire intellectual growth. The PLB method is different in that students are not only receivers of knowledge but are…

A phylogenetics exercise is incorporated into the "Introduction to biocomputing" course, a junior-level course at Savannah State University. This exercise is designed to help students learn important concepts and practical skills in molecular phylogenetics through solving a real-world problem. In this application, students are required to identify…

Interactive display systems give users flexibility to tailor their visual displays to different tasks and situations. However, in order for such flexibility to be beneficial, users need to understand how to tailor displays to different tasks (to possess "metarepresentational competence"). Recent research suggests that people may desire…

One might assume that familiarity with a scene or previous encounters with objects embedded in a scene would benefit subsequent search for those items. However, in a series of experiments we show that this is not the case: When participants were asked to subsequently search for multiple objects in the same scene, search performance remained…

The face-to-face computer-supported collaborative learning has emerged as an important strategy to elementary students' learning. Few studies have explicitly incorporated the structured peer tutoring to the synchronous environment in mathematics. This study was aimed to explore the effects of the synchronous peer tutoring system on children's…

This paper looks at research based models that have been put forward to describe how teacher use of technology develops. There have been a variety of studies that have proposed levels that describe teacher use of technology and identify the different aspects of use that distinguish these levels. Very few of these studies have shown how teachers…

This study investigated how the use of virtual manipulatives in integer instruction impacts student achievement for integer addition and subtraction. Of particular interest was the influence of using virtual manipulatives on students' ability to create and translate among representations for integer computation. The research employed a…

Virtual classrooms and virtual activities have waxed and waned, with most focusing on fostering learning in the cognitive domain and, realistically, most becoming rapidly discontinued. But social virtual realities (SVR) are uniquely "social," so what about interpersonal skills? This article describes the authors' experiences exploring SVR as a…

Many studies have been conducted on the topics of tools, computers, and technology designed to promote student learning. However, researchers have rarely raised the critical issue of the lack of consensus on conceptualizing "cognitive tools" or the possible challenges associated with previous definitions. By examining the limitations on research…

Over the past few decades there has been a large amount of research dedicated to the teaching of statistics. The impact of this research has started to change course content and structure, in both introductory and advanced courses for statisticians and those from other disciplines. In the light of these changes future directions in the teaching…

Field trips have been acknowledged as valuable learning experiences in geography. This article uses Kolb's (1984) experiential learning model to discuss how students learn and how field trips can help enhance learning. Using Kolb's experiential learning theory as a guide in the design of field trips helps ensure that field trips contribute to…

Maps such as concept maps and knowledge maps are often used as learning materials. These maps have nodes and links, nodes as key concepts and links as relationships between key concepts. From a map, the user can recognize the important concepts and the relationships between them. To build concept or knowledge maps, domain experts are needed.…

We present a new approach for the organization of schools, which we call the flexible scheduling paradigm (FSP). FSP improves student learning by dynamically redeploying teachers and other pedagogical resources to provide students with customized learning conditions over shorter time periods called "mini-terms" instead of semesters or years. By…

We present a comparative study of a literature review of 326 selected contributions (Buteau, Marshall, Jarvis & Lavicza, 2010) to an international (US, UK, Hungary) survey of mathematicians (Lavicza, 2008) regarding the use of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) in post-secondary mathematics education. The comparison results are organized with respect…