Measuring Access to Learning Opportunities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawley, Willis D., Ed.; Ready, Timothy, Ed.

This study examined the continued relevance and adequacy of the Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report (E&S Survey) as a tool for enforcing civil rights laws in education, monitoring quality of access to learning opportunities, and research on other current issues of educational policy and practice. The Committee on…

Active Learning in Engineering Education: a (re)introduction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lima, Rui M.; Andersson, Pernille Hammar; Saalman, Elisabeth

2017-01-01

The informal network 'Active Learning in Engineering Education' (ALE) has been promoting Active Learning since 2001. ALE creates opportunity for practitioners and researchers of engineering education to collaboratively learn how to foster learning of engineering students. The activities in ALE are centred on the vision that learners construct their knowledge based on meaningful activities and knowledge. In 2014, the steering committee of the ALE network reinforced the need to discuss the meaning of Active Learning and that was the base for this proposal for a special issue. More than 40 submissions were reviewed by the European Journal of Engineering Education community and this theme issue ended up with eight contributions, which are different both in their research and Active Learning approaches. These different Active Learning approaches are aligned with the different approaches that can be increasingly found in indexed journals.

Evidence of Deeper Learning Outcomes. Findings from the Study of Deeper Learning Opportunities and Outcomes: Report 3

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zeiser, Kristina L.; Taylor, James; Rickles, Jordan; Garet, Michael S.; Segeritz, Michael

2014-01-01

The "Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes"--funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation--aimed to determine whether students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well implemented approach to promoting deeper learning actually experienced greater deeper learning opportunities and outcomes…

Opportunity-to-Learn Context-Based Tasks Provided by Mathematics Textbooks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wijaya, Ariyadi; van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, Marja; Doorman, Michiel

2015-01-01

Based on the findings of an error analysis revealing that Indonesian ninth- and tenth-graders had difficulties in solving context-based tasks, we investigated the opportunity-to-learn offered by Indonesian textbooks for solving context-based mathematics tasks and the relation of this opportunity-to-learn to students' difficulties in solving these…

Opportunity to Learn and Conceptions of Educational Equality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guiton, Gretchen; Oakes, Jeannie

1995-01-01

Conceptual issues in developing and using opportunity-to-learn (OTL) standards to inform policy questions about equal educational opportunity are discussed. Using two national databases, OTL measures are developed according to Libertarian, Liberal, and Democratic Liberal conceptualizations, and the influence of these concepts on the information…

Blended Learning Opportunities in Ukrainian IT Public Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Szimkovics, Tamás

2017-01-01

Based on previous surveys the usage of ICT and blended learning is at a low level in Ukraine. To catch up with the European average, it is important to familiarize the students and teachers with blended learning in the secondary school. The information technology classes provide the best opportunity to introduce the blended learning, because they…

Remoteness and Access to Learning Opportunities in the Pacific Region.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pacific Region Educational Lab., Honolulu, HI.

The Remoteness and Access to Learning Opportunities in the Pacific Region Study was carried out to investigate whether access to learning opportunities (ALO) is related to the remoteness and isolation of many schools in the Pacific region. The study also profiles the conditions of remote and isolated schools and the ALO for Pacific students. Seven…

Exploration of Textual Interactions in CALL Learning Communities: Emerging Research and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Jonathan R.

2017-01-01

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has greatly enhanced the realm of online social interaction and behavior. In language classrooms, it allows the opportunity for students to enhance their learning experiences. "Exploration of Textual Interactions in CALL Learning Communities: Emerging Research and Opportunities" is an ideal…

Does the Room Matter? Active Learning in Traditional and Enhanced Lecture Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stoltzfus, Jon R.; Libarkin, Julie

2016-01-01

SCALE-UP-type classrooms, originating with the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies project, are designed to facilitate active learning by maximizing opportunities for interactions between students and embedding technology in the classroom. Positive impacts when active learning replaces lecture are well…

Providing Opportunities for Deeper Learning: Findings from the Study of Deeper Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bitter, Catherine; O'Day, Jennifer

2014-01-01

The "Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes," funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is a "proof-of-concept" study to determine whether students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well-implemented approach to promoting "deeper learning" experience greater deeper…

Work-based learning: challenges and opportunities.

PubMed

Gallagher, Ann; Holland, Lesley

This article discusses some of the challenges and opportunities arising from the development and implementation of an innovative work-based open and distance learning programme available exclusively to healthcare assistants working in general health and mental health practice. The programme is based on a partnership between the sponsoring organisation and the Open University. The focus is on the development of standards of proficiency, service user involvement, partnership working, skills development and the pedagogic implications of a work-based learning format.

Opportunities for Learning-Based Conversations in High School Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McFeetors, Janelle

2015-01-01

Conversations as moments for interpersonal and intimate turning round of ideas for the purpose of growth are well-defined within curriculum inquiry. Interactions among grade 12 students in this study demonstrate the possibility of learning to learn mathematics through conversation. Attending to opportunities for learning-based conversations,…

Informal interprofessional learning: an untapped opportunity for learning and change within the workplace.

PubMed

Nisbet, Gillian; Lincoln, Michelle; Dunn, Stewart

2013-11-01

In this paper, we explore the educational and workplace learning literature to identify the potential and significance for informal interprofessional learning within the workplace. We also examine theoretical perspectives informing informal workplace interprofessional learning. Despite numerous studies focusing on formal interprofessional education programs, we suggest that informal interprofessional learning opportunities are currently unrealized. We highlight reasons for a focus on learning within the workplace and the potential benefits within an interprofessional context.

Physical activity opportunities in afterschool programs

PubMed Central

Weaver, R. Glenn; Beets, Michael W.; Huberty, Jennifer; Freedman, Darcy; Turner-Mcgrievy, Gabrielle; Ward, Diane

2015-01-01

Afterschool programs (ASPs) have potential to provide children moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The availability and types (e.g., free play or organized activities) of physical activity opportunities, their structure (e.g., presence of lines, elimination games), and staff behaviors (e.g., encouragement, engaged) can influence children’s MVPA. This study explored these factors in 20 ASPs serving over 1,700 elementary-age children. The occurrence, types and structure of physical activity opportunities, and staff behaviors were collected via the System for Observing Staff Promotion of Physical Activity and Nutrition (SOSPAN). A total of 4,660 SOSPAN scans were completed across 63 complete program days (1733 during physical activity opportunities). Physical activity opportunities were observed on 60 program days across all 20 sites, with 73% of those opportunities classified as free play. ASPs scheduled an average of 66.3 minutes (range 15-150min) of physical activity opportunities daily. Games played included basketball, tag, soccer and football. Staff rarely engaged in physical activity promotion behaviors, and the structure of organized games discouraged MVPA. For example, staff verbally promoted physical activity in just 6.1% of scans, while organized games were more likely to involve lines and elimination. Professional development training may enhance staffs’ physical activity promotion and the structure of activity opportunities. PMID:25586132

Framing and Assessing Classroom Opportunity to Learn: The Case of Mexico

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen, Bryant; Pérez Martínez, María Guadalupe; Aguilar Escobar, Angélica

2016-01-01

Educational policy in Mexico and throughout Latin America is shifting focus from school access to school quality. Improving "quality" is often interpreted as enhancing student learning opportunities, but three issues remain unresolved: (a) what constitutes opportunity to learn (OTL) in classrooms; (b) how to assess classroom OTL (COTL);…

Rural Learning: A Practical Guide to Developing Learning Opportunities in the Countryside.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Payne, John

This guide to rural learning is intended to help those developing learning opportunities in the United Kingdom countryside--teachers, program organizers, project and development workers, and health and housing workers. Section 1 supplies up-to-date facts and figures and useful information about living in the rural context. It highlights issues…

Making Teaching Visible through Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ermeling, Bradley A.; Gallimore, Ronald; Hiebert, James

2017-01-01

Observing teaching with a practiced, professional eye can yield valuable insights into the specific learning opportunities that students are (or are not) provided. However, recent policy initiatives have emphasized using formulaic rubrics and checklists to rate teacher behaviors and evaluate their use of particular instructional moves. Rather than…

ENERGY-NET (Energy, Environment and Society Learning Network): Enhancing opportunities for learning using an Earth systems science framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elliott, E. M.; Bain, D. J.; Divers, M. T.; Crowley, K. J.; Povis, K.; Scardina, A.; Steiner, M.

2012-12-01

We describe a newly funded collaborative NSF initiative, ENERGY-NET (Energy, Environment and Society Learning Network), that brings together the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) with the Learning Science and Geoscience research strengths at the University of Pittsburgh. ENERGY-NET aims to create rich opportunities for participatory learning and public education in the arena of energy, the environment, and society using an Earth systems science framework. We build upon a long-established teen docent program at CMNH and to form Geoscience Squads comprised of underserved teens. Together, the ENERGY-NET team, including museum staff, experts in informal learning sciences, and geoscientists spanning career stage (undergraduates, graduate students, faculty) provides inquiry-based learning experiences guided by Earth systems science principles. Together, the team works with Geoscience Squads to design "Exploration Stations" for use with CMNH visitors that employ an Earth systems science framework to explore the intersecting lenses of energy, the environment, and society. The goals of ENERGY-NET are to: 1) Develop a rich set of experiential learning activities to enhance public knowledge about the complex dynamics between Energy, Environment, and Society for demonstration at CMNH; 2) Expand diversity in the geosciences workforce by mentoring underrepresented teens, providing authentic learning experiences in earth systems science and life skills, and providing networking opportunities with geoscientists; and 3) Institutionalize ENERGY-NET collaborations among geosciences expert, learning researchers, and museum staff to yield long-term improvements in public geoscience education and geoscience workforce recruiting.

Special ways of knowing in science: expansive learning opportunities with bilingual children with learning disabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martínez-Álvarez, Patricia

2017-09-01

The field of bilingual special education is currently plagued with contradictions resulting in a serious underrepresentation of emergent bilinguals with learning disabilities in professional science fields. This underrepresentation is due in large part to the fact that educational systems around the world are inadequately prepared to address the educational needs of these children; this inadequacy is rooted in a lack of understanding of the linguistic and cultural factors impacting learning. Accepting such a premise and assuming that children learn in unexpected ways when instructional practices attend to culture and language, this study documents a place-based learning experience integrating geoscience and literacy in a fourth-grade dual language classroom. Data sources include transcribed audio-taped conversations from learning experience sessions and interviews that took place as six focus children, who had been identified as having specific learning disabilities, read published science texts (i.e. texts unaltered linguistically or conceptually to meet the needs of the readers). My analysis revealed that participants generated responses that were often unexpected if solely analyzed from those Western scientific perspectives traditionally valued in school contexts. However, these responses were also full of purposeful and rich understandings that revealed opportunities for expansive learning. Adopting a cultural historical activity theory perspective, instructional tools such as texts, visuals, and questions were found to act as mediators impacting the learning in both activity systems: (a) teacher- researcher learning from children, and (b) children learning from teachers. I conclude by suggesting that there is a need to understand students' ways of knowing to their full complexity, and to deliberately recognize teachers as learners, researchers, and means to expansive learning patterns that span beyond traditional learning boundaries.

Physical activity opportunities in afterschool programs.

PubMed

Weaver, R Glenn; Beets, Michael W; Huberty, Jennifer; Freedman, Darcy; Turner-Mcgrievy, Gabrielle; Ward, Diane

2015-05-01

Afterschool programs (ASPs) have potential to provide children moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The availability and types (e.g., free play or organized activities) of physical activity opportunities, their structure (e.g., presence of lines, elimination games), and staff behaviors (e.g., encouragement, engaged) can influence children's MVPA. This study explored these factors in 20 ASPs serving over 1,700 elementary-age children. The occurrence, types, and structure of physical activity opportunities, and staff behaviors were collected via the SOSPAN (System for Observing Staff Promotion of Physical Activity and Nutrition). A total of 4,660 SOSPAN scans were completed across 63 complete program days (1,733 during physical activity opportunities). Physical activity opportunities were observed on 60 program days across all 20 sites, with 73% of those opportunities classified as free play. ASPs scheduled an average of 66.3 minutes (range 15-150 minutes) of physical activity opportunities daily. Games played included basketball, tag, soccer, and football. Staff rarely engaged in physical activity promotion behaviors, and the structure of organized games discouraged MVPA. For example, staff verbally promoted physical activity in just 6.1% of scans, while organized games were more likely to involve lines and elimination. Professional development training may enhance staffs' physical activity promotion and the structure of activity opportunities. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

Creating opportunities to learn in mathematics education: a sociocultural perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goos, Merrilyn

2014-09-01

The notion of `opportunities to learn in mathematics education' is open to interpretation from multiple theoretical perspectives, where the focus may be on cognitive, social or affective dimensions of learning, curriculum and assessment design, issues of equity and access, or the broad policy and political contexts of learning and teaching. In this paper, I conceptualise opportunities to learn from a sociocultural perspective. Beginning with my own research on the learning of students and teachers of mathematics, I sketch out two theoretical frameworks for understanding this learning. One framework extends Valsiner's zone theory of child development, and the other draws on Wenger's ideas about communities of practice. My aim is then to suggest how these two frameworks might help us understand the learning of others who have an interest in mathematics education, such as mathematics teacher educator-researchers and mathematicians. In doing so, I attempt to move towards a synthesis of ideas to inform mathematics education research and development.

Teaching and Learning Jewish History in the 21st Century: New Priorities and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobs, Benjamin M.

2018-01-01

New 21st-century circumstances in the Jewish world--including the changing nature of Jewish identification, the retreat from identity and continuity as singular aims of Jewish education, the democratization of Jewish learning opportunities, increased emphasis on informal and experiential Jewish education activities, and demonstrable interest among…

Fostering Sustained Learning among Undergraduate Students: Emerging Research and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chemosit, Caroline; Rugutt, John; Rugutt, Joseph K.

2017-01-01

Keeping students engaged and receptive to learning can, at times, be a challenge. However, by the implementation of new methods and pedagogies, instructors can strengthen the drive to learn among their students. "Fostering Sustained Learning Among Undergraduate Students: Emerging Research and Opportunities" is an essential publication…

Enhanced Memory as a Common Effect of Active Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Markant, Douglas B.; Ruggeri, Azzurra; Gureckis, Todd M.; Xu, Fei

2016-01-01

Despite widespread consensus among educators that "active learning" leads to better outcomes than comparatively passive forms of instruction, it is often unclear why these benefits arise. In this article, we review research showing that the opportunity to control the information experienced while learning leads to improved memory…

The Impact on Career Development of Learning Opportunities and Learning Behavior at Work.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van der Sluis, Lidewey E. C.; Poell, Rob E.

2003-01-01

Survey responses were received in 1998 (n=63) and 1999 (n=98) from master's of business administration graduates. Hierarchical regression and difference of means tests found that career development depended on learning opportunities at work and on individual learning behavior. Behavior was more predictive of objective career development measures,…

Reducing Dropout Rates through Expanded Learning Opportunities. Issue Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Laura; Princiotta, Daniel

2009-01-01

Expanded learning opportunities (ELOs), which include afterschool, summer learning, and extended day and extended year programs, can help states reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates. Effective elementary, middle, and high school ELOs support academic rigor, boost student engagement, and provide students with supportive relationships.…

Active Learning Increases Children's Physical Activity across Demographic Subgroups.

PubMed

Bartholomew, John B; Jowers, Esbelle M; Roberts, Gregory; Fall, Anna-Mária; Errisuriz, Vanessa L; Vaughn, Sharon

2018-01-01

Given the need to find more opportunities for physical activity within the elementary school day, this study was designed to asses the impact of I-CAN!, active lessons on: 1) student physical activity (PA) outcomes via accelerometry; and 2) socioeconomic status (SES), race, sex, body mass index (BMI), or fitness as moderators of this impact. Participants were 2,493 fourth grade students (45.9% male, 45.8% white, 21.7% low SES) from 28 central Texas elementary schools randomly assigned to intervention (n=19) or control (n=9). Multilevel regression models evaluated the effect of I-CAN! on PA and effect sizes were calculated. The moderating effects of SES, race, sex, BMI, and fitness were examined in separate models. Students in treatment schools took significantly more steps than those in control schools (β = 125.267, SE = 41.327, p = .002, d = .44). I-CAN! had a significant effect on MVPA with treatment schools realizing 80% (β = 0.796, SE =0.251, p = .001; d = .38) more MVPA than the control schools. There were no significant school-level differences on sedentary behavior (β = -0.177, SE = 0.824, p = .83). SES, race, sex, BMI, and fitness level did not moderate the impact of active learning on step count and MVPA. Active learning increases PA within elementary students, and does so consistently across demographic sub-groups. This is important as these sub-groups represent harder to reach populations for PA interventions. While these lessons may not be enough to help children reach daily recommendations of PA, they can supplement other opportunities for PA. This speaks to the potential of schools to adopt policy change to require active learning.

STEM learning activity among home-educating families

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bachman, Jennifer

2011-12-01

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning was studied among families in a group of home-educators in the Pacific Northwest. Ethnographic methods recorded learning activity (video, audio, fieldnotes, and artifacts) which was analyzed using a unique combination of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Mediated Action (MA), enabling analysis of activity at multiple levels. Findings indicate that STEM learning activity is family-led, guided by parents' values and goals for learning, and negotiated with children to account for learner interests and differences, and available resources. Families' STEM education practice is dynamic, evolves, and influenced by larger societal STEM learning activity. Parents actively seek support and resources for STEM learning within their home-school community, working individually and collectively to share their funds of knowledge. Home-schoolers also access a wide variety of free-choice learning resources: web-based materials, museums, libraries, and community education opportunities (e.g. afterschool, weekend and summer programs, science clubs and classes, etc.). A lesson-heuristic, grounded in Mediated Action, represents and analyzes home STEM learning activity in terms of tensions between parental goals, roles, and lesson structure. One tension observed was between 'academic' goals or school-like activity and 'lifelong' goals or everyday learning activity. Theoretical and experiential learning was found in both activity, though parents with academic goals tended to focus more on theoretical learning and those with lifelong learning goals tended to be more experiential. Examples of the National Research Council's science learning strands (NRC, 2009) were observed in the STEM practices of all these families. Findings contribute to the small but growing body of empirical CHAT research in science education, specifically to the empirical base of family STEM learning practices at home. It also fills a

E-Learning: opportunity or end of field classes?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bloemertz, Lena; Kuhn, Brigitte; Kuhn, Nikolaus J.

2013-04-01

E-Learning is often seen as an opportunity to avoid the costs of field classes by using new digital media to communicate content to students that otherwise could only be seen in the field. However, feeling, tasting and smelling soil on a farm or in a forest cannot be substituted via the internet. To achieve some teaching efficiency, an course on e-learning introduced at the University of Basel therefore took an opposite approach: instead of compromising the field experience, the opportunities to broaden access and generate flexibility for the students and instructors during the lecture room section of a soil science and land use course were maximised. The course has six topics, each e-learning element is designed to take one week of the studentśself study time devoted to the course. Three one-day field classes spread over the term offer an opportunity to the students to become acquainted with common soil types in the region of Basel and typical land use. The latter emphasizes visits to farms to ensure that the perspective of the farmers on their and soils and business is communicated to the students. The field classes also ensure sufficient contact time between instructors and students. The informal time spend together during the days in the field also ensures to address individual questions of the students. Overall, the format of the course ensures that the field experience and instructor presence are offered where needed and that e-learning is used to replace formal contact time where self-study is possible.

Using assistive technology adaptations to include students with learning disabilities in cooperative learning activities.

PubMed

Bryant, D P; Bryant, B R

1998-01-01

Cooperative learning (CL) is a common instructional arrangement that is used by classroom teachers to foster academic achievement and social acceptance of students with and without learning disabilities. Cooperative learning is appealing to classroom teachers because it can provide an opportunity for more instruction and feedback by peers than can be provided by teachers to individual students who require extra assistance. Recent studies suggest that students with LD may need adaptations during cooperative learning activities. The use of assistive technology adaptations may be necessary to help some students with LD compensate for their specific learning difficulties so that they can engage more readily in cooperative learning activities. A process for integrating technology adaptations into cooperative learning activities is discussed in terms of three components: selecting adaptations, monitoring the use of the adaptations during cooperative learning activities, and evaluating the adaptations' effectiveness. The article concludes with comments regarding barriers to and support systems for technology integration, technology and effective instructional practices, and the need to consider technology adaptations for students who have learning disabilities.

Opportunities for and Barriers to Powerful and Transformative Learning Experiences in Online Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolger, Benjamin B.; Rowland, Gordon; Reuning-Hummel, Carrie; Codner, Stephen

2011-01-01

Powerful and transformative learning experiences display characteristics in common with each other. Emerging communication technologies may increase opportunities for powerful and transformative learning experiences. To explore this question, there are four sections to this article. First, it is observed that there are many interesting synergies…

Enhanced Multisensory Integration and Motor Reactivation after Active Motor Learning of Audiovisual Associations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Andrew J.; James, Thomas W.; James, Karin Harman

2011-01-01

Everyday experience affords us many opportunities to learn about objects through multiple senses using physical interaction. Previous work has shown that active motor learning of unisensory items enhances memory and leads to the involvement of motor systems during subsequent perception. However, the impact of active motor learning on subsequent…

Connecting through Comics: Expanding Opportunities for Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolton-Gary, Cynthia

2012-01-01

When students are faced with learning abstract contents, creating meaningful teaching and learning opportunities is a challenge for many educators. Concerns for how to get students to connect theoretical constructs and apply them to the "real world" is especially critical for those students studying to be teachers. This descriptive study…

Interprofessional team meetings: Opportunities for informal interprofessional learning.

PubMed

Nisbet, Gillian; Dunn, Stewart; Lincoln, Michelle

2015-01-01

This study explores the potential for workplace interprofessional learning, specifically the learning that occurs between health professionals as part of their attendance at their regular interprofessional team meetings. While most interprofessional learning research to date has focused on formal structured education programs, this study adds to our understanding of the complexities of the learning processes occurring between health professionals as part of everyday practice. Through observations of team meetings and semi-structured interviews, we found that the interprofessional team meeting provided a practical, time-efficient, and relevant means for interprofessional learning, resulting in perceived benefits to individuals, teams, and patients. The learning process, however, was influenced by members' conceptions of learning, participation within the meeting, and medical presence. This study provides a basis for further research to assist health professionals capitalize on informal learning opportunities within the interprofessional meeting.

Professional Development across the Teaching Career: Teachers' Uptake of Formal and Informal Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richter, Dirk; Kunter, Mareike; Klusmann, Uta; Ludtke, Oliver; Baumert, Jurgen

2011-01-01

This study examined teachers' uptake of formal and informal learning opportunities across the career cycle. Analyses were based on data from 1939 German secondary teachers in 198 schools. Results showed that formal learning opportunities (in-service training) were used most frequently by mid-career teachers, whereas informal learning opportunities…

Learning Setting-Generalized Activity Models for Smart Spaces

PubMed Central

Cook, Diane J.

2011-01-01

The data mining and pervasive computing technologies found in smart homes offer unprecedented opportunities for providing context-aware services, including health monitoring and assistance to individuals experiencing difficulties living independently at home. In order to provide these services, smart environment algorithms need to recognize and track activities that people normally perform as part of their daily routines. However, activity recognition has typically involved gathering and labeling large amounts of data in each setting to learn a model for activities in that setting. We hypothesize that generalized models can be learned for common activities that span multiple environment settings and resident types. We describe our approach to learning these models and demonstrate the approach using eleven CASAS datasets collected in seven environments. PMID:21461133

Inmate Education as a Service Learning Opportunity for Students: Preparation, Benefits, and Lessons Learned

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meyer, Cheryl L.; Harned, Megan; Schaad, Amanda; Sunder, Katherine; Palmer, Judson; Tinch, Christy

2016-01-01

There is mounting evidence that prison inmates benefit from educational opportunities but may not be offered to them. In addition, when they are offered, priority is given to prisoners who will be released in the near future, and those serving long-term or life sentences are less likely to have access to classes. A service learning opportunity was…

Internet platforms for lifelong learning: a continuum of opportunity.

PubMed

Sedory Holzer, Susan E; Kokemueller, Phillip

2007-12-01

Access to knowledge through the Internet has spawned a world of online learning, stimulating a new passion for lifelong learning in academia, professional environments, the workplace, and at home. This article takes a fresh look at the wide spectrum of opportunities for online medical education for physicians. We first explore a continuum of "e-learning" models and then look at the range of platforms used to support these systems. We will also look forward to the options likely to change e-learning in the near future and improve physician performance and patient outcomes.

Peer assisted learning in the clinical setting: an activity systems analysis.

PubMed

Bennett, Deirdre; O'Flynn, Siun; Kelly, Martina

2015-08-01

Peer assisted learning (PAL) is a common feature of medical education. Understanding of PAL has been based on processes and outcomes in controlled settings, such as clinical skills labs. PAL in the clinical setting, a complex learning environment, requires fresh evaluation. Socio-cultural theory is proposed as a means to understand educational interventions in ways that are practical and meaningful. We describe the evaluation of a PAL intervention, introduced to support students' transition into full time clinical attachments, using activity theory and activity systems analysis (ASA). Our research question was How does PAL transfer to the clinical environment? Junior students on their first clinical attachments undertook a weekly same-level, reciprocal PAL activity. Qualitative data was collected after each session, and focus groups (n = 3) were held on completion. Data was analysed using ASA. ASA revealed two competing activity systems on clinical attachment; Learning from Experts, which students saw as the primary function of the attachment and Learning with Peers, the PAL intervention. The latter took time from the first and was in tension with it. Tensions arose from student beliefs about how learning takes place in clinical settings, and the importance of social relationships, leading to variable engagement with PAL. Differing perspectives within the group were opportunities for expansive learning. PAL in the clinical environment presents challenges specific to that context. Using ASA helped to describe student activity on clinical attachment and to highlight tensions and contradictions relating PAL in that setting. Planning learning opportunities on clinical placements, must take account of how students learn in workplaces, and the complexity of the multiple competing activity systems related to learning and social activities.

Parents' and Experts' Awareness of Learning Opportunities in Children's Museum Exhibits.

PubMed

Song, Lulu; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Stuehling, Amara; Resnick, Ilyse; Mahajan, Neha; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Moynihan, Nora

2017-01-01

Informal learning outside of school are crucial for a child's development. Children's museums, in particular, are environments conducive to this sort of learning, especially when parents guide children's exploration. However, research suggests a gap between parents' and experts' perceptions of the value of informal learning. In Study 1, we asked groups of parents and experts (i.e., individuals in the community connected with the field of education or those with training in child growth and development) to rate the presence of learning opportunities available in two museum exhibits, finding that parents consistently provided lower ratings. In Study 2, we explored whether signage aimed at orienting parents toward the learning potential in these exhibits would have an impact on their ratings. Results suggested that signage made parents' ratings look more like those of experts. Taken together, these studies show that a simple intervention can help parents perceive the learning opportunities in children's museum exhibits as experts do.

Informal Conversations about Teaching and Their Relationship to a Formal Development Program: Learning Opportunities for Novice and Mid-Career Academics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomson, Kate

2015-01-01

Engaging in informal activities, like conversations with colleagues, is one way that professionals can learn within workplace contexts. Informal conversations present opportunities for academics to learn about teaching. The current study investigated academics' experience of informal conversations, and their experience of the relations between…

Social Issues and Problem-Based Learning in Sociology: Opportunities and Challenges in the Undergraduate Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eglitis, Daina S.; Buntman, Fran L.; Alexander, Dameon V.

2016-01-01

This article discusses the use of problem-based learning (PBL) in the undergraduate sociology classroom. PBL shifts students from the role of passive listeners and learners to active knowledge builders and communicators through the use of concise and engaging social problem cases. PBL creates opportunities for building substantive area knowledge,…

Learning the opportunity cost of time in a patch-foraging task

PubMed Central

Constantino, Sara; Daw, Nathaniel D.

2015-01-01

Although most decision research concerns choice between simultaneously presented options, in many situations options are encountered serially and the decision is whether to exploit an option or search for a better one. Such problems have a rich history in animal foraging but we know little about the psychological processes involved. In particular, it is unknown whether learning in these problems is supported by the well studied neurocomputational mechanisms involved in more conventional tasks. We investigated how humans learn in a foraging task, which requires deciding whether to harvest a depleting resource or switch to a replenished one. The optimal choice (given by the Marginal Value Theorem; MVT) requires comparing the immediate return from harvesting to the opportunity cost of time, which is given by the long-run average reward. In two experiments, we varied opportunity cost across blocks. Subjects adjusted their behavior to blockwise changes in environmental characteristics. We examined how subjects learned their choice strategies by comparing choice adjustments to a learning rule suggested by the MVT (where the opportunity cost threshold is estimated as an average over previous rewards) and to the predominant incremental learning theory in neuroscience, temporal-difference learning (TD). Trial-by-trial decisions were better explained by the MVT threshold learning rule. These findings expand on the foraging literature, which has focused on steady-state behavior, by elucidating a computational mechanism for learning in switching tasks that is distinct from those used in traditional tasks, and suggest connections to research on average reward rates in other domains of neuroscience. PMID:25917000

Science education as a civil right: Urban schools and opportunity-to-learn considerations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tate, William

2001-11-01

In this article I make the case that urban science education is a civil rights issue and that to effectively address it as such we must shift from arguments for civil rights as shared physical space in schools to demands for high-quality academic preparation that includes the opportunity to learn science. The argument is organized into two sections: first, a review of the school desegregation literature to make the case that urban science education for all is a civil rights issue; and second, an examination and critique of opportunity-to-learn literature, including an analysis of three opportunity-to-learn constructs to illustrate their potential as civil rights tools in science education.

Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators: Efforts to Improve Math and Science Learning Opportunities in Early Childhood Classrooms.

PubMed

Piasta, Shayne B; Logan, Jessica A R; Pelatti, Christina Yeager; Capps, Janet L; Petrill, Stephen A

2015-05-01

Because recent initiatives highlight the need to better support preschool-aged children's math and science learning, the present study investigated the impact of professional development in these domains for early childhood educators. Sixty-five educators were randomly assigned to experience 10.5 days (64 hours) of training on math and science or on an alternative topic. Educators' provision of math and science learning opportunities were documented, as were the fall-to-spring math and science learning gains of children ( n = 385) enrolled in their classrooms. Professional development significantly impacted provision of science, but not math, learning opportunities. Professional development did not directly impact children's math or science learning, although science learning was indirectly affected via the increase in science learning opportunities. Both math and science learning opportunities were positively associated with children's learning. Results suggest that substantive efforts are necessary to ensure that children have opportunities to learn math and science from a young age.

Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators: Efforts to Improve Math and Science Learning Opportunities in Early Childhood Classrooms

PubMed Central

Piasta, Shayne B.; Logan, Jessica A. R.; Pelatti, Christina Yeager; Capps, Janet L.; Petrill, Stephen A.

2014-01-01

Because recent initiatives highlight the need to better support preschool-aged children’s math and science learning, the present study investigated the impact of professional development in these domains for early childhood educators. Sixty-five educators were randomly assigned to experience 10.5 days (64 hours) of training on math and science or on an alternative topic. Educators’ provision of math and science learning opportunities were documented, as were the fall-to-spring math and science learning gains of children (n = 385) enrolled in their classrooms. Professional development significantly impacted provision of science, but not math, learning opportunities. Professional development did not directly impact children’s math or science learning, although science learning was indirectly affected via the increase in science learning opportunities. Both math and science learning opportunities were positively associated with children’s learning. Results suggest that substantive efforts are necessary to ensure that children have opportunities to learn math and science from a young age. PMID:26257434

"Some Explanation Here": A Case Study of Learning Opportunities and Tensions in an Informal Science Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stewart, Olivia G.; Jordan, Michelle E.

2017-01-01

Recent scholarship highlights the wealth of varied and interconnected opportunities for learning science that informal environments can provide; yet, participants with different experiences, knowledge, and backgrounds do not all learn in the same ways. Thus, studies are needed that examine how particular participants take up learning opportunities…

Learning in Cardiology Fellowship: Opportunities for Optimization.

PubMed

Daily, Joshua A; Guerrier, Karine

2016-01-01

Cardiology fellowship is filled with opportunities for learning; however, numerous obstacles must be successfully navigated to complete training with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for a successful career. To assist Cardiology fellows in prioritizing their time and energy in order to fully gain from their training, a list of recommendations with rationales has been provided. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Lasers. Technology Learning Activity. Teacher Edition. Technology Education Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oklahoma State Dept. of Vocational and Technical Education, Stillwater. Curriculum and Instructional Materials Center.

This document contains the materials required for presenting an 8-day competency-based technology learning activity (TLA) designed to introduce students in grades 6-10 to advances and career opportunities in the field of laser technology. The guide uses a series of hands-on exploratory experiences into which activities to help students develop…

The influence of extracurricular activities on middle school students' science learning in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Danhui; Tang, Xing

2017-07-01

Informal science learning has been found to have effects on students' science learning. Through the use of secondary data from a national assessment of 7410 middle school students in China, this study explores the relationship among five types of extracurricular science activities, learning interests, academic self-concept, and science achievement. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the influence of students' self-chosen and school-organised extracurricular activities on science achievement through mediating interests and the academic self-concept. Chi-square tests were used to determine whether there was an opportunity gap in the student's engagement in extracurricular activities. The students' volunteer and school-organised participation in extracurricular science activities had a positive and indirect influence on their science achievement through the mediating variables of their learning interests and academic self-concept. However, there were opportunity gaps between different groups of students in terms of school location, family background, and especially the mother's education level. Students from urban areas with better-educated mothers or higher socioeconomic status are more likely to access diverse science-related extracurricular activities.

Strengthening Family Capacity to Provide Young Children Everyday Natural Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swanson, Jennifer; Raab, Melinda; Dunst, Carl J.

2011-01-01

A capacity-building approach to natural learning environment intervention practices was the focus of the study. Capacity-building early childhood intervention promotes parents' or other caregivers' skills, abilities, and confidence to provide children development-enhancing learning opportunities. Natural environment practices use everyday…

Intergenerational Learning and Knowledge Transfer--Challenges and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rupcic, Nataša

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight challenges and opportunities that surround the process of intergenerational learning and knowledge transfer. Several options in this regard have been discussed from the managerial and employee perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The systems approach has been implemented to identify options…

Resource Pack: Improving Learning Opportunities for Street Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Online Submission, 2006

2006-01-01

The "EFA (Education For All) Global Monitoring Report 2006" estimates that about 100 million children of primary school age, 55 percent of them girls, are not enrolled in primary school. UNESCO Bangkok, the Consortium for Street Children and Childhope Asia initiated the "Promotion of Improved Learning Opportunities for Street…

Parents’ and Experts’ Awareness of Learning Opportunities in Children’s Museum Exhibits

PubMed Central

Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Stuehling, Amara; Resnick, Ilyse; Mahajan, Neha; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Moynihan, Nora

2017-01-01

Informal learning outside of school are crucial for a child’s development. Children’s museums, in particular, are environments conducive to this sort of learning, especially when parents guide children’s exploration. However, research suggests a gap between parents’ and experts’ perceptions of the value of informal learning. In Study 1, we asked groups of parents and experts (i.e., individuals in the community connected with the field of education or those with training in child growth and development) to rate the presence of learning opportunities available in two museum exhibits, finding that parents consistently provided lower ratings. In Study 2, we explored whether signage aimed at orienting parents toward the learning potential in these exhibits would have an impact on their ratings. Results suggested that signage made parents’ ratings look more like those of experts. Taken together, these studies show that a simple intervention can help parents perceive the learning opportunities in children’s museum exhibits as experts do. PMID:28970647

The Local and Community Organization of Learning Opportunities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, John

Much has been said and written about the importance of local and community organizations for the development of access to learning opportunities in impoverished countries. Calls for greater self-reliance and for educational services relevant to local conditions and community needs and that meet the needs of all constituents have increased since…

Physical Activity and Fitness Knowledge Learning in Physical Education: Seeking a Common Ground

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Senlin; Chen, Ang; Sun, Haichun; Zhu, Xihe

2013-01-01

Motivation to learn is a disposition developed through exposure to learning opportunities. Guided by the expectancy-value theory of Eccles and Wigfield (1995), this study examined the extent to which expectancy belief and task value influenced elementary school students' physical activity and knowledge learning in physical education (PE).…

Investigative Homework with Apples: An Opportunity for Primary-School Students to Learn Actively the Relationship between Density and Flotation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Radovanovic, Jelena; Sliško, Josip

2014-01-01

This paper describes investigative homework with apples, aiming to contribute to the primary-school students' understanding of density and conditions leading to floating and sinking. The assignment represents an opportunity for individual autonomous learning of physics and adoption of established scientific concepts through practical activities…

Dementia Studies Online: Reflections on the Opportunities and Drawbacks of eLearning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Innes, Anthea; Mackay, Kathryn; McCabe, Louise

2006-01-01

This paper explores the opportunities and drawbacks of eLearning from the viewpoints of educators and learners. A postgraduate dementia studies programme provides the basis for reflection on the use of a blended learning approach utilising web-based learning. Those who register for the programme are employed in different health and social care…

Child Learning Through Child Play. Learning Activities for Two and Three Year Olds.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gordon, Ira J.; And Others

Games through which parents, family day-care centers, and large day-care centers can provide learning opportunities for children are presented. The primary aim of these activities is to encourage intellectual and language development. The sections of the book, which are not arranged by age, are as follows: Sorting and Matching Games, Building an…

Public-Private Differences in Achievement among Kindergarten Students: Differences in Learning Opportunities and Student Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carbonaro, William

2006-01-01

While much research has focused on public-private differences in learning opportunities and achievement in high school, no studies have examined sector differences early in students' academic careers. In this study, I examine sector differences in learning opportunities and achievement in kindergarten. The analyses indicate: (1) learning…

Pre-Service Primary Mathematics Teachers' Opportunities to Learn about School Mathematics Topics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al Zahrani, Yahya; Jones, Keith

2013-01-01

"Opportunity to learn" (OTL), a term first coined by Carroll (1963, 727) to capture the ''time allowed for learning'', is known to be a factor in successful learning during education programmes. In a major study of teacher preparation across 17 countries (the Teacher education and development study in mathematics, TEDS-M), Tatto et al.…

Active Learning in the Physics Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Naron, Carol

Many students enter physics classes filled with misconceptions about physics concepts. Students tend to retain these misconceptions into their adult lives, even after physics instruction. Constructivist researchers have found that students gain understanding through their experiences. Researchers have also found that active learning practices increase conceptual understanding of introductory physics students. This project study sought to examine whether incorporating active learning practices in an advanced placement physics classroom increased conceptual understanding as measured by the force concept inventory (FCI). Physics students at the study site were given the FCI as both a pre- and posttest. Test data were analyzed using two different methods---a repeated-measures t test and the Hake gain method. The results of this research project showed that test score gains were statistically significant, as measured by the t test. The Hake gain results indicated a low (22.5%) gain for the class. The resulting project was a curriculum plan for teaching the mechanics portion of Advanced Placement (AP) physics B as well as several active learning classroom practices supported by the research. This project will allow AP physics teachers an opportunity to improve their curricular practices. Locally, the results of this project study showed that research participants gained understanding of physics concepts. Social change may occur as teachers implement active learning strategies, thus creating improved student understanding of physics concepts.

Understanding Player Activity in a Game-Based Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boyer, David Matthew

2011-01-01

This study examines player activity in a game-based virtual learning environment as a means toward evaluating instructional and game design. By determining the goals embedded in project development and the availability and structure of in-game activities, the first part of this research highlights opportunities for players to engage with learning…

Formative Value of an Active Learning Strategy: Technology Based Think-Pair-Share in an EFL Writing Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Demirci, Cavide; Düzenli, Halil

2017-01-01

Think-Pair-Share (TPS) activities in classrooms provide an opportunity for students to revise, practice and reproduce previously learned knowledge. Teachers also benefit from this active learning strategy by exploiting new learning materials, saving time by minimizing presentations and using it as a formative assessment tool. This article explores…

Homebound Learning Opportunities: Reaching Out to Older Shut-ins and Their Caregivers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Penning, Margaret; Wasyliw, Douglas

1992-01-01

Describes Homebound Learning Opportunities, innovative health promotion and educational outreach service for homebound older adults and their caregivers. Notes that program provides over 125 topics for individualized learning programs delivered to participants in homes, audiovisual lending library, educational television programing, and peer…

Authoring and Enactment of Mobile Pyramid-Based Collaborative Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manathunga, Kalpani; Hernández-Leo, Davinia

2018-01-01

Collaborative learning flow patterns (CLFPs) formulate best practices for the orchestration of activity sequences and collaboration mechanisms that can elicit fruitful social interactions. Mobile technology features offer opportunities to support interaction mediation and content accessibility. However, existing mobile collaborative learning…

Opportunities for Learning LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes: A Classroom Ethnography of an Undergraduate Shakespeare through Performance Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Went, Jeanine Belcastro

2016-01-01

The purpose of this classroom ethnography was to explore what opportunities for learning, aligning with LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes (ELO) categories, could be found in an upper-level theatre course for theatre majors at a small, selective, baccalaureate degree granting institution in the Northeastern United States. Using ethnographic data…

The Use of Twitter in the Creation of Educational Professional Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ross, Carrie R.; Maninger, Robert M.; LaPrairie, Kimberly N.; Sullivan, Sam

2015-01-01

This study sought to examine how educators are using Twitter to increase their professional learning opportunities beyond the boundaries of traditional professional development offers, and whether educators feel a greater sense of fulfillment receiving professional development through networking and community learning than they do through…

Twenty Golden Opportunities To Enhance Student Learning: Use Them or Lose Them.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sponder, Barry

In an average classroom period, a teacher has twenty or more opportunities to interact with students and thereby influence learning outcomes. As such, teachers should use these opportunities to reinforce instruction or give positive corrective feedback. Typical methods used in schools emphasize error correction at the expense of calling attention…

Student Behavior and Epistemological Framing: Examples from Collaborative Active-Learning Activities in Physics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scherr, Rachel E.; Hammer, David

2009-01-01

The concept of framing from anthropology and sociolinguistics is useful for understanding student reasoning. For example, a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for sensemaking or as an assignment to fill out a worksheet. The student's framing affects what she notices, what knowledge she accesses, and how she thinks to act. We…

Bilingual Storytelling: Code Switching, Discourse Control, and Learning Opportunities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Mejia, Anne-Marie

1998-01-01

Alternating between languages in the construction of stories offers students creative opportunities for bilingual learning. Describes how a storyteller can code switch to tell stories to children who are becoming bilingual and presents an example from early-immersion classrooms in Colombia, discussing code switching and discourse control, and…

Opportunities for learning in an introductory undergraduate human anatomy and physiology course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Montplaisir, Lisa Marie

2003-10-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the course conditions that support the development of meaningful student learning in an introductory undergraduate human anatomy and physiology course. The study was conducted during an 8-week summer-session at a small mid-western university. Classroom observations and taped recordings of class sessions were used to determine content episodes within the instructional unit, opportunities for learning created by the instructor, demonstrations of information processing by the students, and the ways in which the instructor used the Personal Response System (PRS). Student interviews were used to determine students' level of understanding of pre-test and post-test items. Student interviews and a questionnaire were used to determine students' perceptions of the PRS as a learning tool. Findings reveal that the instructor had different expectations of students when posing verbal questions in-class than he had when posing PRS questions. The use of verbal questions did not permit demonstrations of student understanding; however, the use of the PRS did result in demonstrations of student understanding. Questions posed via the use of the PRS were categorized according to cognitive level. The cognitive level of the questions increased with time over the instructional unit and within the content episodes. Students demonstrated deeper understanding of the topics after instruction than they did before instruction. Students reported more in-class thinking about the content, more discussion of the content with their neighbors, more regular class attendance, more opportunities for deeper learning, and a general preference for the PRS over traditional lectures. Findings of the study indicate that the instructional decisions about the use of questions influences the opportunities for students to process information and demonstrate their understanding of the content and that students valued these opportunities. A better understanding of the

Active Learning Environments with Robotic Tangibles: Children's Physical and Virtual Spatial Programming Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burleson, Winslow S.; Harlow, Danielle B.; Nilsen, Katherine J.; Perlin, Ken; Freed, Natalie; Jensen, Camilla Nørgaard; Lahey, Byron; Lu, Patrick; Muldner, Kasia

2018-01-01

As computational thinking becomes increasingly important for children to learn, we must develop interfaces that leverage the ways that young children learn to provide opportunities for them to develop these skills. Active Learning Environments with Robotic Tangibles (ALERT) and Robopad, an analogous on-screen virtual spatial programming…

Wildfire Research in an Environmental Hazards Course: An Active Learning Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wall, Tamara U.; Halvorson, Sarah J.

2011-01-01

Creating opportunities for students to actively apply hazards theory to real-life situations is often a challenge in hazards geography courses. This article presents a project, the Jocko Lakes Fire Project, that implemented learning strategies to encourage students to be active in wildfire hazards research. Wildfire hazards stand out as an…

Robotics-Control Technology. Technology Learning Activity. Teacher Edition. Technology Education Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oklahoma State Dept. of Vocational and Technical Education, Stillwater. Curriculum and Instructional Materials Center.

This document contains the materials required for presenting an 8-day competency-based technology learning activity (TLA) designed to introduce students in grades 6-10 to advances and career opportunities in the field of robotics-control technology. The guide uses hands-on exploratory experiences into which activities to help students develop…

Student Learning in Student Services Extended Opportunity Program & Services

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soltani, Parisa

2013-01-01

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the relationship between student learning and participation in Equal Opportunity Programs and Services (EOP&S) at Irvine Valley College (IVC). An embedded survey design was developed using William Sedlacek's non-cognitive questionnaire (NCQ), items from the Community College Survey of…

20 CFR 670.520 - Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 4 2012-04-01 2012-04-01 false Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities? 670.520 Section 670.520 Employees' Benefits EMPLOYMENT AND... than work-based learning opportunities? Yes, a center operator may authorize a student to participate...

20 CFR 670.520 - Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 4 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities? 670.520 Section 670.520 Employees' Benefits EMPLOYMENT AND... than work-based learning opportunities? Yes, a center operator may authorize a student to participate...

20 CFR 670.520 - Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 4 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities? 670.520 Section 670.520 Employees' Benefits EMPLOYMENT AND... than work-based learning opportunities? Yes, a center operator may authorize a student to participate...

20 CFR 670.520 - Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities? 670.520 Section 670.520 Employees' Benefits EMPLOYMENT AND...-based learning opportunities? Yes, a center operator may authorize a student to participate in gainful...

20 CFR 670.520 - Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 3 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Are students permitted to hold jobs other than work-based learning opportunities? 670.520 Section 670.520 Employees' Benefits EMPLOYMENT AND...-based learning opportunities? Yes, a center operator may authorize a student to participate in gainful...

Teacher Learning and Instructional Change: How Formal and On-the-Job Learning Opportunities Predict Change in Elementary School Teachers' Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parise, Leigh Mesler; Spillane, James P.

2010-01-01

Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary…

Preservice Biology Teachers' Professional Knowledge: Structure and Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Großschedl, Jörg; Harms, Ute; Kleickmann, Thilo; Glowinski, Ingrid

2015-01-01

What learning opportunities in higher education promote the development of content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical knowledge (PK)? In order to investigate this question, a cross-sectional study with a total of 274 German preservice biology teachers (21.5% male, average age 22.8 years) was conducted in German…

Classroom Composition and Racial Differences in Opportunities to Learn

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minor, Elizabeth Covay

2015-01-01

Black and White advanced math students leave high school with disparate math skills. One possible explanation is that minority students are exposed to different learning opportunities, even when they are taking classes with the same title. Using a convenience sample of the Mathematics Survey of the Enacted Curriculum (SEC), this study found that…

Ecosystem Services Valuation as an Opportunity for Inquiry Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Zachary P.; Bennett, Drew E.

2016-01-01

Teaching ecosystem services provides an ideal opportunity to use inquiry-based learning to help students make connections between ecological, geological, and social systems. The idea of ecosystem services, or the benefits nature provides to society, has emerged as a key concept in a host of environmental fields and is just beginning to gain…

Learning To Change. A WEA Equal Opportunities Training Pack.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Workers Educational Association, London (England).

This training pack contains materials to help embed the principles of equal opportunities into the practice of part-time tutors and voluntary members of the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), a national voluntary organization dedicated to giving adults in the United Kingdom access to organized learning. Part 1 describes the rationale for the…

Youth physical activity opportunities in lower and higher income neighborhoods.

PubMed

Suminski, Richard Robert; Ding, Ding; Lee, Rebecca; May, Linda; Tota, Tonya; Dinius, David

2011-08-01

The presence of youth physical activity opportunities is one of the strongest environmental correlates of youth physical activity. More detailed information about such opportunities is needed to maximize their contributions to physical activity promotion especially in under resourced, lower income areas. The objectives of this study were to construct a comprehensive profile of youth physical activity opportunities and contrast profile characteristics between lower and higher income neighborhoods. Youth physical activity opportunities in eight lower (median household income <$36,000) and eight higher (>$36,000) income neighborhoods were identified and described using interviews, neighborhood tours, site visits, and systematic searches of various sources (e.g., Internet). Lower income neighborhoods had a greater number of locations offering youth physical activity opportunities but similar quantities of amenities. Lower income neighborhoods had more faith-based locations and court, trail/path, event, and water-type amenities. Higher income neighborhoods had significantly more for-profit businesses offering youth physical activity opportunities. Funding for youth physical activity opportunities in lower income neighborhoods was more likely to come from donations and government revenue (e.g., taxes), whereas the majority of youth physical activity opportunities in the higher income neighborhoods were supported by for-profit business revenue. Differences between lower and higher income neighborhoods in the type and amenities of youth physical activity opportunities may be driven by funding sources. Attention to these differences could help create more effective and efficient strategies for promoting physical activity among youth.

Using Oceanography to Support Active Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Byfield, V.

2012-04-01

Teachers are always on the lookout for material to give their brightest students, in order to keep them occupied, stimulated and challenged, while the teacher gets on with helping the rest. They are also looking for material that can inspire and enthuse those who think that school is 'just boring!' Oceanography, well presented, has the capacity to do both. As a relatively young science, oceanography is not a core curriculum subject (possibly an advantage), but it draws on the traditional sciences of biology, chemistry, physic and geology, and can provide wonderful examples for teaching concepts in school sciences. It can also give good reasons for learning science, maths and technology. Exciting expeditions (research cruises) to far-flung places; opportunities to explore new worlds, a different angle on topical debates such as climate change, pollution, or conservation can bring a new life to old subjects. Access to 'real' data from satellites or Argo floats can be used to develop analytical and problem solving skills. The challenge is to make all this available in a form that can easily be used by teachers and students to enhance the learning experience. We learn by doing. Active teaching methods require students to develop their own concepts of what they are learning. This stimulates new neural connections in the brain - the physical manifestation of learning. There is a large body of evidence to show that active learning is much better remembered and understood. Active learning develops thinking skills through analysis, problem solving, and evaluation. It helps learners to use their knowledge in realistic and useful ways, and see its importance and relevance. Most importantly, properly used, active learning is fun. This paper presents experiences from a number of education outreach projects that have involved the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK. All contain some element of active learning - from quizzes and puzzles to analysis of real data from

Active play opportunities at child care.

PubMed

Tandon, Pooja S; Saelens, Brian E; Christakis, Dimitri A

2015-06-01

Physical activity (PA) is important for children's health and development, yet preschoolers are not meeting PA recommendations. The objective of this study was to examine different PA opportunities at child care and how variation in indoor versus outdoor and free versus teacher-led opportunities relate to children's PA. An observational study of 98 children (mean age 4.5 years, 49% girls) from 10 child care centers. Classrooms were observed for at least 4 full days per center (total 50 days) to categorize time into (1) not an active play opportunity (APO); (2) naptime; (3) APO, outdoor free play; (4) APO, outdoor teacher-led; (5) APO, indoor free play; and (6) APO, indoor teacher-led. Children wore accelerometers during observations. Linear regression models examined the influence of APO categories on moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time. Children's activity was 73% sedentary, 13% light, and 14% MVPA. For 88% of time children did not have APOs, including 26% time as naptime. On average, 48 minutes per day were APOs (41% sedentary, 18% light, and 41% MVPA), 33 minutes per day were outdoors. The most frequent APO was outdoor free play (8% of time); outdoor teacher-led time was <1%. Children were more active and less sedentary outdoors versus indoors and during the child-initiated APOs (indoors and outdoors) versus teacher-led APOs. Preschoolers were presented with significantly fewer than recommended opportunities for PA at child care. More APOs are needed for children to meet recommendations, particularly those that encourage more outdoor time, more teacher-led and child-initiated active play, and flexibility in naptime for preschoolers. Copyright © 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Expanded Learning Time and Opportunities: Key Principles, Driving Perspectives, and Major Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blyth, Dale A.; LaCroix-Dalluhn, Laura

2011-01-01

If expanded learning is going to make a real difference, then three key principles must inform how communities overcome challenges and assure equitable access to learning opportunities. Much of today's debate is framed in the language of formal education systems--students, classrooms, schools--even though part of the expansion seeks to engage a…

The Quality Imperative: A State Guide to Achieving the Promise of Extended Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Princiotta, Daniel; Fortune, Ayeola

2009-01-01

Extended learning opportunities (ELOs) provide safe, structured learning environments for students outside the traditional school day. ELOs include afterschool and summer learning programs as well as before-school, evening, and weekend programs. ELOs come in many forms and can include tutoring, volunteering, academic support, community service,…

Evidence and Interpretation in Language Learning Research: Opportunities for Collaboration with Computational Linguistics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meurers, Detmar; Dickinson, Markus

2017-01-01

This article discusses two types of opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration between computational linguistics (CL) and language learning research. We target the connection between data and theory in second language (L2) research and highlight opportunities to (a) enrich the options for obtaining data and (b) support the identification…

Creating a Role for Embedded Librarians Within an Active Learning Environment.

PubMed

Hackman, Dawn E; Francis, Marcia J; Johnson, Erika; Nickum, Annie; Thormodson, Kelly

2017-01-01

In 2013, the librarians at a small academic health sciences library reevaluated their mission, vision, and strategic plan to expand their roles. The school was transitioning to a new pedagogical culture and a new building designed to emphasize interprofessional education and active learning methodologies. Subsequent efforts to implement the new strategic plan resulted in the librarians joining curriculum committees and other institutional initiatives, such as an Active Learning Task Force, and participating in faculty development workshops. This participation has increased visibility and led to new roles and opportunities for librarians.

Exploring home visits in a faith community as a service-learning opportunity.

PubMed

du Plessis, Emmerentia; Koen, Magdalene P; Bester, Petra

2013-08-01

Within South Africa the Psychiatric Nursing Science curriculum in undergraduate Baccalaureate nursing education utilizes home visits as a service-learning opportunity. In this context faith communities are currently unexplored with regards to service-learning opportunities. With limited literature available on this topic, the question was raised as to what are these students' and family members' experience of home visits within a faith community. To explore and describe nursing students' and family members' experiences of home visits within a faith community. A qualitative approach was used that was phenomenological, explorative and descriptive and contextual in nature. The research was conducted within a faith community as service learning opportunity for Baccalaureate degree nursing students. This community was situated in a semi-urban area in the North-West Province, South Africa. Eighteen (n=18) final year nursing students from different cultural representations, grouped into seven groups conducted home visits at seven (n=7) families. Comprehensive reflective reporting after the visits, namely that the students participated in a World Café data collection technique and interviews were conducted with family members. Three main themes emerged: students' initial experiences of feeling overwhelmed but later felt more competent; students' awareness of religious and cultural factors; and students' perception of their role. Two main themes from the family members emerged: experiencing caring and growth. There is mutual benefit for nursing students and family members. Students' experiences progress during home visits from feeling overwhelmed and incompetent towards a trusting relationship. Home visits in a faith community seems to be a valuable service learning opportunity, and the emotional competence, as well as spiritual and cultural awareness of nursing students should be facilitated in preparation for such home visits. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights

The use of an active learning approach in a SCALE-UP learning space improves academic performance in undergraduate General Biology.

PubMed

Hacisalihoglu, Gokhan; Stephens, Desmond; Johnson, Lewis; Edington, Maurice

2018-01-01

Active learning is a pedagogical approach that involves students engaging in collaborative learning, which enables them to take more responsibility for their learning and improve their critical thinking skills. While prior research examined student performance at majority universities, this study focuses on specifically Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for the first time. Here we present work that focuses on the impact of active learning interventions at Florida A&M University, where we measured the impact of active learning strategies coupled with a SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies) learning environment on student success in General Biology. In biology sections where active learning techniques were employed, students watched online videos and completed specific activities before class covering information previously presented in a traditional lecture format. In-class activities were then carefully planned to reinforce critical concepts and enhance critical thinking skills through active learning techniques such as the one-minute paper, think-pair-share, and the utilization of clickers. Students in the active learning and control groups covered the same topics, took the same summative examinations and completed identical homework sets. In addition, the same instructor taught all of the sections included in this study. Testing demonstrated that these interventions increased learning gains by as much as 16%, and students reported an increase in their positive perceptions of active learning and biology. Overall, our results suggest that active learning approaches coupled with the SCALE-UP environment may provide an added opportunity for student success when compared with the standard modes of instruction in General Biology.

Expanding "Within Context" to "Across Contexts" Learning: A Case Study of Informal and Formal Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Mi Song; Hung, Wei Loong David; Jamaludin, Azilawati Bte; Lim, Seo Hong

2014-01-01

Learning happens not only in schools, but also in every context that affords new experiences and opportunities for metacognition. We aim to maximize the different activity-milieux in which learners are engaged in developing their life-long learning dispositions to learn within and across contexts. This paper is a follow up of an earlier published…

Do the opportunities for learning and personal development lead to happiness? It depends on work-family conciliation.

PubMed

Rego, Arménio; Pina E Cunha, Miguel

2009-07-01

The study shows how the perceptions of opportunities for learning and personal development predict five dimensions of affective well-being (AWB: pleasure, comfort, placidity, enthusiasm, and vigor), and how this relationship is moderated by the perceptions of work-family conciliation. A sample comprising 404 individuals was collected. The findings show the following: (1) both the perceptions of opportunities for learning and personal development and perceptions of work-family conciliation predict AWB, the happier individuals being those who have high perceptions on both variables; (2) both variables interact in predicting AWB, in such a way that perceptions of high opportunities for learning and personal development may not lead to higher AWB if work-family conciliation is low. Post hoc analysis also suggests that the relationship between the perceptions of opportunities for learning and personal development and AWB tends to be nonlinear for individuals with perceptions of low work-family conciliation. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Seizing Opportunity: "Opportunity as Transformation"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Michael; Muller, Esther

2012-01-01

Opportunity creates conditions for achievement. We learn daily of the success of others that resulted from conditions they created through opportunity. Often these conditions of opportunity are the product of a compelling vision of a future steeped in possibility and rich in reward. These visions, however, must be operationalized in order to be…

Examining Student Agency in an Active-Learning Business Calculus Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Higgins, Abigail L.

2017-01-01

This study explored student agency in an active-learning business calculus course. The lecture-style instructional practices typically used in this course at this institution allow few opportunities for students to interact with their peers, interface with the instructor one-on-one, or do mathematics during class time. Additionally, this course…

Orchestrating Literacies: Print Literacy Learning Opportunities within Multimodal Intergenerational Ensembles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKee, Lori L.; Heydon, Rachel M.

2015-01-01

This exploratory case study considered the opportunities for print literacy learning within multimodal ensembles that featured art, singing and digital media within the context of an intergenerational programme that brought together 13 kindergarten children (4 and 5 years) with seven elder companions. Study questions concerned how reading and…

Utilizing an Experiential Approach to Teacher Learning about AfL: A Consciousness Raising Opportunity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dixon, Helen; Hawe, Eleanor

2016-01-01

In this article we focus on how an experiential based approach to teacher learning about assessment for learning (AfL) provided opportunities for teachers to examine: their deep-seated beliefs about effective learning (and teaching); how these beliefs permeated their day-to-day actions and interactions with students, and the consequence of these…

"Heart Shots": a classroom activity to instigate active learning.

PubMed

Abraham, Reem Rachel; Vashe, Asha; Torke, Sharmila

2015-09-01

The present study aimed to provide undergraduate medical students at Melaka Manipal Medical College (Manipal Campus), Manipal University, in Karnataka, India, an opportunity to apply their knowledge in cardiovascular concepts to real-life situations. A group activity named "Heart Shots" was implemented for a batch of first-year undergraduate students (n = 105) at the end of a block (teaching unit). Students were divided into 10 groups each having 10-11 students. They were requested to make a video/PowerPoint presentation about the application of cardiovascular principles to real-life situations. The presentation was required to be of only pictures/photos and no text material, with a maximum duration of 7 min. More than 95% of students considered that the activity helped them to apply their knowledge in cardiovascular concepts to real-life situations and understand the relevance of physiology in medicine and to revise the topic. More than 90% of students agreed that the activity helped them to apply their creativity in improving their knowledge and to establish a link between concepts rather than learning them as isolated facts. Based on the feedback, we conclude that the activity was student centered and that it facilitated learning. Copyright © 2015 The American Physiological Society.

Enhanced multisensory integration and motor reactivation after active motor learning of audiovisual associations.

PubMed

Butler, Andrew J; James, Thomas W; James, Karin Harman

2011-11-01

Everyday experience affords us many opportunities to learn about objects through multiple senses using physical interaction. Previous work has shown that active motor learning of unisensory items enhances memory and leads to the involvement of motor systems during subsequent perception. However, the impact of active motor learning on subsequent perception and recognition of associations among multiple senses has not been investigated. Twenty participants were included in an fMRI study that explored the impact of active motor learning on subsequent processing of unisensory and multisensory stimuli. Participants were exposed to visuo-motor associations between novel objects and novel sounds either through self-generated actions on the objects or by observing an experimenter produce the actions. Immediately after exposure, accuracy, RT, and BOLD fMRI measures were collected with unisensory and multisensory stimuli in associative perception and recognition tasks. Response times during audiovisual associative and unisensory recognition were enhanced by active learning, as was accuracy during audiovisual associative recognition. The difference in motor cortex activation between old and new associations was greater for the active than the passive group. Furthermore, functional connectivity between visual and motor cortices was stronger after active learning than passive learning. Active learning also led to greater activation of the fusiform gyrus during subsequent unisensory visual perception. Finally, brain regions implicated in audiovisual integration (e.g., STS) showed greater multisensory gain after active learning than after passive learning. Overall, the results show that active motor learning modulates the processing of multisensory associations.

A Reconceptualized Framework for "Opportunity to Learn" in School Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walkowiak, Temple A.; Pinter, Holly H.; Berry, Robert Q.

2017-01-01

We present a reconceptualized framework for opportunity to learn (OTL) in school mathematics that builds on previous conceptualizations of OTL and includes features related to both quantity (i.e., time) and quality. Our framework draws on existing literature and on our own observational research of mathematics teaching practices. Through the…

Quantifying factors influencing operating theater teaching, participation, and learning opportunities for medical students in surgery.

PubMed

Ravindra, Pravisha; Fitzgerald, J Edward F; Bhangu, Aneel; Maxwell-Armstrong, Charles A

2013-01-01

Operating room experience offers a unique learning resource, potentially exposing medical students to surgical disease and treatments, use of anesthesia, basic science, team working, and communication skills. However, the alien nature of this environment to newcomers poses particular difficulties in harnessing this resource. This study aimed to assess the operating theater-based teaching and learning experiences of new medical graduates during their medical school course. A 41-item, self-administered questionnaire survey was distributed to newly qualified medical school graduates from 1 university consisting of 5 separate teaching hospitals. Results were analyzed using GraphPad Prism 5.0. Questionnaires were returned by 209 of 312 graduates (67%). Overall, 121 (59%) respondents attended ≤50% of opportunities available to attend operating theater; 47% felt they knew what was expected of them when attending and only 13% had specific learning objectives set. An interest in pursuing a surgical career was stated by 24 (12%) respondents; this group was more likely to have attended ≥50% of operating theater opportunities (p = 0.0064). Those not intending to pursue a surgical career were more likely to have been discouraged by their experiences (p = 0.0001). Active participation while scrubbed, knowing what was expected, being made to feel welcome, and being set learning objectives were all significantly positively correlated with attendance. Although female respondents felt equally welcome, in comparison with their male colleagues, they were more likely to receive negative comments (p = 0.0106). The majority of respondents (80%) stated that attendance at operating theater sessions should be a mandatory component of the curriculum. Although operating theater attendance is recognized as an important component of the medical school curriculum, overall attendance at sessions was low. Attendance could be increased by ensuring students knowing what is expected of them

The Effect of Post-Teaching Activity Type on Vocabulary Learning of Elementary EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sadeghi, Karim; Sharifi, Faranak

2013-01-01

Considering the significant role of vocabulary in learning a language, and teachers' great responsibility in providing opportunities to facilitate this learning, many studies have focused on the best means of achieving a good knowledge of vocabulary. This study set out to investigate the effect of four post-teaching activities, namely game,…

Moving beyond the Reflectivity of Post-Lesson Mentoring Conferences in Teacher Education and Creating Learning/development Opportunities for Pre-Service Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ciavaldini-Cartaut, Solange

2015-01-01

This longitudinal case study suggests ways to move beyond the reflective process usually associated with post-lesson mentoring conferences by describing the modalities likely to generate real learning/development opportunities. Based on cultural-historical activity theories (CHAT) and using methodologies from sociodiscursive interactionism, this…

Mathematical Problem Solving among Latina/o Kindergartners: An Analysis of Opportunities to Learn

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Erin E.; Celedon-Pattichis, Sylvia

2011-01-01

This study explores opportunities to learn mathematics problem solving for Latina/o students in 3 kindergarten classrooms in the southwest. Mixed methods were used to examine teaching practices that engaged Latina/o students in problem solving and supported their learning. Findings indicate that although students in all 3 classrooms showed growth…

MINE WASTE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM: RECENT RESULTS: LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

EPA Science Inventory

In the EPA sponsored AML workshop, a number of Mine Waste Technology Program (MWTP) projects will be presented in order to highlight the most successful technology demonstrations. Recent results, lesson learned and future opportunities will be presented. The MWTP projects includ...

Building an Expanded Learning Time and Opportunities School: Principals' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malone, Helen Janc

2011-01-01

Expanded learning time and opportunities (ELTO) requires a committed school leader who is willing to partner with community-based organizations in order to provide strong academic and enrichment daily experiences for his or her students. This article examines four such leaders and the diverse approaches they took to implement ELTO in their…

The Effect of Conversation Engagement on L2 Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Wenxue

2017-01-01

This article reviews patterns of interaction (i.e. learner role relationships) in peer communicative tasks, and uses data collected from different tasks to explain what happens in peer interaction and its impact on the learning opportunities interlocutors create for each other. It proposes that, with L2 peer interaction gaining popularity in…

The Olympics: An Educational Opportunity. Enrichment Units, 7-9.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

United States Olympic Committee, Colorado Springs, CO.

The learning activities presented in this handbook illustrate educational opportunities related to participation in competitive activity as exemplified by the Olympic Games. Designed for use with students in grades seven through nine, these learning units may be integrated with the existing curriculum for the class. Subjects offered include…

Teacher Knowledge for Active-Learning Instruction: Expert-Novice Comparison Reveals Differences.

PubMed

Auerbach, A J; Higgins, M; Brickman, P; Andrews, T C

2018-01-01

Active-learning strategies can improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduates' abilities to learn fundamental concepts and skills. However, the results instructors achieve vary substantially. One explanation for this is that instructors commonly implement active learning differently than intended. An important factor affecting how instructors implement active learning is knowledge of teaching and learning. We aimed to discover knowledge that is important to effective active learning in large undergraduate courses. We developed a lesson-analysis instrument to elicit teacher knowledge, drawing on the theoretical construct of teacher noticing. We compared the knowledge used by expert ( n = 14) and novice ( n = 29) active-learning instructors as they analyzed lessons. Experts and novices differed in what they noticed, with experts more commonly considering how instructors hold students accountable, topic-specific student difficulties, whether the instructor elicited and responded to student thinking, and opportunities students had to generate their own ideas and work. Experts were also better able to support their lesson analyses with reasoning. This work provides foundational knowledge for the future design of preparation and support for instructors adopting active learning. Improving teacher knowledge will improve the implementation of active learning, which will be necessary to widely realize the potential benefits of active learning in undergraduate STEM. © 2018 A. J. Auerbach et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2018 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

How Do Clinicians Learn About Knowledge Translation? An Investigation of Current Web-Based Learning Opportunities

PubMed Central

Tieman, Jennifer J

2017-01-01

Background Clinicians are important stakeholders in the translation of well-designed research evidence into clinical practice for optimal patient care. However, the application of knowledge translation (KT) theories and processes may present conceptual and practical challenges for clinicians. Online learning platforms are an effective means of delivering KT education, providing an interactive, time-efficient, and affordable alternative to face-to-face education programs. Objective This study investigates the availability and accessibility of online KT learning opportunities for health professionals. It also provides an analysis of the types of resources and associated disciplines retrieved by a range of KT synonyms. Methods We searched a range of bibliographic databases and the Internet (Google advanced option) using 9 KT terms to identify online KT learning resources. To be eligible, resources had to be free, aimed at clinicians, educational in intent, and interactive in design. Each term was searched using two different search engines. The details of the first 100 websites captured per browser (ie, n=200 results per term) were entered into EndNote. Each site was subsequently visited to determine its status as a learning resource. Eligible websites were appraised for quality using the AACODS (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance) tool. Results We identified 971 unique websites via our multiple search strategies. Of these, 43 were health-related and educational in intent. Once these sites were evaluated for interactivity, a single website matched our inclusion criteria (Dementia Knowledge Translation Learning Centre). Conclusions KT is an important but complex system of processes. These processes overlap with knowledge, practice, and improvement processes that go by a range of different names. For clinicians to be informed and competent in KT, they require better access to free learning opportunities. These resources should be designed

How Do Clinicians Learn About Knowledge Translation? An Investigation of Current Web-Based Learning Opportunities.

PubMed

Damarell, Raechel A; Tieman, Jennifer J

2017-07-13

Clinicians are important stakeholders in the translation of well-designed research evidence into clinical practice for optimal patient care. However, the application of knowledge translation (KT) theories and processes may present conceptual and practical challenges for clinicians. Online learning platforms are an effective means of delivering KT education, providing an interactive, time-efficient, and affordable alternative to face-to-face education programs. This study investigates the availability and accessibility of online KT learning opportunities for health professionals. It also provides an analysis of the types of resources and associated disciplines retrieved by a range of KT synonyms. We searched a range of bibliographic databases and the Internet (Google advanced option) using 9 KT terms to identify online KT learning resources. To be eligible, resources had to be free, aimed at clinicians, educational in intent, and interactive in design. Each term was searched using two different search engines. The details of the first 100 websites captured per browser (ie, n=200 results per term) were entered into EndNote. Each site was subsequently visited to determine its status as a learning resource. Eligible websites were appraised for quality using the AACODS (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance) tool. We identified 971 unique websites via our multiple search strategies. Of these, 43 were health-related and educational in intent. Once these sites were evaluated for interactivity, a single website matched our inclusion criteria (Dementia Knowledge Translation Learning Centre). KT is an important but complex system of processes. These processes overlap with knowledge, practice, and improvement processes that go by a range of different names. For clinicians to be informed and competent in KT, they require better access to free learning opportunities. These resources should be designed from the viewpoint of the clinician, presenting KT

Identifying Opportunities for Peer Learning: An Observational Study of Medical Students on Clinical Placements.

PubMed

Tai, Joanna H; Canny, Benedict J; Haines, Terry P; Molloy, Elizabeth K

2017-01-01

Phenomenon: Peer assisted learning (PAL) is frequently employed and researched in preclinical medical education. Fewer studies have examined PAL in the clinical context: These have focused mainly on the accuracy of peer assessment and potential benefits to learner communication and teamwork skills. Research has also examined the positive and negative effects of formal, structured PAL activities in the clinical setting. Given the prevalence of PAL activities during preclinical years, and the unstructured nature of clinical placements, it is likely that nonformal PAL activities are also undertaken. How PAL happens formally and informally and why students find PAL useful in this clinical setting remain poorly understood. This study aimed to describe PAL activities within the context of clinical placement learning and to explore students' perceptions of these activities. An ethnographic study was conducted to gather empirical data on engagement in clinical placement learning activities, including observations and interviews with students in their 1st clinical year, along with their supervising clinicians. Thematic analysis was used to interrogate the data. On average, students used PAL for 5.19 hours per week in a range of activities, of a total of 29.29 hours undertaking placements. PAL was recognized as a means of vicarious learning and had greater perceived value when an educator was present to guide or moderate the learning. Trust between students was seen as a requirement for PAL to be effective. Students found passive observation a barrier to PAL and were able to identify ways to adopt an active stance when observing peers interacting with patients. For example, learners reported that the expectation that they had to provide feedback to peers after task observation, resulted in them taking on a more critical gaze where they were encouraged to consider notions of good practice. Insights: Students use PAL in formal (i.e., tutorial) and nonformal (e.g., peer

Strategies for Linking School Finance and Students' Opportunity To Learn.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Patricia

This report answers questions that the Governors' Task Force on Education raised in their 1993 report "The Debate on Opportunity-to-Learn Standards." To assist states as they contemplate how to link school finance with the goals of education reform, the National Governors' Association invited six experts on various aspects of school finance and…

Identity Texts and Literacy Development among Preschool English Language Learners: Enhancing Learning Opportunities for Children at Risk for Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernhard, Judith K.; Cummins, Jim; Campoy, F. Isabel; Ada, Alma Flor; Winsler, Adam; Bleiker, Charles

2006-01-01

There is little research on English language learners (ELLs) in relation to learning disability (LD) assessment and identification. More important, there is a scarcity of research on models and strategies that enhance learning opportunities and outcomes for ELLs prior to an LD diagnosis. We describe in this article an innovative language…

Strategies, Challenges and Prospects for Active Learning in the Computer-Based Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holbert, K. E.; Karady, G. G.

2009-01-01

The introduction of computer-equipped classrooms into engineering education has brought with it a host of opportunities and issues. Herein, some of the challenges and successes for creating an environment for active learning within computer-based classrooms are described. The particular teaching approach developed for undergraduate electrical…

Paramedic Learning Style Preferences and Continuing Medical Education Activities: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

PubMed

Staple, Louis; Carter, Alix; Jensen, Jan L; Walker, Mark

2018-01-01

Paramedics participate in continuing medical education (CME) to maintain their skills and knowledge. An understanding of learning styles is important for education to be effective. This study examined the preferred learning styles of ground ambulance paramedics and describes how their preferred learning styles relate to the elective CME activities these paramedics attend. All paramedics (n=1,036) employed in a provincial ground ambulance service were invited to participate in a survey containing three parts: demographics, learning style assessed by the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI), and elective CME activity. 260 paramedics (25%) participated in the survey. Preferred learning styles were: assimilator, 28%; diverger, 25%; converger, 24%; and accommodator, 23%. Advanced life support (ALS) providers had a higher proportion of assimilators (36%), and basic life support (BLS) providers had a higher proportion of divergers (30%). The learning style categories of CME activities attended by paramedics were: assimilators, 25%; divergers, 26%; convergers, 25%; and accommodators, 24%. These results suggest that paramedics are a diverse group of learners, and learning style differs within their demographics. Paramedics attend CME activities that complement all learning styles. Organizations providing education opportunities to paramedics should consider paramedics a diverse learning group when designing their CME programs.

Collaboration to Teach English Language Learners: Opportunities for Shared Teacher Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin-Beltran, Melinda; Peercy, Megan Madigan

2014-01-01

This study examines collaboration between English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers and content-area elementary school teachers, and makes the case for conceptualising teacher collaboration as an opportunity for shared teacher learning. Using a sociocultural theoretical lens, this study examines how three pairs of elementary teachers…

Innovative Learning Solutions in New Communities: Opportunities and Challenges to Teachers' Conceptions of Workspace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Costley, Debra

2007-01-01

This article explores the possibilities and opportunities created by large-scale property developers for new ways of learning and working in master-planned communities. The discussion is based on the findings from research of one developer's innovative solutions to learning in newly developed communities and specifically draws on data from one…

Learning Opportunities in PhD Supervisory Talks: A Social Constructionist Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tian, Wenwen; Singhasiri, Wareesiri

2016-01-01

Although PhD supervision has been recognised as an educative process and a complex pedagogy for decades, there is little research into on-site pedagogic processes. Informed by social constructionism and a Foucauldian approach, this qualitative case study explores how learning opportunities were created by analysing both a supervisor's verbal…

Learning Opportunities for Group Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gil, Alfonso J.; Mataveli, Mara

2017-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the impact of organizational learning culture and learning facilitators in group learning. Design/methodology/approach: This study was conducted using a survey method applied to a statistically representative sample of employees from Rioja wine companies in Spain. A model was tested using a structural equation…

Empowering Students in Science through Active Learning: Voices From Inside the Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erickson, Sabrina Ann

Preparing students for success in the 21st century has shifted the focus of science education from acquiring information and knowledge to mastery of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine teacher and student perspectives of the relationship between (a) active learning, problem solving, and achievement in science and (b) the conditions that help facilitate this environment. Adapting a social constructivist theoretical framework, high school science teachers and students were interviewed, school records analyzed, curriculum documents studied, and classes observed. The findings revealed that students were engaged with the material in an active learning environment, which led to a sense of involvement, interest, and meaningful learning. Students felt empowered to take ownership of their learning, developed the critical thinking skills necessary to solve problems independently and became aware of how they learn best, which students reported as interactive learning. Moreover, student reflections revealed that an active environment contributed to deeper understanding and higher skills through interaction and discussion, including questioning, explaining, arguing, and contemplating scientific concepts with their peers. Recommendations are for science teachers to provide opportunities for students to work actively, collaborate in groups, and discuss their ideas to develop the necessary skills for achievement and for administrators to facilitate the conditions needed for active learning to occur.

Homebound Learning Opportunities: reaching out to older shut-ins and their caregivers.

PubMed

Penning, M; Wasyliw, D

1992-10-01

Homebound Learning Opportunities (HLO) represents an innovative health promotion and educational outreach service for homebound older adults and their caregivers. It provides over 125 topics for individualized learning programs delivered to participants in their own places of residence, an audiovisual lending library, educational television programming, and a peer counseling service. Shut-ins are recruited as instructors and as participants in service projects that benefit the greater community. Preliminary assessments reveal high levels of participation and satisfaction with the program.

Effects of Opportunities for Word Retrieval during Second Language Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barcroft, Joe

2007-01-01

Research suggests that memory for an item improves when one is allowed to retrieve the item (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). This study explored benefits of providing opportunities for target-word retrieval during second language vocabulary learning. English speakers studied new Spanish words while viewing 24 word-picture pairs. They first viewed all 24…

Opportunities to Learn: Inverse Relations in U.S. and Chinese Textbooks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ding, Meixia

2016-01-01

This study, focusing on inverse relations, examines how representative U.S. and Chinese elementary textbooks may provide opportunities to learn fundamental mathematical ideas. Findings from this study indicate that both of the U.S. textbook series (grades K-6) in comparison to the Chinese textbook samples (grades 1-6), presented more instances of…

The Perceived Effect of Duty Hour Restrictions on Learning Opportunities in the Intensive Care Unit.

PubMed

Sabri, Nessrine; Sun, Ning-Zi; Cummings, Beth-Ann; Jayaraman, Dev

2015-03-01

Many countries have reduced resident duty hours in an effort to promote patient safety and enhance resident quality of life. There are concerns that reducing duty hours may impact residents' learning opportunities. We (1) evaluated residents' perceptions of their current learning opportunities in a context of reduced duty hours, and (2) explored the perceived change in resident learning opportunities after call length was reduced from 24 continuous hours to 16 hours. We conducted an anonymous, cross-sectional online survey of 240 first-, second-, and third-year residents rotating through 3 McGill University-affiliated intensive care units (ICUs) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013. The survey investigated residents' perceptions of learning opportunities in both the 24-hour and 16-hour systems. Of 240 residents, 168 (70%) completed the survey. Of these residents, 63 (38%) had been exposed to both 24-hour and 16-hour call schedules. The majority of respondents (83%) reported that didactic teaching sessions held by ICU staff physicians were useful. However, of the residents trained in both approaches to overnight call, 44% reported a reduction in learner attendance at didactic teaching sessions, 48% reported a reduction in attendance at midday hospital rounds, and 40% reported a perceived reduction in self-directed reading after the implementation of the new call schedule. A substantial proportion of residents perceived a reduction in the attendance of instructor-directed and self-directed reading after the implementation of a 16-hour call schedule in the ICU.

Opportunities for Inquiry Science in Montessori Classrooms: Learning from a Culture of Interest, Communication, and Explanation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rinke, Carol R.; Gimbel, Steven J.; Haskell, Sophie

2013-08-01

Although classroom inquiry is the primary pedagogy of science education, it has often been difficult to implement within conventional classroom cultures. This study turned to the alternatively structured Montessori learning environment to better understand the ways in which it fosters the essential elements of classroom inquiry, as defined by prominent policy documents. Specifically, we examined the opportunities present in Montessori classrooms for students to develop an interest in the natural world, generate explanations in science, and communicate about science. Using ethnographic research methods in four Montessori classrooms at the primary and elementary levels, this research captured a range of scientific learning opportunities. The study found that the Montessori learning environment provided opportunities for students to develop enduring interests in scientific topics and communicate about science in various ways. The data also indicated that explanation was largely teacher-driven in the Montessori classroom culture. This study offers lessons for both conventional and Montessori classrooms and suggests further research that bridges educational contexts.

Does the Room Matter? Active Learning in Traditional and Enhanced Lecture Spaces

PubMed Central

Stoltzfus, Jon R.; Libarkin, Julie

2016-01-01

SCALE-UP–type classrooms, originating with the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies project, are designed to facilitate active learning by maximizing opportunities for interactions between students and embedding technology in the classroom. Positive impacts when active learning replaces lecture are well documented, both in traditional lecture halls and SCALE-UP–type classrooms. However, few studies have carefully analyzed student outcomes when comparable active learning–based instruction takes place in a traditional lecture hall and a SCALE-UP–type classroom. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared student perceptions and performance between sections of a nonmajors biology course, one taught in a traditional lecture hall and one taught in a SCALE-UP–type classroom. Instruction in both sections followed a flipped model that relied heavily on cooperative learning and was as identical as possible given the infrastructure differences between classrooms. Results showed that students in both sections thought that SCALE-UP infrastructure would enhance performance. However, measures of actual student performance showed no difference between the two sections. We conclude that, while SCALE-UP–type classrooms may facilitate implementation of active learning, it is the active learning and not the SCALE-UP infrastructure that enhances student performance. As a consequence, we suggest that institutions can modify existing classrooms to enhance student engagement without incorporating expensive technology. PMID:27909018

Learning Opportunities beyond the School.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatcher, Barbara, Ed.

The 12 articles in this monograph discuss the value of informal learning for children, and suggest how basic skills can be reinforced at school, home, and within community groups and institutions. Promising programs, practices, and activities for children are highlighted. Topics addressed include: (1) a rationale for a rededication to a holistic…

An Investigation into the Opportunity to Learn That Is Available to Grade 12 Mathematics Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stols, Gerrit

2013-01-01

This study investigated the opportunity to learn (OTL) that is available to Grade 12 mathematics learners. Learner workbooks were analysed in terms of time on task, curriculum coverage, curriculum coherence, and cognitive demand. Based on these elements, experienced mathematics teachers judged the opportunity that the learners have to achieve more…

Stakeholder Perceptions, Learning Opportunities, and Student Outcomes in Three Clinical Learning Models.

PubMed

Hendricks, Susan; DeMeester, Deborah; Stephenson, Evelyn; Welch, Janet

2016-05-01

Understanding the strengths and challenges of various clinical models is important for nursing education. Three long-standing clinical models (preceptored, hybrid, and traditional) were compared on several outcome measures related to satisfaction, learning opportunities, and student outcomes. Students, faculty, and preceptors participated in this study. Although no differences were noted in satisfaction or standardized examination scores, students in the preceptored clinical model were able to practice more psychomotor skills. Although participants in the preceptored model reported spending more time communicating with staff nurses than did those in the other models, students in the traditional model spent more time with faculty. No differences were noted among groups in student clinical observation time. All clinical learning models were focused on how clinical time was structured, without an emphasis on how faculty and preceptors work with students to develop nursing clinical reasoning skills. Identifying methodology to impact thinking in the clinical environment is a key next step. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(5):271-277.]. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

Surprise and opportunity for learning in Grand Canyon: the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program

USGS Publications Warehouse

Melis, Theodore S.; Walters, Carl; Korman, Josh

2015-01-01

With a focus on resources of the Colorado River ecosystem below Glen Canyon Dam, the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program has included a variety of experimental policy tests, ranging from manipulation of water releases from the dam to removal of non-native fish within Grand Canyon National Park. None of these field-scale experiments has yet produced unambiguous results in terms of management prescriptions. But there has been adaptive learning, mostly from unanticipated or surprising resource responses relative to predictions from ecosystem modeling. Surprise learning opportunities may often be viewed with dismay by some stakeholders who might not be clear about the purpose of science and modeling in adaptive management. However, the experimental results from the Glen Canyon Dam program actually represent scientific successes in terms of revealing new opportunities for developing better river management policies. A new long-term experimental management planning process for Glen Canyon Dam operations, started in 2011 by the U.S. Department of the Interior, provides an opportunity to refocus management objectives, identify and evaluate key uncertainties about the influence of dam releases, and refine monitoring for learning over the next several decades. Adaptive learning since 1995 is critical input to this long-term planning effort. Embracing uncertainty and surprise outcomes revealed by monitoring and ecosystem modeling will likely continue the advancement of resource objectives below the dam, and may also promote efficient learning in other complex programs.

Evolutionary Biology Digital Dissection Project: Web-Based Laboratory Learning Opportunities for Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fabian, Carole Ann

2004-01-01

A university in Buffalo introduced its students to evolution by providing them with information on evidence of evolution, mechanisms for evolution, principles of genetics, selection, adaptation, evolution and sociobiology. This method of teaching with technology enabled students to improve and expand their learning opportunities.

Opportunities and Threats to Learning: Lessons from a Pedagogical Workshop for Faculty at a Higher Education Institution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ssentamu, Proscovia Namubiru

2014-01-01

Faculty quality is a key variable in the quality of teaching and learning. However, although learning is the basis for teaching, the circumstances under which faculty learn largely remain unexplained. This paper focuses on the opportunities and threats to learning by faculty at Uganda Management Institute (UMI). The paper is based on a study of…

Transition From Peer Review to Peer Learning: Experience in a Radiology Department.

PubMed

Donnelly, Lane F; Dorfman, Scott R; Jones, Jeremy; Bisset, George S

2017-10-18

To describe the process by which a radiology department moved from peer review to peer collaborative improvement (PCI) and review data from the first 16 months of the PCI process. Data from the first 16 months after PCI were reviewed: number of case reviews performed, number of learning opportunities identified, percentage yield of learning opportunities identified, type of learning opportunities identified, and comparison of the previous parameters between case randomly reviewed versus actively pushed (issues actively identified and entered). Changes in actively pushed cases were also assessed as volume per month over the 16 months (run chart). Faculty members were surveyed about their perception of the conversion to PCI. In all, 12,197 cases were peer reviewed, yielding 1,140 learning opportunities (9.34%). The most common types of learning opportunities for all reviewed cases included perception (5.1%) and reporting (1.9%). The yield of learning opportunities from actively pushed cases was 96.3% compared with 3.88% for randomly reviewed cases. The number of actively pushed cases per month increased over the course of the period and established two new confidence intervals. The faculty survey revealed that the faculty perceived the new PCI process as positive, nonpunitive, and focused on improvement. The study demonstrates that a switch to PCI is perceived as nonpunitive and associated with increased radiologist submission of learning opportunities. Active entering of identified learning opportunities had a greater yield and perceived value, compared with random review of cases. Copyright © 2017 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Extending Basic Learning Opportunities: Challenge and Response. UNESCO-UNICEF Co-operative Programme Digest No. 16.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prakasha, Veda; And Others

This digest focuses on problems encountered in the expansion of facilities for universal primary education and responses being developed to overcome these problems. The central message of the document is that nonformal structures of learning and community involvement play a key role in the expansion of basic learning opportunities in the…

Noncognitive Variables and Student Learning in Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soltani, Parisa; Gutierrez Keeton, Rebecca; Hoffman, John L.

2017-01-01

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the relationship between participation in Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) at California Valley College (CVC) (one of the 113 California Community Colleges in California) and several measures of student learning. An embedded survey design was developed using William…

Profiles of Opportunities to Learn for TEDS-M Future Secondary Mathematics Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Ting-Ying; Tang, Shu-Jyh

2013-01-01

This study used the data set from the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics to identify the profiles of opportunities to learn (OTL) regarding topics studied in teacher preparation programs by future secondary mathematics teachers from 15 participating countries. The topics of inquiry covered tertiary-level mathematics,…

The Shape of Deeper Learning: Strategies, Structures, and Cultures in Deeper Learning Network High Schools. Findings from the Study of Deeper Learning Opportunities and Outcomes: Report 1

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huberman, Mette; Bitter, Catherine; Anthony, Jennifer; O'Day, Jennifer

2014-01-01

The "Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes"--funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation--is a proof-of-concept study, the purpose of which was to determine whether students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well implemented approach to promoting deeper learning actually experienced…

Technology-Enabled Active Learning Environments: An Appraisal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fisher, Kenn

2010-01-01

The recent advent of wireless broadband Internet access and mobile communications devices has provided remarkable opportunities for 21st century blended learning models--simultaneous online and face-to-face--and seriously called into question the industrial-age traditional "egg crate classroom" model of teaching and learning. It has…

Young Children's Engagement and Learning Opportunities in a Cooking Activity with Parents and Older Siblings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finn, Lauren; Vandermaas-Peeler, Maureen

2013-01-01

Parents teach their children through informal social interactions in a process known as guided participation (Rogoff, 1990). Although most research focuses on parent-child dyads, young children also learn from older siblings and parents through shared participation in daily activities. Utilizing a structured observational design, the authors…

E-Learning as an Opportunity for the Public Administration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Casagranda, Milena; Colazzo, Luigi; Molinari, Andrea; Tomasini, Sara

In this paper we will describe the results of a learning project in the Public Administration, highlighting the methodological approach based on a blended training model in a context that has never experienced this type of activities. The observations contained in the paper will be focused on the evaluation results of this experience and the redesign elements in term of alternation between the classroom and distance training, methodologies, the value and use of the e-learning platform and learning evaluation. The elements that emerge will also provide the basis for the design of future teaching actions for this context (in which at this moment we are involved). The objective is to identify a "learning model", related also to the use of technological tools that are able to support lifelong learning and to define dynamics and process relating to facilitating learning activities of teachers and tutors.

The Rise of E-learning and Opportunities for Indian Family Physicians.

PubMed

Datta, Chayan

2012-01-01

The IT (information technology) revolution is sweeping across the globe. Distance, location and costs have become irrelevant. With availability of newer communication tools, medical education and practice are bound to be transformed. Rapid advancement of science requires medical professionals to update their knowledge constantly. Online interface for CME (Continued Medical Education) presents an exciting opportunity as an E learning tool.

Personalized Opportunities To Learn (POTL): Achieving to High Standards for All Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gervais, J. Donna; Baker, Mona

This paper describes Maine's high standards for all students and a model for personalizing instruction and assessment to fit student needs, thus providing fair opportunities for all children to achieve the standards. Maine's academic standards, the Learning Results, are structured in three levels: broad performance goals for all students (guiding…

Using activity-based learning approach to enhance the quality of instruction in civil engineering in Indonesian universities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Priyono, Wena, Made; Rahardjo, Boedi

2017-09-01

Experts and practitioners agree that the quality of higher education in Indonesia needs to be improved significantly and continuously. The low quality of university graduates is caused by many factors, one of which is the poor quality of learning. Today's instruction process tends to place great emphasis only on delivering knowledge. To avoid the pitfalls of such instruction, e.g. passive learning, thus Civil Engineering students should be given more opportunities to interact with others and actively participate in the learning process. Based on a number of theoretical and empirical studies, one appropriate strategy to overcome the aforementioned problem is by developing and implementing activity-based learning approach.

Show Me the Way: Future Faculty Prefer Directive Feedback When Trying Active Learning Approaches

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stephens, Jessica D.; Battle, David C.; Gormally, Cara L.; Brickman, Peggy

2017-01-01

Early training opportunities for future faculty, namely graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, can better prepare them to use active learning approaches. We know that instructional feedback supports sustained change and motivates instructors to improve teaching practices. Here, we incorporate feedback as a key component of a pedagogical…

The Nature of Student Predictions and Learning Opportunities in Middle School Algebra

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kasmer, Lisa Anne; Kim, Ok-Kyeong

2012-01-01

In this article, we describe how using prediction during instruction can create learning opportunities to enhance the understanding and doing of mathematics. In doing so, we characterize the nature of the predictions students made and the levels of sophistication in students' reasoning within a middle school algebra context. In this study, when…

Service Learning: Opportunities for Legal Studies in Business

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burke, Debra D.

2007-01-01

Service learning is a form of experiential learning designed to engage students, faculty, and community partners in a mutually beneficial experience. Specifically, it "is a credit-bearing, educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflects on the service activity…

Creative and Playful Learning: Learning through Game Co-Creation and Games in a Playful Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kangas, Marjaana

2010-01-01

This paper reports on a pilot study in which children aged 7-12 (N = 68) had an opportunity to study in a novel formal and informal learning setting. The learning activities were extended from the classroom to the playful learning environment (PLE), an innovative playground enriched by technological tools. Curriculum-based learning was intertwined…

Finite Element Learning Modules as Active Learning Tools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Ashland O.; Jensen, Daniel; Rencis, Joseph; Wood, Kristin; Wood, John; White, Christina; Raaberg, Kristen Kaufman; Coffman, Josh

2012-01-01

The purpose of active learning is to solicit participation by students beyond the passive mode of traditional classroom lectures. Reading, writing, participating in discussions, hands-on activities, engaging in active problem solving, and collaborative learning can all be involved. The skills acquired during active learning tend to go above and…

The Relationships between Indonesian Fourth Graders' Difficulties in Fractions and the Opportunity to Learn Fractions: A Snapshot of TIMSS Results

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wijaya, Ariyadi

2017-01-01

This paper reports an exploration into Indonesian fourth graders' difficulties in fractions and their relation to the opportunity to learn fractions students got at schools. The concept of "opportunity to learn" is often considered as a framework to investigate possible reasons for students' difficulties. The data for this study was…

Creation and Assessment of an Active e-Learning Introductory Geology Course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sit, Stefany M.; Brudzinski, Michael R.

2017-12-01

The recent emphasis in higher education on both student engagement and online learning encouraged the authors to develop an active e-learning environment for an introductory geohazards course, which enrolls 70+ undergraduate students per semester. Instructors focused on replicating the achievements and addressing the challenges within an already established face-to-face student-centered class (Brudzinski and Sikorski 2010; Sit 2013). Through the use of a learning management system (LMS) and other available technologies, a wide range of course components were developed including online homework assignments with automatic grading and tailored feedback, video tutorials of software programs like Google Earth and Microsoft Excel, and more realistic scientific investigations using authentic and freely available data downloaded from the internet. The different course components designed to engage students and improve overall student learning and development were evaluated using student surveys and instructor reflection. Each component can be used independently and intertwined into a face-to-face course. Results suggest that significant opportunities are available in an online environment including the potential for improved student performance and new datasets for educational research. Specifically, results from pre and post-semester Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) testing in an active e-learning course show enhanced student learning gains compared to face-to-face lecture-based and student-centered courses.

Characteristics of Exemplary Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)-Related Experiential Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simmons, Jamie Munn

2017-01-01

Experiential opportunities at the secondary level give students the "intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education" (Dewey, 1938, p. 19-20). Career and Technical Education classes (CTE) and co-curricular experiences, one type of experiential learning, underpin and cultivate student curiosity and…

The Flipped Classroom: An active teaching and learning strategy for making the sessions more interactive and challenging.

PubMed

Sultan, Amber Shamim

2018-04-01

Flipping the classroom is a pedagogical model that employs easy to use, readily accessible technology based resources such as video lectures, reading handouts, and practice problems outside the classroom, whereas interactive group-based, problem-solving activities conducted in the classroom. This strategy permits for an extended range of learning activities during the session. Using class time for active learning provides greater opportunity for mentoring and peer to peer collaboration. Instead of spending too much time on delivering lectures, class time can best be utilized by interacting with students, discussing their concerns related to the particular topic to be taught, providing real life examples relevant to the course content, challenging students to think in a broader aspect about complex process and encouraging different team based learning activities.

Accreditation of Prior Learning as a Lever for Lifelong Learning: Lessons Learnt from the New Opportunities Initiative, Portugal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carneiro, Roberto, Ed.

2011-01-01

The New Opportunities Initiative (NOI) is a Portuguese flagship programme to recognise and accredit prior learning (RPL, APL) and to endow low-skilled adults with upper secondary qualifications, which is defined as the minimum entry threshold to the exercise of a full citizenship in a knowledge-rich society. NOI's major achievement has been its…

Embedding Engaged Learning in High Enrollment Lecture-Based Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lund Dean, Kathy; Wright, Sarah

2017-01-01

Engaged learning opportunities have become powerful foundations upon which students build lifelong skills and organizational capacities. Research has empirically validated the long-term positive learning impacts of active and experiential learning opportunities for students. As such, institutional administrators and external stakeholders have…

Examining Quality Management Audits in Nuclear Medicine Practice as a lifelong learning process: opportunities and challenges to the nuclear medicine professional and beyond.

PubMed

Pascual, Thomas N B

2016-08-01

This essay will explore the critical issues and challenges surrounding lifelong learning for professionals, initially exploring within the profession and organizational context of nuclear medicine practice. It will critically examine how the peer-review process called Quality Management Audits in Nuclear Medicine Practice (QUANUM) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can be considered a lifelong learning opportunity to instill a culture of quality to improve patient care and elevate the status of the nuclear medicine profession and practice within the demands of social changes, policy, and globalization. This will be explored initially by providing contextual background to the identity of the IAEA as an organization responsible for nuclear medicine professionals, followed by the benefits that QUANUM can offer. Further key debates surrounding lifelong learning, such as compulsification of lifelong learning and impact on professional change, will then be weaved through the discussion using theoretical grounding through a qualitative review of the literature. Keeping in mind that there is very limited literature focusing on the implications of QUANUM as a lifelong learning process for nuclear medicine professionals, this essay uses select narratives and observations of QUANUM as a lifelong learning process from an auditor's perspective and will further provide a comparative perspective of QUANUM on the basis of other lifelong learning opportunities such as continuing professional development activities and observe parallelisms on its benefits and challenges that it will offer to other professionals in other medical speciality fields and in the teaching profession.

Context as Mediator: Teaching Residents' Opportunity and Learning in High-Need Urban Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kolman, Joni S.; Roegman, Rachel; Goodwin, A. Lin

2016-01-01

This article presents findings from an exploratory empirical study of teaching residents' opportunities and learning within the overlapping contexts of English as a Second Language (ESL)/special education classrooms and high-need urban schools. Utilizing documentation from the first year of a teacher residency program, our findings illustrate the…

Media and Equal Opportunities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lefranc, Robert

1994-01-01

Considers the proposition that media are vehicles for equality of opportunity in education. How to harness the "parallel school," i.e. where students learn outside the school, to improve learning in the schools is discussed. The effect of social groupings on the equality of opportunity via media is also considered. (Author/KRN)

Active Learning Using Hint Information.

PubMed

Li, Chun-Liang; Ferng, Chun-Sung; Lin, Hsuan-Tien

2015-08-01

The abundance of real-world data and limited labeling budget calls for active learning, an important learning paradigm for reducing human labeling efforts. Many recently developed active learning algorithms consider both uncertainty and representativeness when making querying decisions. However, exploiting representativeness with uncertainty concurrently usually requires tackling sophisticated and challenging learning tasks, such as clustering. In this letter, we propose a new active learning framework, called hinted sampling, which takes both uncertainty and representativeness into account in a simpler way. We design a novel active learning algorithm within the hinted sampling framework with an extended support vector machine. Experimental results validate that the novel active learning algorithm can result in a better and more stable performance than that achieved by state-of-the-art algorithms. We also show that the hinted sampling framework allows improving another active learning algorithm designed from the transductive support vector machine.

Lessons Learned from Coordinating Relay Activities at Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gladden, Roy E.; Hwang, Pauline; Waggoner, Bruce; McLaughlin, Bruce; Fieseler, Paul; Thomas, Reid; Bigwood, Maria; Herrera, Paul

2005-01-01

The Mission Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was tasked with coordinating the relay of data between multiple spacecraft at Mars in support of the Mars Exploration Rover Missions in early 2004. The confluence of three orbiters (Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express), two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and one lander (Beagle 2) has provided a challenging operational scenario that required careful coordination between missions to provide the necessary support and to avoid potential interference during simultaneous relay sessions. As these coordination efforts progressed, several important lessons were learned that should be applied to future Mars relay activities.

A Bridge to Active Learning: A Summer Bridge Program Helps Students Maximize Their Active-Learning Experiences and the Active-Learning Experiences of Others

PubMed Central

Cooper, Katelyn M.; Ashley, Michael; Brownell, Sara E.

2017-01-01

National calls to improve student academic success in college have sparked the development of bridge programs designed to help students transition from high school to college. We designed a 2-week Summer Bridge program that taught introductory biology content in an active-learning way. Through a set of exploratory interviews, we unexpectedly identified that Bridge students had developed sophisticated views of active learning, even though this was not an explicit goal of the program. We conducted an additional set of semistructured interviews that focused on active learning and compared the interviews of Bridge students with those from non-Bridge students who had been eligible for but did not participate in the program. We used the constant comparative method to identify themes from the interviews. We found that Bridge students perceived that, because they knew how to approach active learning and viewed it as important, they benefited more from active learning in introductory biology than non-Bridge students. Specifically, Bridge students seemed to be more aware of their own learning gains from participating in active learning. Compared with the majority of non-Bridge students, the majority of Bridge students described using a greater variety of strategies to maximize their experiences in active learning. Finally, in contrast to non-Bridge students, Bridge students indicated that they take an equitable approach to group work. These findings suggest that we may be able to prime students to maximize their own and other’s experiences in active learning. PMID:28232588

Natural variation in learning rate and memory dynamics in parasitoid wasps: opportunities for converging ecology and neuroscience

PubMed Central

Hoedjes, Katja M.; Kruidhof, H. Marjolein; Huigens, Martinus E.; Dicke, Marcel; Vet, Louise E. M.; Smid, Hans M.

2011-01-01

Although the neural and genetic pathways underlying learning and memory formation seem strikingly similar among species of distant animal phyla, several more subtle inter- and intraspecific differences become evident from studies on model organisms. The true significance of such variation can only be understood when integrating this with information on the ecological relevance. Here, we argue that parasitoid wasps provide an excellent opportunity for multi-disciplinary studies that integrate ultimate and proximate approaches. These insects display interspecific variation in learning rate and memory dynamics that reflects natural variation in a daunting foraging task that largely determines their fitness: finding the inconspicuous hosts to which they will assign their offspring to develop. We review bioassays used for oviposition learning, the ecological factors that are considered to underlie the observed differences in learning rate and memory dynamics, and the opportunities for convergence of ecology and neuroscience that are offered by using parasitoid wasps as model species. We advocate that variation in learning and memory traits has evolved to suit an insect's lifestyle within its ecological niche. PMID:21106587

Annotating smart environment sensor data for activity learning.

PubMed

Szewcyzk, S; Dwan, K; Minor, B; Swedlove, B; Cook, D

2009-01-01

The pervasive sensing technologies found in smart homes offer unprecedented opportunities for providing health monitoring and assistance to individuals experiencing difficulties living independently at home. In order to monitor the functional health of smart home residents, we need to design technologies that recognize and track the activities that people perform at home. Machine learning techniques can perform this task, but the software algorithms rely upon large amounts of sample data that is correctly labeled with the corresponding activity. Labeling, or annotating, sensor data with the corresponding activity can be time consuming, may require input from the smart home resident, and is often inaccurate. Therefore, in this paper we investigate four alternative mechanisms for annotating sensor data with a corresponding activity label. We evaluate the alternative methods along the dimensions of annotation time, resident burden, and accuracy using sensor data collected in a real smart apartment.

E-learning in neurology education: Principles, opportunities and challenges in combating neurophobia.

PubMed

Chhetri, Suresh Kumar

2017-10-01

Neurophobia, the fear of clinical neurology, affects not only medical students but also non-career neurologists globally. This can have significant implications on patient care, especially given the increasing burden of chronic neurological disorders. The negative perception and lack of confidence amongst general practitioners and hospital physicians may lead to increased referrals to neurology, thereby increasing waiting times and inpatient stay. The onus, therefore, should be on improving training and stimulating interest in neurology. There is emerging evidence that integrating e-learning to traditional pedagogies can improve delivery of neurology education and help combat neurophobia. However, embracing e-learning may be challenging for contemporary neurologists, mostly 'digital immigrants', involved in the training of tomorrow's doctors who are largely 'digital natives'. This paper reviews the principles, opportunities and challenges of incorporating e-learning in neurology education to help improve learners' perception of clinical neurology, facilitate delivery of self-directed experiential learning and perhaps breed 'neurophilia'. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using Digital Badges to Organize Student Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ippoliti, Cinthya; Baeza, Victor D.

2017-01-01

A growing trend at universities is to use digital badges (micro-credentialing) for capturing the "soft skills" students gain outside of the classroom. Libraries can use this opportunity to become campus leaders in digital badges, using the system to not only promote their information literacy activities but to coordinate workshop…

Active Learning Methods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zayapragassarazan, Z.; Kumar, Santosh

2012-01-01

Present generation students are primarily active learners with varied learning experiences and lecture courses may not suit all their learning needs. Effective learning involves providing students with a sense of progress and control over their own learning. This requires creating a situation where learners have a chance to try out or test their…

Does the Room Matter? Active Learning in Traditional and Enhanced Lecture Spaces.

PubMed

Stoltzfus, Jon R; Libarkin, Julie

2016-01-01

SCALE-UP-type classrooms, originating with the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies project, are designed to facilitate active learning by maximizing opportunities for interactions between students and embedding technology in the classroom. Positive impacts when active learning replaces lecture are well documented, both in traditional lecture halls and SCALE-UP-type classrooms. However, few studies have carefully analyzed student outcomes when comparable active learning-based instruction takes place in a traditional lecture hall and a SCALE-UP-type classroom. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared student perceptions and performance between sections of a nonmajors biology course, one taught in a traditional lecture hall and one taught in a SCALE-UP-type classroom. Instruction in both sections followed a flipped model that relied heavily on cooperative learning and was as identical as possible given the infrastructure differences between classrooms. Results showed that students in both sections thought that SCALE-UP infrastructure would enhance performance. However, measures of actual student performance showed no difference between the two sections. We conclude that, while SCALE-UP-type classrooms may facilitate implementation of active learning, it is the active learning and not the SCALE-UP infrastructure that enhances student performance. As a consequence, we suggest that institutions can modify existing classrooms to enhance student engagement without incorporating expensive technology. © 2016 J. R. Stoltzfus and J. Libarkin. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Active Learning Strategies to Teach Renal-Cardiovascular Integration with High Student-to-Teacher Ratios

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brands, Michael W.; Schumacher, Lori

2009-01-01

To address the challenge of increasing opportunities for active learning into a medical physiology course with 190 students enrolled, we chose an integrated approach. This was facilitated by the availability of a patient simulator facility at the School of Nursing at the Medical College of Georgia, and an 20-min simulation of acute hemorrhage on…

A Development of Game-Based Learning Environment to Activate Interaction among Learners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takaoka, Ryo; Shimokawa, Masayuki; Okamoto, Toshio

Many studies and systems that incorporate elements such as “pleasure” and “fun” in the game to improve a learner's motivation have been developed in the field of learning environments. However, few are the studies of situations where many learners gather at a single computer and participate in a game-based learning environment (GBLE), and where the GBLE designs the learning process by controlling the interactions between learners such as competition, collaboration, and learning by teaching. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose a framework of educational control that induces and activates interaction between learners intentionally to create a learning opportunity that is based on the knowledge understanding model of each learner. In this paper, we explain the design philosophy and the framework of our GBLE called “Who becomes the king in the country of mathematics?” from a game viewpoint and describe the method of learning support control in the learning environment. In addition, we report the results of the learning experiment with our GBLE, which we carried out in a junior high school, and include some comments by a principal and a teacher. From the results of the experiment and some comments, we noticed that a game may play a significant role in weakening the learning relationship among students and creating new relationships in the world of the game. Furthermore, we discovered that learning support control of the GBLE has led to activation of the interaction between learners to some extent.

Ecotourism in an Educational Context: Promoting Learning Opportunities through Travel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coles, Tim; Poland, Roger H. C.; Clifton, Julian

2015-01-01

The global expansion and diversification of the travel market has opened up new opportunities to deliver educational programmes through tourism. Applying the principles and practices commonly associated with ecotourism enables students to gain lasting benefits through their active participation in conservation-oriented activities. In many cases,…

Conceptualizing School-Based Teacher Learning from Teachers' Points of View: Holistically Leveraging Formal, Informal, and Independent Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Monty; Dexter, Sara

2016-01-01

Improving in-service teacher education is paramount to improving student learning outcomes, and while research in this area typically examines formal teacher learning opportunities, emerging research indicates that teachers also engage in informal and independent modes of learning. Our inquiry into how teachers learned about integrating technology…

Statistically Modeling Individual Students' Learning over Successive Collaborative Practice Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olsen, Jennifer; Aleven, Vincent; Rummel, Nikol

2017-01-01

Within educational data mining, many statistical models capture the learning of students working individually. However, not much work has been done to extend these statistical models of individual learning to a collaborative setting, despite the effectiveness of collaborative learning activities. We extend a widely used model (the additive factors…

UDENTE (Universal Dental E-Learning) a golden opportunity for dental education.

PubMed

Reynolds, Patricia

2012-01-10

learning (TEL) is to be viewed as a golden opportunity in Higher Education.

Lessons Learned from Accelerating Opportunity. Lessons Learned Series

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Randall

2015-01-01

The Accelerating Opportunity initiative helps our nation's lowest-skilled adults earn college credentials and enter higher-wage jobs faster by combining the Adult Basic Education and career and technical training they need into one integrated curriculum. Based on four years of designing and managing Accelerating Opportunity, Jobs for the Future…

Conversations Around Practice: Mediating Opportunities to Learn about Teaching Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ricketts, Amy Rene

This study contributes to the knowledge base regarding the ways in which school-based, ongoing, professional learning communities mediate teacher learning. Specifically, it investigates an organic learning group as they met in various contexts over a full school year, engaging in conversations around their teaching practices that focused on supporting students' explanations of scientific phenomena. The group consisted of ten middle school science teachers from three schools in the same public school district, their district science coordinator and a professor of science education. Drawing on traditions of ethnography and discourse analysis, this case study: 1) characterizes each episode of the group's conversations around practice in terms of its potential for generating transformative learning opportunities, 2) identifies which spontaneous and designed features of those conversations accounted for differences in the generative nature of the talk, and 3) explains how those features mediated the generative nature of the talk. In this group, the differences between more- and less- generative talk could be attributed to five features: the context of the conversation; the tools participants used to represent their practice; the stance with which they represented and took up one another's practices in the talk; the resources they drew on (in terms of expertise); the conversational routines in which they engaged. These five features interacted in complex, patterned ways to mediate the generative nature of the group's talk.

Playground Exploration: An Opportunity for Incidental Learning of Mechanical Principles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyons, Brian

2005-01-01

Play involves unstructured activity that is freely entered into and intrinsically rewarding. When children engage in play there is little intentional learning. There are no lesson plans. There are no daily objectives or specific learning outcomes. Incidental learning can cause relatively permanent changes in the way one thinks; accidental learning…

The Different Learning Opportunities Afforded Student Teachers in Four Secondary School Subject Departments in an Initial Teacher Education School-University Partnership in England

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Douglas, Alaster Scott

2011-01-01

This article investigates the learning opportunities in school subject departments for student teachers when participating in a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) course in England. The paper draws upon data gathered from a year-long ethnographic study to explain why learning opportunities were different for student teachers in separate…

Opportunity Structures and Higher Learning in a Globally-Connected Place: Tensions and Ties between Outbound and Upward Mobility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oleksiyenko, Anatoly

2013-01-01

This paper examines how opportunity structures for learning, income, and status emerge in a global space shaped by local stakeholders aspiring for strategic positions in international competition. The case-study of Hong Kong suggests that moving up the pyramid of college and university degrees provides opportunities for higher income and reduces…

An active learning complementary and alternative medicine session in a self-care therapeutics class.

PubMed

Mattison, Melissa J; Nemec, Eric C

2014-09-15

To provide an interactive, non-supplement based complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) session in a self-care therapeutics class and to evaluate the effect of the session on pharmacy students' perceptions and knowledge of CAM. Second professional year pharmacy students enrolled in a required 3-credit course titled Self-Care Therapeutics participated in an active learning session on CAM. Students physically engaged in 5 separate active learning CAM sessions including massage therapy, Tai Chi, yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and Reiki. Students were assessed on both knowledge and perception of CAM. Concept mastery was assessed using a written examination and individual readiness assurance tests (iRAT) and team readiness assurance tests (tRAT). Perception of CAM was measured using both a presession and a postsession survey. Participating in an intensive, active learning CAM session provided an opportunity to increase students' knowledge of CAM and an effective strategy for providing the learner with the experience to better envision incorporation into patient therapies.

Grade Expectations for Vermont's Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities, Summer 2004 (Arts)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vermont Department of Education, 2004

2004-01-01

In the fall of 1996, the State Board of Education adopted Vermont's Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities. Over the years, the aim has been to make the standards more useful as guides to curriculum development. In 2000, the standards were formally revised and again adopted by the State Board. In 2004, another chapter in the standards,…

A Bridge to Active Learning: A Summer Bridge Program Helps Students Maximize Their Active-Learning Experiences and the Active-Learning Experiences of Others.

PubMed

Cooper, Katelyn M; Ashley, Michael; Brownell, Sara E

2017-01-01

National calls to improve student academic success in college have sparked the development of bridge programs designed to help students transition from high school to college. We designed a 2-week Summer Bridge program that taught introductory biology content in an active-learning way. Through a set of exploratory interviews, we unexpectedly identified that Bridge students had developed sophisticated views of active learning, even though this was not an explicit goal of the program. We conducted an additional set of semistructured interviews that focused on active learning and compared the interviews of Bridge students with those from non-Bridge students who had been eligible for but did not participate in the program. We used the constant comparative method to identify themes from the interviews. We found that Bridge students perceived that, because they knew how to approach active learning and viewed it as important, they benefited more from active learning in introductory biology than non-Bridge students. Specifically, Bridge students seemed to be more aware of their own learning gains from participating in active learning. Compared with the majority of non-Bridge students, the majority of Bridge students described using a greater variety of strategies to maximize their experiences in active learning. Finally, in contrast to non-Bridge students, Bridge students indicated that they take an equitable approach to group work. These findings suggest that we may be able to prime students to maximize their own and other's experiences in active learning. © 2017 K. M. Cooper et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2017 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Making Sense of Student Performance Data: Data Use Logics and Mathematics Teachers' Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horn, Ilana Seidel; Kane, Britnie Delinger; Wilson, Jonee

2015-01-01

In the accountability era, educators are pressed to use evidence-based practice. In this comparative case study, we examine the learning opportunities afforded by teachers' data use conversations. Using situated discourse analysis, we compare two middle school mathematics teacher workgroups interpreting data from the same district assessment.…

Active Learning with Statistical Models.

DTIC Science & Technology

1995-01-01

Active Learning with Statistical Models ASC-9217041, NSF CDA-9309300 6. AUTHOR(S) David A. Cohn, Zoubin Ghahramani, and Michael I. Jordan 7. PERFORMING...TERMS 15. NUMBER OF PAGES Al, MIT, Artificial Intelligence, active learning , queries, locally weighted 6 regression, LOESS, mixtures of gaussians...COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING DEPARTMENT OF BRAIN AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES A.I. Memo No. 1522 January 9. 1995 C.B.C.L. Paper No. 110 Active Learning with

Using active learning strategies to investigate student learning and attitudes in a large enrollment, introductory geology course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berry, Stacy Jane

There has been an increased emphasis for college instruction to incorporate more active and collaborative involvement of students in the learning process. These views have been asserted by The Association of American Colleges (AAC), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and The National Research Counsel (NRC), which are advocating for the modification of traditional instructional techniques to allow students the opportunity to be more cooperative (Task Group on General Education, 1988). This has guided educators and facilitators into shifting teaching paradigms from a teacher centered to a more student-centered curriculum. The present study investigated achievement outcomes and attitudes of learners in a large enrollment (n ~ 200), introductory geology course using a student centered learning cycle format of instruction versus another similar section that used a traditional lecture format. Although the course is a recruiting class for majors, over 95% of the students that enroll are non-majors. Measurements of academic evaluation were through four unit exams, classroom communication systems, weekly web-based homework, in-class activities, and a thematic collaborative poster/paper project and presentation. The qualitative methods to investigate the effectiveness of the teaching design included: direct observation, self-reporting about learning, and open-ended interviews. By disaggregating emerging data, we tried to concentrate on patterns and causal relationships between achievement performance and attitudes regarding learning geology. Statistical analyses revealed positive relationships between student engagement in supplemental activities and achievement mean scores within and between the two sections. Completing weekly online homework had the most robust relationship with overall achievement performance. Contrary to expectations, a thematic group project only led to modest gains in achievement performance, although the social and professional gains could be

Tracking Active Learning in the Medical School Curriculum: A Learning-Centered Approach.

PubMed

McCoy, Lise; Pettit, Robin K; Kellar, Charlyn; Morgan, Christine

2018-01-01

Medical education is moving toward active learning during large group lecture sessions. This study investigated the saturation and breadth of active learning techniques implemented in first year medical school large group sessions. Data collection involved retrospective curriculum review and semistructured interviews with 20 faculty. The authors piloted a taxonomy of active learning techniques and mapped learning techniques to attributes of learning-centered instruction. Faculty implemented 25 different active learning techniques over the course of 9 first year courses. Of 646 hours of large group instruction, 476 (74%) involved at least 1 active learning component. The frequency and variety of active learning components integrated throughout the year 1 curriculum reflect faculty familiarity with active learning methods and their support of an active learning culture. This project has sparked reflection on teaching practices and facilitated an evolution from teacher-centered to learning-centered instruction.

Tracking Active Learning in the Medical School Curriculum: A Learning-Centered Approach

PubMed Central

McCoy, Lise; Pettit, Robin K; Kellar, Charlyn; Morgan, Christine

2018-01-01

Background: Medical education is moving toward active learning during large group lecture sessions. This study investigated the saturation and breadth of active learning techniques implemented in first year medical school large group sessions. Methods: Data collection involved retrospective curriculum review and semistructured interviews with 20 faculty. The authors piloted a taxonomy of active learning techniques and mapped learning techniques to attributes of learning-centered instruction. Results: Faculty implemented 25 different active learning techniques over the course of 9 first year courses. Of 646 hours of large group instruction, 476 (74%) involved at least 1 active learning component. Conclusions: The frequency and variety of active learning components integrated throughout the year 1 curriculum reflect faculty familiarity with active learning methods and their support of an active learning culture. This project has sparked reflection on teaching practices and facilitated an evolution from teacher-centered to learning-centered instruction. PMID:29707649

H2Oh!: Classroom demonstrations and activities for improving student learning of water concepts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chan-Hilton, A.; Neupauer, R. M.; Burian, S. J.; Lauer, J. W.; Mathisen, P. P.; Mays, D. C.; Olson, M. S.; Pomeroy, C. A.; Ruddell, B. L.; Sciortino, A.

2012-12-01

Research has shown that the use of demonstrations and hands-on activities in the classroom enhances student learning. Students learn more and enjoy classes more when visual and active learning are incorporated into the lecture. Most college-aged students prefer visual modes of learning, while most instruction is conducted in a lecture, or auditory, format. The use of classroom demonstrations provides opportunities for incorporating visual and active learning into the classroom environment. However, while most instructors acknowledge the benefits of these teaching methods, they typically do not have the time and resources to develop and test such activities and to develop plans to incorporate them into their lectures. Members of the Excellence in Water Resources Education Task Committee of the Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have produced a publication that contains a collection of activities aimed to foster excellence in water resources and hydrology education and improve student learning of principles. The book contains forty-five demonstrations and activities that can be used in water-related classes with topics in fluid mechanics, hydraulics, surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology, and water quality. We present examples of these activities, including topics such as conservation of momentum, buoyancy, Bernoulli's principle, drag force, pipe flow, watershed delineation, reservoir networks, head distribution in aquifers, and molecular diffusion in a porous medium. Unlike full laboratory exercises, these brief demonstrations and activities (most of which take less than fifteen minutes) can be easily incorporated into classroom lectures. For each demonstration, guidance for preparing and conducting the activity, along with a brief overview of the principles that are demonstrated, is provided. The target audience of the activities is undergraduate students, although the activities also may be

Nursing electives: an innovative and creative learning opportunity.

PubMed

Peate, Ian

Nursing elective can provide the nurse (learner or registered nurse) with a host of new opportunities to experience and observe practice from a variety of different perspectives. The nursing elective should be planned well in advance and much time and thought should be given to preparing for this activity. There are a number of resources (human and material) available to help with the planning of the event and as such careful and thorough planning at an early stage can make the activity much more successful. The funding of the elective event needs to be thought about early on in the planning stage if this is likely to be an issue. Practical considerations, such as insurance cover, honorary contracts, travel and other documents must also be considered carefully. The elective opportunity has the potential to provide the individual with a unique experience, a chance to delve deeper in relation to a particular area of interest as well as potentially experiencing the provision of health care through an alternative lens. The success of the elective largely depends upon the amount of effort the individual puts into it.

Adventure Learning: Theory and Implementation of Hybrid Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doering, A.

2008-12-01

Adventure Learning (AL), a hybrid distance education approach, provides students and teachers with the opportunity to learn about authentic curricular content areas while interacting with adventurers, students, and content experts at various locations throughout the world within an online learning environment (Doering, 2006). An AL curriculum and online environment provides collaborative community spaces where traditional hierarchical classroom roles are blurred and learning is transformed. AL has most recently become popular in K-12 classrooms nationally and internationally with millions of students participating online. However, in the literature, the term "adventure learning" many times gets confused with phrases such as "virtual fieldtrip" and activities where someone "exploring" is posting photos and text. This type of "adventure learning" is not "Adventure Learning" (AL), but merely a slideshow of their activities. The learning environment may not have any curricular and/or social goals, and if it does, the environment design many times does not support these objectives. AL, on the other hand, is designed so that both teachers and students understand that their online and curriculum activities are in synch and supportive of the curricular goals. In AL environments, there are no disparate activities as the design considers the educational, social, and technological affordances (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns, & Beers, 2004); in other words, the artifacts of the learning environment encourage and support the instructional goals, social interactions, collaborative efforts, and ultimately learning. AL is grounded in two major theoretical approaches to learning - experiential and inquiry-based learning. As Kolb (1984) noted, in experiential learning, a learner creates meaning from direct experiences and reflections. Such is the goal of AL within the classroom. Additionally, AL affords learners a real-time authentic online learning experience concurrently as they

Enjoyable learning: the role of humour, games, and fun activities in nursing and midwifery education.

PubMed

Baid, Heather; Lambert, Nicky

2010-08-01

Education that captures the attention of students is an essential aspect of promoting meaningful, active learning. Rather than standing at the front of a group of learners simply speaking about a topic, teachers have the opportunity of livening up their teaching with humour, games, and other fun activities. This article critically evaluates the benefits and limitations of humour within nursing education as well as the use of games and fun activities as teaching strategies. Examples of various games and interactive activities are also provided. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Active Learning Using Arbitrary Binary Valued Queries

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-10-01

active learning in the sense that the learner has complete choice in the information received. Specifically, we allow the learner to ask arbitrary yes...no questions. We consider both active learning under a fixed distribution and distribution-free active learning . In the case of active learning , the...a concept class is actively learnable iff it is finite, so that active learning is in fact less powerful than the usual passive learning model. We

The use of active learning strategies in the instruction of Reactor Physics concepts

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Robinson, Michael A.

2000-01-01

Each of the Active Learning strategies employed to teach Reactor Physics material has been or promises to be instructionally successful. The Cooperative Group strategy has demonstrated a statistically significant increase in student performance on the unit exam in teaching conceptually difficult, transport and diffusion theory material. However, this result was achieved at the expense of a modest increase in class time. The Tutorial CBI programs have enabled learning equally as well as classroom lectures without the direct intervention of an instructor. Thus, the Tutorials have been successful as homework assignments, releasing classroom time for other instruction. However, the time requiredmore » for development of these tools was large, on the order of two hundred hours per hour of instruction. The initial introduction of the Case-Based strategy was roughly as effective as the traditional classroom instruction. Case-Based learning could well, after important modifications, perform better than traditional instruction. A larger percentage of the students prefer active learning strategies than prefer traditional lecture presentations. Student preferences for the active strategies were particularly strong when they believed that the strategies helped them learn the material better than they would have by using a lecture format. In some cases, students also preferred the active strategies because they were different from traditional instruction, a change of pace. Some students preferred lectures to CBI instruction, primarily because the CBI did not afford them the opportunity to question the instructor during the presentation.« less

Grade Expectations for Vermont's Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities, Spring 2004 (Mathematics, Reading and Writing)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vermont Department of Education, 2004

2004-01-01

This document, "Grade Expectations for Vermont's Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities" (hereafter "Vermont's Grade Expectations"), is an important companion to "Vermont's Framework." These Grade Expectations (GEs) serve the same purposes as "Vermont's Framework," but articulate learning…

Mobile Blogs in Language Learning: Making the Most of Informal and Situated Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Comas-Quinn, Anna; Mardomingo, Raquel; Valentine, Chris

2009-01-01

The application of mobile technologies to learning has the potential to facilitate the active participation of learners in the creation and delivery of content. Mobile technologies can also provide a powerful connection between a variety of formal and informal learning contexts and can help to build a community of learners. However these versatile…

Active Learning with Irrelevant Examples

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mazzoni, Dominic; Wagstaff, Kiri L.; Burl, Michael

2006-01-01

Active learning algorithms attempt to accelerate the learning process by requesting labels for the most informative items first. In real-world problems, however, there may exist unlabeled items that are irrelevant to the user's classification goals. Queries about these points slow down learning because they provide no information about the problem of interest. We have observed that when irrelevant items are present, active learning can perform worse than random selection, requiring more time (queries) to achieve the same level of accuracy. Therefore, we propose a novel approach, Relevance Bias, in which the active learner combines its default selection heuristic with the output of a simultaneously trained relevance classifier to favor items that are likely to be both informative and relevant. In our experiments on a real-world problem and two benchmark datasets, the Relevance Bias approach significantly improved the learning rate of three different active learning approaches.

Breaking Bread and Breaking Boundaries: A Case Study on Increasing Organizational Learning Opportunities and Fostering Communities of Practice through Sharing Meals in an Academic Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watland, Kathleen Hanold; Hallenbeck, Stephen M.; Kresse, William J.

2008-01-01

Organizations are increasingly interested in creating learning opportunities for their employees. This article explores and describes how a university planned to increase employee interactions and organizational learning opportunities by fostering emergence of communities of practice. In this case study, Saint Xavier University offered an academic…

Impact of the Extended Learning Opportunities Summer Adventures in Learning (ELO SAIL) Program on Student Academic Performance: Part 1, Results from Fall 2012 to Fall 2015

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper-Martin, Elizabeth; Wolanin, Natalie; Jang, Seong; Modarresi, Shahpar; Zhao, Huafang

2016-01-01

Extended Learning Opportunities Summer Adventures in Learning (ELO SAIL) is a Montgomery County Public Schools summer program for students in all Title I elementary schools; it targets students who will be in kindergarten-Grade 2 in the fall following the program. This report analyzed demographic characteristics of attendees and the impact of the…

t4 workshop report--lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities: the U.S. Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.

PubMed

Juberg, Daland R; Borghoff, Susan J; Becker, Richard A; Casey, Warren; Hartung, Thomas; Holsapple, Michael P; Marty, M Sue; Mihaich, Ellen M; Van Der Kraak, Glen; Wade, Michael G; Willett, Catherine E; Andersen, Melvin E; Borgert, Christopher J; Coady, Katherine K; Dourson, Michael L; Fowle, John R; Gray, L Earl; Lamb, James C; Ortego, Lisa S; Schug, Thaddeus T; Toole, Colleen M; Zorrilla, Leah M; Kroner, Oliver L; Patterson, Jacqueline; Rinckel, Lori A; Jones, Brett R

2014-01-01

In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act and amended the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement a screening program to investigate the potential of pesticide chemicals and drinking water contaminants to adversely affect endocrine pathways. Consequently, the EPA launched the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) to develop and validate estrogen, androgen, and thyroid (EAT) pathway screening assays and to produce standardized and harmonized test guidelines for regulatory application. In 2009, the EPA issued the first set of test orders for EDSP screening and a total of 50 pesticide actives and 2 inert ingredients have been evaluated using the battery of EDSP Tier 1 screening assays (i.e., five in vitro assays and six in vivo assays). To provide a framework for retrospective analysis of the data generated and to collect the insight of multiple stakeholders involved in the testing, more than 240 scientists from government, industry, academia, and non-profit organizations recently participated in a workshop titled "Lessons Learned, Challenges, and Opportunities: The U.S. Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program." The workshop focused on the science and experience to date and was organized into three focal sessions: (a) Performance of the EDSP Tier 1 Screening Assays for Estrogen, Androgen, and Thyroid Pathways; (b) Practical Applications of Tier 1 Data; and (c) Indications and Opportunities for Future Endocrine Testing. A number of key learnings and recommendations related to future EDSP evaluations emanated from the collective sessions.

Addressing Barriers to Learning and Teaching to Enhance Equity of Opportunity. Report from the National Summit on ESSA and Learning Supports

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA, 2017

2017-01-01

Passage of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) provides opportunities to improve how schools address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students and families. Of particular relevance to these concerns, ESSA replaces what has been described as a maze of programs with a "Student Support and Academic…

Opportunity to Learn: The Role of Prompting Cognitive Shifts in Understanding and Addressing Educational Inequities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allwarden, Ann F.

2014-01-01

This dissertation examines how district- and school-level leaders' understanding of achievement gaps influences the work of leadership in addressing educational inequities and broadening students' opportunity to learn. While the reporting of disaggregated data by student subgroup confirms that achievement gaps exist, reports from high-stakes…

Do Active Learning Approaches in Recitation Sections Improve Student Performance? A Case Study from an Introductory Mechanics Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tobin, R. G.

2018-01-01

Abundant research leaves little question that pedagogical approaches involving active student engagement with the material, and opportunities for student-to-student discussions, lead to much better learning outcomes than traditional instructor-led, expository instructional formats, in physics and in many other fields. In introductory college…

GeoMapApp Learning Activities: Grab-and-go inquiry-based geoscience activities that bring cutting-edge technology to the classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodwillie, A. M.; Kluge, S.

2011-12-01

NSF-funded GeoMapApp Learning Activities (http://serc.carleton.edu/geomapapp) provide self-contained learning opportunities that are centred around the principles of guided inquiry. The activities allow students to interact with and analyse research-quality geoscience data to explore and enhance student understanding of underlying geoscience content and concepts. Each activity offers ready-to-use step-by-step student instructions and answer sheets that can be downloaded from the web page. Also provided are annotated teacher versions of the worksheets that include teaching tips, additional content and suggestions for further work. Downloadable pre- and post- quizzes tied to each activity help educators gauge the learning progression of their students. Short multimedia tutorials and details on content alignment with state and national teaching standards round out the package of material that comprises each "grab-and-go" activity. GeoMapApp Learning Activities expose students to content and concepts typically found at the community college, high school and introductory undergraduate levels. The activities are based upon GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org), a free, easy-to-use map-based data exploration and visualisation tool that allows students to access a wide range of geoscience data sets in a virtual lab-like environment. Activities that have so far been created under this project include student exploration of seafloor spreading rates, a study of mass wasting as revealed through geomorphological evidence, and an analysis of plate motion and hotspot traces. The step-by-step instructions and guided inquiry approach lead students through each activity, thus reducing the need for teacher intervention whilst also boosting the time that students can spend on productive exploration and learning. The activities can be used, for example, in a classroom lab with the educator present and as self-paced assignments in an out-of-class setting. GeoMapApp Learning Activities

Identifying different learning styles to enhance the learning experience.

PubMed

Anderson, Irene

2016-10-12

Identifying your preferred learning style can be a useful way to optimise learning opportunities, and can help learners to recognise their strengths and areas for development in the way that learning takes place. It can also help teachers (educators) to recognise where additional activities are required to ensure the learning experience is robust and effective. There are several models available that may be used to identify learning styles. This article discusses these models and considers their usefulness in healthcare education. Models of teaching styles are also considered.

Factors Shaping Students' Opportunities to Engage in Argumentative Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ayalon, Michal; Even, Ruhama

2016-01-01

This study examines how students' opportunities to engage in argumentative activity are shaped by the teacher, the class, and the mathematical topic. It compares the argumentative activity between two classes taught by the same teacher using the same textbook and across two beginning algebra topics--investigating algebraic expressions and…

E-service learning: A pedagogic innovation for healthcare management education.

PubMed

Malvey, Donna M; Hamby, Eileen F; Fottler, Myron D

2006-01-01

This paper proposes an innovation in service learning that we identify as e-service learning. By adding the "e" to service learning, we create a service learning model that is dynamic, mediated by technology, and delivered online. This paper begins by examining service learning, which is a distinct learning concept. Service learning furnishes students with opportunities for applied learning through participation in projects and activities in community organizations. The authors then define and conceptualize e-service learning, including the anticipated outcomes of implementation such as enhanced access, quality, and cost effectiveness of healthcare management education. Because e-service learning is mediated by technology, we identify state of the art technologies that support e-service learning activities. In addition, possible e-service learning projects and activities that may be included in healthcare management courses such as finance, human resources, quality, service management/marketing and strategy are identified. Finally, opportunities for future research are suggested.

Student responses to a hands-on kinesthetic lecture activity for learning about the oxygen carrying capacity of blood.

PubMed

Breckler, Jennifer; Yu, Justin R

2011-03-01

This article describes a new hands-on, or "kinesthetic," activity for use in a physiology lecture hall to help students comprehend an important concept in cardiopulmonary physiology known as oxygen carrying capacity. One impetus for designing this activity was to address the needs of students who have a preference for kinesthetic learning and to help increase their understanding and engagement during lecture. This activity uses simple inexpensive materials, provides an effective model for demonstrating related pathophysiology, and helps promote active learning. The activity protocol and its implementation are described here in detail. We also report data obtained from student surveys and assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of the activity on student conceptual learning and perceptions. A brief multiple-choice pretest showed that although students had already been introduced to the relevant concepts in lecture, they had not yet mastered these concepts before performing the activity. Two postactivity assessments showed that student performance was significantly improved on the posttest compared with the pretest and that information was largely retained at the end of the course. Survey data showed that one-half of the students stated kinesthetic learning as among their learning preferences, yet nearly all students enjoyed and were engaged in this hands-on kinesthetic activity regardless of their preferences. Most students would recommend it to their peers and expressed a desire for more kinesthetic learning opportunities in the lecture curriculum.

Developing Personal, Interpersonal, and Leadership Dimensions While Learning Civic Competencies in Service-Learning Experiences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

González López, Luis Gerardo

2017-01-01

Service-learning is a form of experiential learning whereby students learn and develop through active participation in a carefully organized service that addresses the needs of the community. It is rooted in the reflective experiential traditions of Dewey, Kolb, and Freire. It provides students with opportunities for development in a variety of…

Physical Activity Opportunity in United States Public Elementary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beaulieu, Lisa; Butterfield, Stephen A.; Pratt, Phillip

2009-01-01

Recent evidence indicates that many elementary schools have curtailed recess and Physical Education (Morrow, Jackson & Payne 1999). These finding are at a variance with the goal of Healthy People 2010 to increase physical activity. The purpose of this study was to examine physical activity opportunities (PAO) in U. S. public elementary schools.…

Excellence in Physics Education Award Talk: Sharing Active Learning Strategies in the Developed and Developing Worlds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sokoloff, David

2010-02-01

Since the first series of National Microcomputer Based Laboratory (MBL) Institutes for Teachers of Physics in Summer, 1987, the Activity Based Physics Group (ABP) has presented numerous professional development institutes and workshops to thousands of high school, college and university faculty, sponsored by National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and others. An overview of these programs and details of our instructional strategies will be presented. Some common features of these include: (1) motivating participants through introduction to active learning research literature, including exposure to conceptual evaluations and student learning gains in traditional and active learning courses, (2) exposing participants to active learning strategies through intensive hands-on work using classroom tested curricular materials, (3) relying on these materials to enhance teacher knowledge and correct misconceptions---when necessary, (4) providing opportunities to practice active learning instruction with other participants and (5) distributing or facilitating procurement of equipment and supplies needed to get started. Recently, ABP group members have been working with physics educators from other countries to introduce active learning strategies in the developing world. New programs such as Active Learning in Optics and Photonics (ALOP, UNESCO) and Physware (ICTP/UNESCO/IUPAP), that support active learning using low-cost equipment, have been developed for this purpose. To date, ALOP workshops have been presented to over 500 secondary and college faculty in Ghana, Tunisia, Morocco, India, Tanzania, Brazil, Mexico, Zambia, Cameroon, Colombia, Nepal and Chile, and the ALOP Training Manual has been translated into French and Spanish. The first Physware workshop, held at ICTP in Trieste in 2009, had 32 participants most of whom were from developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. These programs will be described. )

Studying Language Learning Opportunities Afforded by a Collaborative CALL Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leahy, Christine

2016-01-01

This research study explores the learning potential of a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activity. Research suggests that the dual emphasis on content development and language accuracy, as well as the complexity of L2 production in natural settings, can potentially create cognitive overload. This study poses the question whether, and…

Incorporating active learning in psychiatry education.

PubMed

Kumar, Sonia; McLean, Loyola; Nash, Louise; Trigwell, Keith

2017-06-01

We aim to summarise the active learning literature in higher education and consider its relevance for postgraduate psychiatry trainees, to inform the development of a new Formal Education Course (FEC): the Master of Medicine (Psychiatry) at the University of Sydney. We undertook a literature search on 'active learning', 'flipped classroom', 'problem-based learning' and 'psychiatry education'. The effectiveness of active learning pedagogy in higher education is well supported by evidence; however, there have been few psychiatry-specific studies. A new 'flipped classroom' format was developed for the Master of Medicine (Psychiatry). Postgraduate psychiatry training is an active learning environment; the pedagogical approach to FECs requires further evaluation.

Transforming a University Tradition into a Geoscience Teaching and Learning Opportunity for the University Community

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldsmith, Steven T.; Trierweiler, Annette M.; Welch, Susan A.; Bancroft, Alyssa M.; Von Bargen, Justin M.; Carey, Anne E.

2013-01-01

Recent initiatives in geosciences education have focused on interactive and inquiry-based learning experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. While the concept is sound, examples and datasets seldom focus on opportunities to which the students can immediately relate. Herein we show how a university tradition has been transformed into an…

The Role of Opportunities to Learn in Teacher Preparation for EFL Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

König, Johannes; Tachtsoglou, Sarantis; Lammerding, Sandra; Strauß, Sarah; Nold, Günter; Rohde, Andreas

2017-01-01

The study examines the connection between domain-specific learning opportunities in English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher preparation and preservice EFL teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Using a sample of 444 preservice EFL teachers for secondary schools, it contrasts groups at the end of the 2 phases required in German teacher…

Instructional Utility and Learning Efficacy of Common Active Learning Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McConell, David A.; Chapman, LeeAnna; Czaijka, C. Douglas; Jones, Jason P.; Ryker, Katherine D.; Wiggen, Jennifer

2017-01-01

The adoption of active learning instructional practices in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has been shown to result in improvements in student learning, contribute to increased retention rates, and reduce the achievement gap among different student populations. Descriptions of active learning strategies…

Active Learning Techniques Applied to an Interdisciplinary Mineral Resources Course.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aird, H. M.

2015-12-01

An interdisciplinary active learning course was introduced at the University of Puget Sound entitled 'Mineral Resources and the Environment'. Various formative assessment and active learning techniques that have been effective in other courses were adapted and implemented to improve student learning, increase retention and broaden knowledge and understanding of course material. This was an elective course targeted towards upper-level undergraduate geology and environmental majors. The course provided an introduction to the mineral resources industry, discussing geological, environmental, societal and economic aspects, legislation and the processes involved in exploration, extraction, processing, reclamation/remediation and recycling of products. Lectures and associated weekly labs were linked in subject matter; relevant readings from the recent scientific literature were assigned and discussed in the second lecture of the week. Peer-based learning was facilitated through weekly reading assignments with peer-led discussions and through group research projects, in addition to in-class exercises such as debates. Writing and research skills were developed through student groups designing, carrying out and reporting on their own semester-long research projects around the lasting effects of the historical Ruston Smelter on the biology and water systems of Tacoma. The writing of their mini grant proposals and final project reports was carried out in stages to allow for feedback before the deadline. Speakers from industry were invited to share their specialist knowledge as guest lecturers, and students were encouraged to interact with them, with a view to employment opportunities. Formative assessment techniques included jigsaw exercises, gallery walks, placemat surveys, think pair share and take-home point summaries. Summative assessment included discussion leadership, exams, homeworks, group projects, in-class exercises, field trips, and pre-discussion reading exercises

Active learning improves on-task behaviors in 4th grade children.

PubMed

Bartholomew, J B; Golaszewski, N M; Jowers, E; Korinek, E; Roberts, G; Fall, A; Vaughn, S

2018-06-01

While increased opportunities for physical activity (PA) are a critical, public health need for children, school-based interventions often place teachers in the position to choose between PA and time spent on academic lessons. Active learning is designed to overcome this by combining PA with academic material. Moreover, teachers are likely to be more responsive to change in academic-related outcomes than in PA. This study utilizes a large, cluster randomized control trial in which student attention, or time on task (TOT) and accelerometer-based PA is assessed in conjunction with active learning. Participants were 2716 children (46% male, 46% white) from 28 elementary schools in Central Texas that were assigned to either: 1) active learning (math n = 10; spelling n = 9); or 2) traditional, sedentary academic lessons (n = 9). PA was measured with accelerometers. TOT was measured through a momentary time sampling protocol. A series of three-level (student, classroom, school) regression models estimated the effect of the intervention. The intervention lead to significantly increased TOT. Moreover, the dose of PA (steps) during the intervention was positively associated with the increase in TOT. In contrast, a greater dose of PA was associated with reduced TOT for students in control schools. Race, gender, and SES did not moderate these effects. Planned PA - as a part of an active, academic lesson - positively impacted TOT. In contrast, a traditional, sedentary lesson was associated with lower TOT. This differential impact offers intriguing possibilities to better understand the relationship between PA and academic performance. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Stealth Learning: Unexpected Learning Opportunities through Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sharp, Laura A.

2012-01-01

Educators across the country struggle to create engaging, motivating learning environments for their Net Gen students. These learners expect instant gratification that traditional lectures do not provide. This leaves educators searching for innovative ways to engage students in order to encourage learning. One solution is for educators to use…

Learners' Use of Communication Strategies in Text-Based and Video-Based Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication Environments: Opportunities for Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hung, Yu-Wan; Higgins, Steve

2016-01-01

This study investigates the different learning opportunities enabled by text-based and video-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) from an interactionist perspective. Six Chinese-speaking learners of English and six English-speaking learners of Chinese were paired up as tandem (reciprocal) learning dyads. Each dyad participated…

Active Living Logan Square: joining together to create opportunities for physical activity.

PubMed

Gomez-Feliciano, Lucy; McCreary, Linda L; Sadowsky, Rob; Peterson, Serena; Hernandez, Adolfo; McElmurry, Beverly J; Park, Chang Gi

2009-12-01

The Active Living Logan Square target audience is the community of the southwest corner of Logan Square, an urban Chicago community of 84,466 residents, mostly Latinos. Through the Active Living by Design (ALbD) initiative, the Logan Square Neighborhood Association leveraged its 48 years of existence in the neighborhood to create opportunities and build partnerships. Activities addressed three primary goals: (1) enhance school environments and practices to support physical activity before, during, and after the school day; (2) encourage individuals and families to enjoy outdoor activities in their own communities; and (3) create safe, inviting places for activity that connect to surrounding communities. The partnership's participatory approach involved a variety of community stakeholders in developing and implementing affordable, accessible, culturally acceptable, and sustainable physical activities for children and their families. The partnership successfully piloted Open Streets (temporary street closures) and advocated for development of the Bloomingdale Trail, an elevated rails-to-trails project. In schools, the partnership changed the culture at McAuliffe Elementary to support healthy behaviors through new policies, physical projects, and programs. Vital components of the project's success included a full-time coordinator with strong community ties; time to build healthy relationships within the partnership and community; the use of culturally relevant strategies; and flexibility to welcome complementary opportunities. The partnership intentionally did not produce a single community-recognized campaign; instead, it chose to use limited resources to promote tangible programs and projects that led to sustainable and replicable changes that promote physical activity.

Creating Experiential Learning in the Graduate Classroom through Community Engagement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Katryna

2013-01-01

Educators can provide opportunities for active learning for the students by engaging them in client-based projects with the community, which enhances application of theory and provides students with the relevance demanded from the business community. Experiential learning opportunities through client-based projects provide for such an experience.…

How International Studies Contributed to Educational Theory and Methods through Measurement of Opportunity to Learn Mathematics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suter, Larry E.

2017-01-01

The international comparative studies in 1959 were conducted by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) researchers who recognized that differences in student achievement measures in mathematics across countries could be caused by differences in curricula. The measurements of opportunity to learn (OTL) grew…

Instructional Design Strategies Used to Provide Equal Learning Opportunity for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mercado Cruz, Daniel

2013-01-01

Traditional classrooms are not being designed with deaf and hard of hearing learners in mind. Providing equal learning opportunities with the use of appropriate instructional design strategies to deaf and hard of hearing learners requires that instructional designers, faculty, and educational institutions understand what accommodations and…

Teachers' Everyday Professional Development: Mapping Informal Learning Activities, Antecedents, and Learning Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kyndt, Eva; Gijbels, David; Grosemans, Ilke; Donche, Vincent

2016-01-01

Although a lot is known about teacher development by means of formal learning activities, research on teachers' everyday learning is limited. In the current systematic review, we analyzed 74 studies focusing on teachers' informal learning to identify teachers' learning activities, antecedents for informal learning, and learning outcomes. In…

Connecting Family Learning and Active Citizenship

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flanagan, Mary

2009-01-01

In Ireland family learning and active citizenship has not been linked together until 2006. It was while the Clare Family Learning Project was involved in a family learning EU learning network project, that a suggestion to create a new partnership project linking both areas was made and FACE IT! was born (Families and Active Citizenship…

Create a good learning environment and motivate active learning enthusiasm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bi, Weihong; Fu, Guangwei; Fu, Xinghu; Zhang, Baojun; Liu, Qiang; Jin, Wa

2017-08-01

In view of the current poor learning initiative of undergraduates, the idea of creating a good learning environment and motivating active learning enthusiasm is proposed. In practice, the professional tutor is allocated and professional introduction course is opened for college freshman. It can promote communication between the professional teachers and students as early as possible, and guide students to know and devote the professional knowledge by the preconceived form. Practice results show that these solutions can improve the students interest in learning initiative, so that the active learning and self-learning has become a habit in the classroom.

Navigating the Active Learning Swamp: Creating an Inviting Environment for Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Marie C.; Malinowski, Jon C.

2001-01-01

Reports on a survey of faculty members (n=29) asking them to define active learning, to rate how effectively different teaching techniques contribute to active learning, and to list the three teaching techniques they use most frequently. Concludes that active learning requires establishing an environment rather than employing a specific teaching…

Policies and Opportunities for Physical Activity in Middle School Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Deborah R.; Felton, Gwen M.; Grieser, Mira; Elder, John P.; Johnson, Carolyn; Lee, Jung-Sun; Kubik, Martha Y.

2007-01-01

Background: This study examined physical activity opportunities and barriers at 36 geographically diverse middle schools participating in the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls. Methods: Principals, physical education and health education department heads, and program leaders were interviewed to assess policies and instructional practices that…

Enhancing medical-surgical nursing practice: using practice tests and clinical examples to promote active learning and program evaluation.

PubMed

DuHamel, Martha B; Hirnle, Constance; Karvonen, Colleen; Sayre, Cindy; Wyant, Sheryl; Colobong Smith, Nancy; Keener, Sheila; Barrett, Shannon; Whitney, Joanne D

2011-10-01

In a 14-week medical-surgical nursing review course, two teaching strategies are used to promote active learning and assess the transfer of knowledge to nursing practice. Practice tests and clinical examples provide opportunities for participants to engage in self-assessment and reflective learning and enhance their nursing knowledge, skills, and practice. These strategies also contribute to program evaluation and are adaptable to a variety of course formats, including traditional classroom, web conference, and online self-study. Copyright 2011, SLACK Incorporated.

A Quantitative Inquiry into the Effects of Blended Learning on English Language Learning: The Case of Malaysian Undergraduates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thang, Siew Ming; Mustaffa, Rosniah; Wong, Fook Fei; Noor, Noorizah Mohd.; Mahmud, Najihah; Latif, Hafizah; Aziz, Mohd. Sallehhudin Abd.

2013-01-01

Blended learning has been described as a pedagogical approach that combines effectiveness and socialization opportunities of the classroom with the technologically enhanced active learning possibilities of the online environment (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004). It has also been depicted as an approach that combines traditional learning with…

Opportunities and Challenges: Integration of ICT in Teaching and Learning Mathematics in Secondary Schools, Nairobi, Kenya

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amuko, Sheila; Miheso, Marguerite; Ndeuthi, Sophie

2015-01-01

This presentation is based on a larger study whose purpose was to explore the various opportunities and challenges influencing integration of ICT in teaching and learning Mathematics in secondary schools in Nairobi County. The study, adopted a descriptive survey design. Three instruments questionnaires', a structured interview schedule and an…

The reform of home care services in Ontario: opportunity lost or lesson learned?

PubMed

Randall, Glen

2007-06-01

With the release of the Romanow Commission report, Canadian governments are poised to consider the creation of a national home care program. If occupational and physical therapists are to have input in shaping such a program, they will need to learn from lost opportunities of the past. This paper provides an overview of recent reforms to home care in Ontario with an emphasis on rehabilitation services. Data were collected from documents and 28 key informant interviews with rehabilitation professionals. Home care in Ontario has evolved in a piecemeal manner without rehabilitation professionals playing a prominent role in program design. Rehabilitation services play a critical role in facilitating hospital discharges, minimizing readmissions, and improving the quality of peoples' lives. Canadians will benefit if occupational and physical therapists seize the unique opportunity before them to provide meaningful input into creating a national home care program.

"Bringing Life to Learning": A Study of Active Learning in Hospitality Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chau, Salott; Cheung, Catherine

2017-01-01

Active learning connects students to the real life situations they will encounter in their future jobs. In hospitality education, active learning implements various lively, fun activities to introduce practical scenarios students may experience in their hospitality careers. This study identifies 18 essential active-learning items of hospitality…

Opportunities for extracurricular physical activity in North Carolina middle schools.

PubMed

Edwards, Michael B; Kanters, Michael A; Bocarro, Jason N

2011-07-01

This study's purpose was to assess the opportunities for North Carolina adolescents to be physically active in extracurricular middle school environments and to compare opportunities across community types. Data were analyzed based on the results of an electronic questionnaire distributed to a sample of 431 schools with a response rate of 75.4% (N = 325). Nearly all schools offered interscholastic sports while fewer than half offered intramurals or noncompetitive activities to students. "Open gym" was offered at only 35% of schools, while 24% of schools offered extracurricular activities to students with disabilities. Overall, 43.4% of schools offered special transportation to students who participated in some extracurricular physical activities. Schools in rural areas generally offered fewer programs and had fewer supports than schools located in more urbanized areas. Over two-thirds of rural schools offered no extracurricular programs other than interscholastic sports. Schools can be important settings for physical activity. North Carolina's middle schools and its rural schools in particular, are falling short in efforts to provide extracurricular physical activity programming recommended by researchers and policy groups. Lower accessibility to extracurricular physical activities may partially contribute to higher levels of physical inactivity found in the state.

Learning from failure in health care: frequent opportunities, pervasive barriers.

PubMed

Edmondson, A C

2004-12-01

The notion that hospitals and medical practices should learn from failures, both their own and others', has obvious appeal. Yet, healthcare organisations that systematically and effectively learn from the failures that occur in the care delivery process, especially from small mistakes and problems rather than from consequential adverse events, are rare. This article explores pervasive barriers embedded in healthcare's organisational systems that make shared or organisational learning from failure difficult and then recommends strategies for overcoming these barriers to learning from failure, emphasising the critical role of leadership. Firstly, leaders must create a compelling vision that motivates and communicates urgency for change; secondly, leaders must work to create an environment of psychological safety that fosters open reporting, active questioning, and frequent sharing of insights and concerns; and thirdly, case study research on one hospital's organisational learning initiative suggests that leaders can empower and support team learning throughout their organisations as a way of identifying, analysing, and removing hazards that threaten patient safety.

Learning from failure in health care: frequent opportunities, pervasive barriers

PubMed Central

Edmondson, A

2004-01-01

The notion that hospitals and medical practices should learn from failures, both their own and others', has obvious appeal. Yet, healthcare organisations that systematically and effectively learn from the failures that occur in the care delivery process, especially from small mistakes and problems rather than from consequential adverse events, are rare. This article explores pervasive barriers embedded in healthcare's organisational systems that make shared or organisational learning from failure difficult and then recommends strategies for overcoming these barriers to learning from failure, emphasising the critical role of leadership. Firstly, leaders must create a compelling vision that motivates and communicates urgency for change; secondly, leaders must work to create an environment of psychological safety that fosters open reporting, active questioning, and frequent sharing of insights and concerns; and thirdly, case study research on one hospital's organisational learning initiative suggests that leaders can empower and support team learning throughout their organisations as a way of identifying, analysing, and removing hazards that threaten patient safety. PMID:15576689

How Epistemic Beliefs Influence e-Learning in Daily Work-Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harteis, Christian; Gruber, Hans; Hertramph, Herbert

2010-01-01

Epistemic beliefs comprise the individual understanding of the nature of knowledge and the creation of knowledge. Hence, they impact the perception of learning opportunities and professional learning activities. Many enterprises apply computer technology in order to support staff development through e-learning activities. However, a closer look at…

Social competence and collaborative guided inquiry science activities: Experiences of students with learning disabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taylor, Jennifer Anne

This thesis presents a qualitative investigation of the effects of social competence on the participation of students with learning disabilities (LD) in the science learning processes associated with collaborative, guided inquiry learning. An inclusive Grade 2 classroom provided the setting for the study. Detailed classroom observations were the primary source of data. In addition, the researcher conducted two interviews with the teacher, and collected samples of students' written work. The purpose of the research was to investigate: (a) How do teachers and peers mediate the participation of students with LD in collaborative, guided inquiry science activities, (b) What learning processes do students with LD participate in during collaborative, guided inquiry science activities, and (c) What components of social competence support and constrain the participation of students with LD during collaborative, guided inquiry science activities? The findings of the study suggest five key ideas for research and teaching in collaborative, guided inquiry science in inclusive classrooms. First, using a variety of collaborative learning formats (whole-class, small-group, and pairs) creates more opportunities for the successful participation of diverse students with LD. Second, creating an inclusive community where students feel accepted and valued may enhance the academic and social success of students with LD. Third, careful selection of partners for students with LD is important for a positive learning experience. Students with LD should be partnered with academically successful, socially competent peers; also, this study suggested that students with LD experience more success working collaboratively in pairs rather than in small groups. Fourth, a variety of strategies are needed to promote active participation and positive social interactions for students with and without LD during collaborative, guided inquiry learning. Fifth, adopting a general approach to teaching

Students' Learning Behavior, Motivation and Critical Thinking in Learning Management Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wichadee, Saovapa

2014-01-01

Computer mediated communication (CMC) offers new opportunities for learners to create communities of inquiry that allow for more active learning. This paper reports on the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) as a tool to facilitate students' writing and critical thinking skills. The primary data for the study came from students'…

Professional learning opportunities from uncovering cover stories of science and science teaching for a scientist-in-transition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ritchie, Stephen M.; Kidman, Gillian; Vaughan, Tanya

2007-01-01

Members of particular communities produce and reproduce cultural practices. This is an important consideration for those teacher educators who need to prepare appropriate learning experiences and programs for scientists, as they attempt to change careers to science teaching. We know little about the transition of career-changing scientists as they encounter different contexts and professional cultures, and how their changing identities might impact on their teaching practices. In this narrative inquiry of the stories told by and shared between career-changing scientists in a teacher-preparation program, we identify cover stories of science and teaching. More importantly, we show how uncovering these stories became opportunities for one of these scientists to learn about what sorts of stories of science she tells or should tell in science classrooms and how these stories might impact on her identities as a scientist-teacher in transition. We highlight self-identified contradictions and treat these as resources for further professional learning. Suggestions for improving the teacher-education experiences of scientist-teachers are made. In particular, teacher educators might consider the merits of creating opportunities for career-changing scientists to share their stories and for these stories to be retold for different audiences.

Deep Learning through Concept-Based Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Donham, Jean

2010-01-01

Learning in the library should present opportunities to enrich student learning activities to address concerns of interest and cognitive complexity, but these must be tasks that call for in-depth analysis--not merely gathering facts. Library learning experiences need to demand enough of students to keep them interested and also need to be…

Distance Learning: A Game Changer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bates, Rodger; LaBrecque, Bryan

2017-01-01

Previous research identified a variety of special populations which may be serviced through online learning activities. These have included the military, Native Americans, prisoners, remote occupations, and others. This paper focuses the growing role of distance learning opportunities for student and professional athletes. Special attention is…

The theory of expanded, extended, and enhanced opportunities for youth physical activity promotion.

PubMed

Beets, Michael W; Okely, Anthony; Weaver, R Glenn; Webster, Collin; Lubans, David; Brusseau, Tim; Carson, Russ; Cliff, Dylan P

2016-11-16

Physical activity interventions targeting children and adolescents (≤18 years) often focus on complex intra- and inter-personal behavioral constructs, social-ecological frameworks, or some combination of both. Recently published meta-analytical reviews and large-scale randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that these intervention approaches have largely produced minimal or no improvements in young people's physical activity levels. In this paper, we propose that the main reason for previous studies' limited effects is that fundamental mechanisms that lead to change in youth physical activity have often been overlooked or misunderstood. Evidence from observational and experimental studies is presented to support the development of a new theory positing that the primary mechanisms of change in many youth physical activity interventions are approaches that fall into one of the following three categories: (a) the expansion of opportunities for youth to be active by the inclusion of a new occasion to be active, (b) the extension of an existing physical activity opportunity by increasing the amount of time allocated for that opportunity, and/or (c) the enhancement of existing physical activity opportunities through strategies designed to increase physical activity above routine practice. Their application and considerations for intervention design and interpretation are presented. The utility of these mechanisms, referred to as the Theory of Expanded, Extended, and Enhanced Opportunities (TEO), is demonstrated in their parsimony, logical appeal, support with empirical evidence, and the direct and immediate application to numerous settings and contexts. The TEO offers a new way to understand youth physical activity behaviors and provides a common taxonomy by which interventionists can identify appropriate targets for interventions across different settings and contexts. We believe the formalization of the TEO concepts will propel them to the forefront in the

Extracurricular activities and the development of social skills in children with intellectual and specific learning disabilities.

PubMed

Brooks, B A; Floyd, F; Robins, D L; Chan, W Y

2015-07-01

Children with intellectual disability and specific learning disabilities often lack age-appropriate social skills, which disrupts their social functioning. Because of the limited effectiveness of classroom mainstreaming and social skills training for these children, it is important to explore alternative opportunities for social skill acquisition. Participation in social activities is positively related to children's social adjustment, but little is known about the benefits of activity participation for children with intellectual and specific learning disabilities. This study investigated the association between frequency and type of social activity participation and the social competence of 8-11-year-old children with intellectual disability (n = 40) and specific learning disabilities (n = 53), in comparison with typically developing peers (n = 24). More time involved in unstructured activities, but not structured activities, was associated with higher levels of social competence for all children. This association was strongest for children with intellectual disability, suggesting that participation in unstructured social activities was most beneficial for these children. Future research on the quality of involvement is necessary to further understand specific aspects of unstructured activities that might facilitate social development. © 2014 MENCAP and International Association of the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Developing Interactive E-Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watkins, Ryan

2005-01-01

Although e-learning can offer interactive and engaging learning experiences, the creative ideas that are necessary to create such environments are not always easy to come up with when designing, developing, or teaching e-learning courses. E-learning activities use online technologies such as chat rooms, discussion boards, or email to facilitate…

Clinical learning environments: place, artefacts and rhythm.

PubMed

Sheehan, Dale; Jowsey, Tanisha; Parwaiz, Mariam; Birch, Mark; Seaton, Philippa; Shaw, Susan; Duggan, Alison; Wilkinson, Tim

2017-10-01

Health care practitioners learn through experience in clinical environments in which supervision is a key component, but how that learning occurs outside the supervision relationship remains largely unknown. This study explores the environmental factors that inform and support workplace learning within a clinical environment. An observational study drawing on ethnographic methods was undertaken in a general medicine ward. Observers paid attention to interactions among staff members that involved potential teaching and learning moments that occurred and were visible in the course of routine work. General purpose thematic analysis of field notes was undertaken. A total of 376 observations were undertaken and documented. The findings suggest that place (location of interaction), rhythm (regularity of activities occurring in the ward) and artefacts (objects and equipment) were strong influences on the interactions and exchanges that occurred. Each of these themes had inherent tensions that could promote or inhibit engagement and therefore learning opportunities. Although many learning opportunities were available, not all were taken up or recognised by the participants. We describe and make explicit how the natural environment of a medical ward and flow of work through patient care contribute to the learning architecture, and how this creates or inhibits opportunities for learning. Awareness of learning opportunities was often tacit and not explicit for either supervisor or learner. We identify strategies through which tensions inherent within space, artefacts and the rhythms of work can be resolved and learning opportunities maximised. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

Constructivism and Learning in the Age of Social Media: Changing Minds and Learning Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schrader, Dawn E.

2015-01-01

Social media provide new means and opportunities for learning that are consistent with major tenets of both social and cognitive constructivism, and extend the process of learning and meaning construction to more diverse communities and universally accessible shared activities that are jointly and concurrently engaged in by both peers and experts.

An Innovative Teaching Method To Promote Active Learning: Team-Based Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balasubramanian, R.

2007-12-01

Traditional teaching practice based on the textbook-whiteboard- lecture-homework-test paradigm is not very effective in helping students with diverse academic backgrounds achieve higher-order critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Consequently, there is a critical need for developing a new pedagogical approach to create a collaborative and interactive learning environment in which students with complementary academic backgrounds and learning skills can work together to enhance their learning outcomes. In this presentation, I will discuss an innovative teaching method ('Team-Based Learning (TBL)") which I recently developed at National University of Singapore to promote active learning among students in the environmental engineering program with learning abilities. I implemented this new educational activity in a graduate course. Student feedback indicates that this pedagogical approach is appealing to most students, and promotes active & interactive learning in class. Data will be presented to show that the innovative teaching method has contributed to improved student learning and achievement.

Is Peer Interaction Necessary for Optimal Active Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Linton, Debra L.; Farmer, Jan Keith; Peterson, Ernie

2014-01-01

Meta-analyses of active-learning research consistently show that active-learning techniques result in greater student performance than traditional lecture-based courses. However, some individual studies show no effect of active-learning interventions. This may be due to inexperienced implementation of active learning. To minimize the effect of…

The World as Functional Learning Environment: An Intercultural Learning Network. Interactive Technology Laboratory Report #7.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohen, Moshe; And Others

Electronic networks provide new opportunities to create functional learning environments which allow students in many different locations to carry out joint educational activities. A set of participant observation studies was conducted in the context of a cross-cultural, cross-language network called the Intercultural Learning Network in order to…

Student Perceptions of Active Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lumpkin, Angela; Achen, Rebecca M.; Dodd, Regan K.

2015-01-01

A paradigm shift from lecture-based courses to interactive classes punctuated with engaging, student-centered learning activities has begun to characterize the work of some teachers in higher education. Convinced through the literature of the values of using active learning strategies, we assessed through an action research project in five college…

Math Is More than Numbers: Beginning Bilingual Teachers' Mathematics Teaching Practices and Their Opportunities to Learn

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yeh, Cathery

2017-01-01

In this article, the author provides results from a 3-year, longitudinal study that examined two novice bilingual teachers' mathematics teaching practices and their professional opportunities to learn to teach. Primary data sources included videotaped mathematics lessons, teacher interviews, and field notes of their teacher preparation methods…

Using a Learning Activity Sequence in Large-Enrollment Physical Geology Classes: Supporting the Needs of Underserved Students While Motivating Interest, Learning, and Success

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pun, A.; Smith, G. A.

2011-12-01

-enrollment department sections taught during the same period. (2) Anonymous student surveys show that: 97% of students do at least some of the assigned reading before class while 58% indicate they would not do the reading if online reading assessments were not assigned; 72% indicate post-lecture online assessments prepare them for exams; greater than 80% of students feel that they learn more in the LAS approach than with traditional instruction; 90% favor active learning in the classroom to only lecture; learning opportunities motivate 82% to attend class to participate in peer instruction and in-class exercises, even if these assignments did not contribute at all to their grade. Notably, first-generation students show disproportionately greater preference for active in-class learning. (3) Learning gains were assessed with the geoscience concept inventory (GCI) of Libarkin and Anderson (2005, J Geo Ed 53(4):395-401). Paired pre- and post-test scores (n=404) in 5 classes show an improvement from 46% to 52% (11% normalized gain), within the target goal that McConnell et al. (2008, GSA Abst Prog 41(1):49) propose for introductory geology courses that produce improved conceptual geoscience learning.

Active-Learning versus Teacher-Centered Instruction for Learning Acids and Bases

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sesen, Burcin Acar; Tarhan, Leman

2011-01-01

Background and purpose: Active-learning as a student-centered learning process has begun to take more interest in constructing scientific knowledge. For this reason, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of active-learning implementation on high-school students' understanding of "acids and bases". Sample: The sample of this…

A Tool for Measuring Active Learning in the Classroom

PubMed Central

Devlin, John W.; Kirwin, Jennifer L.; Qualters, Donna M.

2007-01-01

Objectives To develop a valid and reliable active-learning inventory tool for use in large classrooms and compare faculty perceptions of active-learning using the Active-Learning Inventory Tool. Methods The Active-Learning Inventory Tool was developed using published literature and validated by national experts in educational research. Reliability was established by trained faculty members who used the Active-Learning Inventory Tool to observe 9 pharmacy lectures. Instructors were then interviewed to elicit perceptions regarding active learning and asked to share their perceptions. Results Per lecture, 13 (range: 4-34) episodes of active learning encompassing 3 (range: 2-5) different types of active learning occurred over 2.2 minutes (0.6-16) per episode. Both interobserver (≥87%) and observer-instructor agreement (≥68%) were high for these outcomes. Conclusions The Active-Learning Inventory Tool is a valid and reliable tool to measure active learning in the classroom. Future studies are needed to determine the impact of the Active-Learning Inventory Tool on teaching and its usefulness in other disciplines. PMID:17998982

Mobile Learning: Can Students Really Multitask?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coens, Joke; Reynvoet, Bert; Clarebout, Geraldine

2011-01-01

The advent of mobile learning offers opportunities for students to do two things at once in an educational context: learning while performing another activity. The main aim of the reported studies is to address the effect of multitasking on learning with a mobile device. Two experiments were set up to examine the effect of performing a secondary…

Are students' impressions of improved learning through active learning methods reflected by improved test scores?

PubMed

Everly, Marcee C

2013-02-01

To report the transformation from lecture to more active learning methods in a maternity nursing course and to evaluate whether student perception of improved learning through active-learning methods is supported by improved test scores. The process of transforming a course into an active-learning model of teaching is described. A voluntary mid-semester survey for student acceptance of the new teaching method was conducted. Course examination results, from both a standardized exam and a cumulative final exam, among students who received lecture in the classroom and students who had active learning activities in the classroom were compared. Active learning activities were very acceptable to students. The majority of students reported learning more from having active-learning activities in the classroom rather than lecture-only and this belief was supported by improved test scores. Students who had active learning activities in the classroom scored significantly higher on a standardized assessment test than students who received lecture only. The findings support the use of student reflection to evaluate the effectiveness of active-learning methods and help validate the use of student reflection of improved learning in other research projects. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Linking Mission to Learning Activities for Assurance of Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yeung, Shirley Mo-ching

2011-01-01

Can accreditation-related requirements and mission statements measure learning outcomes? This study focuses on triangulating accreditation-related requirements with mission statements and learning activities to learning outcomes. This topic has not been comprehensively explored in the past. After looking into the requirements of AACSB, ISO, and…

Examining Opportunity-to-Learn and Success in High School Mathematics Performance in California under NCLB

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gavrilovic, Daniel Miodrag

2013-01-01

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has put many schools under a lot of pressure to meet its high demands. In this quantitative study, the effects that the NCLB act has had on students' opportunity to learn (OTL) and Subject Level Success (SS) from 2004 to 2012 in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade math coursework (Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and…

Active Learning in the Middle Grades

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edwards, Susan

2015-01-01

What is active learning and what does it look like in the classroom? If students are participating in active learning, they are playing a more engaged role in the learning process and are not overly reliant on the teacher (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2003; Petress, 2008). The purpose of this article is to propose a framework to describe and…

Active Learning Not Associated with Student Learning in a Random Sample of College Biology Courses

PubMed Central

Andrews, T. M.; Leonard, M. J.; Colgrove, C. A.; Kalinowski, S. T.

2011-01-01

Previous research has suggested that adding active learning to traditional college science lectures substantially improves student learning. However, this research predominantly studied courses taught by science education researchers, who are likely to have exceptional teaching expertise. The present study investigated introductory biology courses randomly selected from a list of prominent colleges and universities to include instructors representing a broader population. We examined the relationship between active learning and student learning in the subject area of natural selection. We found no association between student learning gains and the use of active-learning instruction. Although active learning has the potential to substantially improve student learning, this research suggests that active learning, as used by typical college biology instructors, is not associated with greater learning gains. We contend that most instructors lack the rich and nuanced understanding of teaching and learning that science education researchers have developed. Therefore, active learning as designed and implemented by typical college biology instructors may superficially resemble active learning used by education researchers, but lacks the constructivist elements necessary for improving learning. PMID:22135373

A Web of Learning Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andersen, Britt; Ree, Gunnar; Sandaker, Ingunn

2010-01-01

For at least two decades, politicians, academics and other stakeholders have advocated cooperation across sectors, administrative layers and other institutionalised boundaries to achieve objectives of what are called "learning regions" and the "lifelong learning perspective". Boundaries between geographical, institutional and sectors are becoming…

When Are Workload and Workplace Learning Opportunities Related in a Curvilinear Manner? The Moderating Role of Autonomy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Ruysseveldt, Joris; van Dijke, Marius

2011-01-01

Building on theoretical frameworks like the Job Demands Control model and Action Theory we tested whether the relationship between workload and employees' experiences of opportunities for workplace learning is of an inverted u-shaped nature and whether autonomy moderates this relationship. We predicted that--at moderate levels of…

In Defense of Active Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pica, Rae

2008-01-01

Effective early childhood teachers use what they know about and have observed in young children to design programs to meet children's developmental needs. Play and active learning are key tools to address those needs and facilitate children's early education. In this article, the author discusses the benefits of active learning in the education of…

Active learning methods for interactive image retrieval.

PubMed

Gosselin, Philippe Henri; Cord, Matthieu

2008-07-01

Active learning methods have been considered with increased interest in the statistical learning community. Initially developed within a classification framework, a lot of extensions are now being proposed to handle multimedia applications. This paper provides algorithms within a statistical framework to extend active learning for online content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The classification framework is presented with experiments to compare several powerful classification techniques in this information retrieval context. Focusing on interactive methods, active learning strategy is then described. The limitations of this approach for CBIR are emphasized before presenting our new active selection process RETIN. First, as any active method is sensitive to the boundary estimation between classes, the RETIN strategy carries out a boundary correction to make the retrieval process more robust. Second, the criterion of generalization error to optimize the active learning selection is modified to better represent the CBIR objective of database ranking. Third, a batch processing of images is proposed. Our strategy leads to a fast and efficient active learning scheme to retrieve sets of online images (query concept). Experiments on large databases show that the RETIN method performs well in comparison to several other active strategies.

Comparison of Feature Learning Methods for Human Activity Recognition Using Wearable Sensors

PubMed Central

Li, Frédéric; Nisar, Muhammad Adeel; Köping, Lukas; Grzegorzek, Marcin

2018-01-01

Getting a good feature representation of data is paramount for Human Activity Recognition (HAR) using wearable sensors. An increasing number of feature learning approaches—in particular deep-learning based—have been proposed to extract an effective feature representation by analyzing large amounts of data. However, getting an objective interpretation of their performances faces two problems: the lack of a baseline evaluation setup, which makes a strict comparison between them impossible, and the insufficiency of implementation details, which can hinder their use. In this paper, we attempt to address both issues: we firstly propose an evaluation framework allowing a rigorous comparison of features extracted by different methods, and use it to carry out extensive experiments with state-of-the-art feature learning approaches. We then provide all the codes and implementation details to make both the reproduction of the results reported in this paper and the re-use of our framework easier for other researchers. Our studies carried out on the OPPORTUNITY and UniMiB-SHAR datasets highlight the effectiveness of hybrid deep-learning architectures involving convolutional and Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) to obtain features characterising both short- and long-term time dependencies in the data. PMID:29495310

Comparison of Feature Learning Methods for Human Activity Recognition Using Wearable Sensors.

PubMed

Li, Frédéric; Shirahama, Kimiaki; Nisar, Muhammad Adeel; Köping, Lukas; Grzegorzek, Marcin

2018-02-24

Getting a good feature representation of data is paramount for Human Activity Recognition (HAR) using wearable sensors. An increasing number of feature learning approaches-in particular deep-learning based-have been proposed to extract an effective feature representation by analyzing large amounts of data. However, getting an objective interpretation of their performances faces two problems: the lack of a baseline evaluation setup, which makes a strict comparison between them impossible, and the insufficiency of implementation details, which can hinder their use. In this paper, we attempt to address both issues: we firstly propose an evaluation framework allowing a rigorous comparison of features extracted by different methods, and use it to carry out extensive experiments with state-of-the-art feature learning approaches. We then provide all the codes and implementation details to make both the reproduction of the results reported in this paper and the re-use of our framework easier for other researchers. Our studies carried out on the OPPORTUNITY and UniMiB-SHAR datasets highlight the effectiveness of hybrid deep-learning architectures involving convolutional and Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) to obtain features characterising both short- and long-term time dependencies in the data.

Student-Centered Modules to Support Active Learning in Hydrology: Development Experiences and Users' Perspectives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tarboton, D. G.; Habib, E. H.; Deshotel, M.; Merck, M. F.; Lall, U.; Farnham, D. J.

2016-12-01

Traditional approaches to undergraduate hydrology and water resource education are textbook based, adopt unit processes and rely on idealized examples of specific applications, rather than examining the contextual relations in the processes and the dynamics connecting climate and ecosystems. The overarching goal of this project is to address the needed paradigm shift in undergraduate education of engineering hydrology and water resources education to reflect parallel advances in hydrologic research and technology, mainly in the areas of new observational settings, data and modeling resources and web-based technologies. This study presents efforts to develop a set of learning modules that are case-based, data and simulation driven and delivered via a web user interface. The modules are based on real-world case studies from three regional hydrologic settings: Coastal Louisiana, Utah Rocky Mountains and Florida Everglades. These three systems provide unique learning opportunities on topics such as: regional-scale budget analysis, hydrologic effects of human and natural changes, flashflood protection, climate-hydrology teleconnections and water resource management scenarios. The technical design and contents of the modules aim to support students' ability for transforming their learning outcomes and skills to hydrologic systems other than those used by the specific activity. To promote active learning, the modules take students through a set of highly engaging learning activities that are based on analysis of hydrologic data and model simulations. The modules include user support in the form of feedback and self-assessment mechanisms that are integrated within the online modules. Module effectiveness is assessed through an improvement-focused evaluation model using a mixed-method research approach guiding collection and analysis of evaluation data. Both qualitative and quantitative data are collected through student learning data, product analysis, and staff interviews

Coming Out in Class: Challenges and Benefits of Active Learning in a Biology Classroom for LGBTQIA Students

PubMed Central

Cooper, Katelyn M.; Brownell, Sara E.

2016-01-01

As we transition our undergraduate biology classrooms from traditional lectures to active learning, the dynamics among students become more important. These dynamics can be influenced by student social identities. One social identity that has been unexamined in the context of undergraduate biology is the spectrum of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) identities. In this exploratory interview study, we probed the experiences and perceptions of seven students who identify as part of the LGBTQIA community. We found that students do not always experience the undergraduate biology classroom to be a welcoming or accepting place for their identities. In contrast to traditional lectures, active-learning classes increase the relevance of their LGBTQIA identities due to the increased interactions among students during group work. Finally, working with other students in active-learning classrooms can present challenges and opportunities for students considering their LGBTQIA identity. These findings indicate that these students’ LGBTQIA identities are affecting their experience in the classroom and that there may be specific instructional practices that can mitigate some of the possible obstacles. We hope that this work can stimulate discussions about how to broadly make our active-learning biology classes more inclusive of this specific population of students. PMID:27543636

Experience of cooperative learning in engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maceiras, Rocio; Cancela, Angeles; Urréjola, Santiago; Sánchez, Angel

2011-03-01

The objective of this work is to share the authors' experience towards a different mode of teaching/learning method. Cooperative learning (Jigsaw) was employed on the University of Vigo's fourth-year engineering students. The results of the experience show that cooperative learning is quite a viable alternative to the classical way of lecturing at the university when the number of students is not too high. The authors' observation indicates that students did not show a lot of interest towards the new learning style but their resistance changed once they began the activity. The Jigsaw method has proved to be a useful tool for improving the learning process so that students have the opportunity to participate actively in the learning activities.

Using Tests as Learning Opportunities.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Foos, Paul W.; Fisher, Ronald P.

1988-01-01

A study involving 105 undergraduates assessed the value of testing as a means of increasing, rather than simply monitoring, learning. Results indicate that fill-in-the-blank and items requiring student inferences were more effective, respectively, than multiple-choice tests and verbatim items in furthering student learning. (TJH)

Center-Based Teaching and Children's Learning: The Effects of Learning Centers on Young Children's Growth and Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bottini, Michael; Grossman, Sue

2005-01-01

Many early childhood professionals recommend the use of learning centers in classrooms for young children (Kostelnik, Soderman, & Whiren, 2004). Centers provide children with opportunities for making choices, working with others, being involved in hands-on activities, and becoming fully engaged in learning. In contrast, traditional classroom…

Learning Style Differences in the Perceived Effectiveness of Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karns, Gary L.

2006-01-01

The learning style individual difference factor has long been a basis for understanding student preferences for various learning activities. Marketing educators have been advised to heavily invest in tailoring course design based on the learning style groups in their classes. A further exploration of the effects of learning style differences on…

The Role of High School Racial Composition and Opportunities to Learn in Students' STEM College Participation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bottia, Martha Cecilia; Mickelson, Roslyn Arlin; Giersch, Jason; Stearns, Elizabeth; Moller, Stephanie

2018-01-01

We analyze longitudinal data from students who spent their academic careers in North Carolina (NC) public secondary schools and attended NC public universities to investigate the importance of high school racial composition and opportunities to learn in secondary school for choosing a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major.…

Learning Opportunities for Pre-Service Science Teachers in a Core Course on Educational Psychology: Changing Epistemological View

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Azam, Saiqa

2016-01-01

This paper describes an action research study aimed at challenging and changing the epistemological views of pre-service science teachers (PSTs) during a core course on educational psychology in a teacher education programme. The researcher, as an instructor, used this course to provide learning opportunities for PSTs to change their existing…

Opportunities for Learning Math in Elementary School: Implications for SES Disparities in Procedural and Conceptual Math Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bachman, Heather J.; Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth; El Nokali, Nermeen E.; Castle Heatly, Melissa

2015-01-01

The present study examined whether multiple opportunities to learn math were associated with smaller socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in fifth-grade math achievement using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD; N = 1,364). High amounts of procedural math instruction were associated with higher…

Nothing Succeeds Like Success? Equity, Student Outcomes, and Opportunity to Learn in High- and Middle-Income Countries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santibañez, Lucrecia; Fagioli, Loris

2016-01-01

A strong relationship between article background and educational outcomes fuels a negative inequality cycle. This paper explores the interplay between student socioeconomic status and educational outcomes, and the mediating role of Opportunity-to-Learn (OTL) in high- and middle-income countries. Using data from PISA 2012, we find that the…

Incorporation of Socio-scientific Content into Active Learning Activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, D. B.; Lewis, J. E.; Anderson, K.; Latch, D.; Sutheimer, S.; Webster, G.; Moog, R.

2014-12-01

Active learning has gained increasing support as an effective pedagogical technique to improve student learning. One way to promote active learning in the classroom is the use of in-class activities in place of lecturing. As part of an NSF-funded project, a set of in-class activities have been created that use climate change topics to teach chemistry content. These activities use the Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) methodology. In this pedagogical approach a set of models and a series of critical thinking questions are used to guide students through the introduction to or application of course content. Students complete the activities in their groups, with the faculty member as a facilitator of learning. Through assigned group roles and intentionally designed activity structure, process skills, such as teamwork, communication, and information processing, are developed during completion of the activity. Each of these climate change activities contains a socio-scientific component, e.g., social, ethical and economic data. In one activity, greenhouse gases are used to explain the concept of dipole moment. Data about natural and anthropogenic production rates, global warming potential and atmospheric lifetimes for a list of greenhouse gases are presented. The students are asked to identify which greenhouse gas they would regulate, with a corresponding explanation for their choice. They are also asked to identify the disadvantages of regulating the gas they chose in the previous question. In another activity, where carbon sequestration is used to demonstrate the utility of a phase diagram, students use economic and environmental data to choose the best location for sequestration. Too often discussions about climate change (both in and outside the classroom) consist of purely emotional responses. These activities force students to use data to support their arguments and hypothesize about what other data could be used in the corresponding discussion to

Active learning in capstone design courses.

PubMed

Goldberg, Jay R

2012-01-01

There is a growing trend to encourage students to take a more active role in their own education. Many schools are moving away from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side model where the instructor is a facilitator of learning. In this model, the emphasis is more on learning and less on teaching, and it requires instructors to incorporate more active and student-centered learning methods into their courses. These methods include collaborative, cooperative, problem-based, and project-based learning.

Healthy food choices and physical activity opportunities in two contrasting Alabama cities.

PubMed

Bovell-Benjamin, A C; Hathorn, C S; Ibrahim, S; Gichuhi, P N; Bromfield, E M

2009-06-01

Food and physical activity access and availability in two contrasting cities in Alabama were investigated. An in-outlet, observational, cross-sectional design was utilized to assess the opportunities for healthy food choices and physical activity. Thirty retail food outlets and 29 physical activity outlets were inventoried. None of the convenience stores carried frozen, low-sodium or dark-green, yellow vegetables, low-fat milk or yogurt, low-sodium and low-fat cheese, while none of the supermarkets in Tuskegee stocked low-sodium vegetables. In Tuskegee, the single public recreational area, which offered activities such as basketball, fees ranged from $25 to $35/month. Tuskegee has a shortage of "chain" supermarkets and a dominance of convenience stores which stocked few healthy foods. Overall, there are limited opportunities for healthy food and physical activity choices, which could be a barrier for chronic disease prevention efforts.

Automatic Earthquake Detection by Active Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bergen, K.; Beroza, G. C.

2017-12-01

In recent years, advances in machine learning have transformed fields such as image recognition, natural language processing and recommender systems. Many of these performance gains have relied on the availability of large, labeled data sets to train high-accuracy models; labeled data sets are those for which each sample includes a target class label, such as waveforms tagged as either earthquakes or noise. Earthquake seismologists are increasingly leveraging machine learning and data mining techniques to detect and analyze weak earthquake signals in large seismic data sets. One of the challenges in applying machine learning to seismic data sets is the limited labeled data problem; learning algorithms need to be given examples of earthquake waveforms, but the number of known events, taken from earthquake catalogs, may be insufficient to build an accurate detector. Furthermore, earthquake catalogs are known to be incomplete, resulting in training data that may be biased towards larger events and contain inaccurate labels. This challenge is compounded by the class imbalance problem; the events of interest, earthquakes, are infrequent relative to noise in continuous data sets, and many learning algorithms perform poorly on rare classes. In this work, we investigate the use of active learning for automatic earthquake detection. Active learning is a type of semi-supervised machine learning that uses a human-in-the-loop approach to strategically supplement a small initial training set. The learning algorithm incorporates domain expertise through interaction between a human expert and the algorithm, with the algorithm actively posing queries to the user to improve detection performance. We demonstrate the potential of active machine learning to improve earthquake detection performance with limited available training data.

Informal Learning from Error in Hospitals: What Do We Learn, How Do We Learn and How Can Informal Learning Be Enhanced? A Narrative Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Feijter, Jeantine M.; de Grave, Willem S.; Koopmans, Richard P.; Scherpbier, Albert J. J. A.

2013-01-01

Learning from error is not just an individual endeavour. Organisations also learn from error. Hospitals provide many learning opportunities, which can be formal or informal. Informal learning from error in hospitals has not been researched in much depth so this narrative review focuses on five learning opportunities: morbidity and mortality…

Strategies for active learning in online continuing education.

PubMed

Phillips, Janet M

2005-01-01

Online continuing education and staff development is on the rise as the benefits of access, convenience, and quality learning are continuing to take shape. Strategies to enhance learning call for learner participation that is self-directed and independent, thus changing the educator's role from expert to coach and facilitator. Good planning of active learning strategies promotes optimal learning whether the learning content is presented in a course or a just-in-time short module. Active learning strategies can be used to enhance online learning during all phases of the teaching-learning process and can accommodate a variety of learning styles. Feedback from peers, educators, and technology greatly influences learner satisfaction and must be harnessed to provide effective learning experiences. Outcomes of active learning can be assessed online and implemented conveniently and successfully from the initiation of the course or module planning to the end of the evaluation process. Online learning has become accessible and convenient and allows the educator to track learner participation. The future of online education will continue to grow, and using active learning strategies will ensure that quality learning will occur, appealing to a wide variety of learning needs.

Teamwork situated in multiteam systems: Key lessons learned and future opportunities.

PubMed

Shuffler, Marissa L; Carter, Dorothy R

2018-01-01

Many important contexts requiring teamwork, including health care, space exploration, national defense, and scientific discovery, present important challenges that cannot be addressed by a single team working independently. Instead, the complex goals these contexts present often require effectively coordinated efforts of multiple specialized teams working together as a multiteam system (MTS). For almost 2 decades, researchers have endeavored to understand the novelties and nuances for teamwork and collaboration that ensue when teams operate together as "component teams" in these interdependent systems. In this special issue on the settings of teamwork, we aim to synthesize what is known thus far regarding teamwork situated in MTS contexts and offer new directions and considerations for developing, maintaining, and sustaining effective collaboration in MTSs. Our review of extant research on MTSs reveals 7 key lessons learned regarding teamwork situated in MTSs, but also reveals that much is left to learn about the science and practice of ensuring effective multiteam functioning. We elaborate these lessons and delineate 4 major opportunities for advancing the science of MTSs as a critical embedding context for collaboration and teamwork, now and in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Technology Learning Activities I.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

International Technology Education Association, Reston, VA.

This guide contains 30 technology learning activities. Activities may contain all or some of the following: an introduction, objectives, materials and equipment, challenges, limitations, notes and investigations, resources and references used, and evaluation ideas. Activity titles are: (1) Occupations in Construction Technology; (2) Designing a…

Visual and Experiential Learning Opportunities through Geospatial Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gardiner, N.; Bulletins, S.

2007-12-01

Global observation data from satellites are essential for both research and education about Earth's climate because they help convey the temporal and spatial scales inherent to the subject, which are beyond most people's experience. Experts in the development of visualizations using spatial data distinguish the process of learning through data exploration from the process of learning by absorbing a story told from beginning to end. The former requires the viewer to absorb complex spatial and temporal dynamics inherent to visualized data and therefore is a process best undertaken by those familiar with the data and processes represented. The latter requires that the viewer understand the intended presentation of concepts, so story telling can be employed to educate viewers with varying backgrounds and familiarity with a given subject. Three examples of climate science education, drawn from the current science program Science Bulletins (American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA), demonstrate the power of visualized global earth observations for climate science education. The first example seeks to explain the potential for sea level rise on a global basis. A short feature film includes the visualized, projected effects of sea level rise at local to global scales; this visualization complements laboratory and field observations of glacier retreat and paleoclimatic reconstructions based on fossilized coral reef analysis, each of which is also depicted in the film. The narrative structure keeps learners focused on discrete scientific concepts. The second example utilizes half-hourly cloud observations to demonstrate weather and climate patterns to audiences on a global basis. Here, the scientific messages are qualitatively simpler, but the viewer must deduce his own complex visual understanding of the visualized data. Finally, we present plans for distributing climate science education products via mediated public events whereby participants learn from climate

Students' Satisfaction on Their Learning Process in Active Learning and Traditional Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hyun, Jung; Ediger, Ruth; Lee, Donghun

2017-01-01

Studies have shown Active Learning Classrooms [ALCs] help increase student engagement and improve student performance. However, remodeling all traditional classrooms to ALCs entails substantial financial burdens. Thus, an imperative question for institutions of higher education is whether active learning pedagogies can improve learning outcomes…

Modelling Typical Online Language Learning Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montoro, Carlos; Hampel, Regine; Stickler, Ursula

2014-01-01

This article presents the methods and results of a four-year-long research project focusing on the language learning activity of individual learners using online tasks conducted at the University of Guanajuato (Mexico) in 2009-2013. An activity-theoretical model (Blin, 2010; Engeström, 1987) of the typical language learning activity was used to…

How Learning Mathematics Can Be Made More Enjoyable

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

D'Apice, Ciro; Manzo, Rosanna

2004-01-01

New information technologies can act as a Trojan horse offering activities that will require major changes in the teaching-learning process. Computer aided learning applications are able to offer advanced students the opportunity to improve their skills and to maintain their motivation. In the spirit of "learning by doing", they are…

Kinaesthetic Learning Activities and Learning about Solar Cells

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richards, A. J.; Etkina, Eugenia

2013-01-01

Kinaesthetic learning activities (KLAs) can be a valuable pedagogical tool for physics instructors. They have been shown to increase engagement, encourage participation and improve learning outcomes. This paper details several KLAs developed at Rutgers University for inclusion in an instructional unit about semiconductors, p-n junctions and solar…

Group-Based Active Learning of Classification Models.

PubMed

Luo, Zhipeng; Hauskrecht, Milos

2017-05-01

Learning of classification models from real-world data often requires additional human expert effort to annotate the data. However, this process can be rather costly and finding ways of reducing the human annotation effort is critical for this task. The objective of this paper is to develop and study new ways of providing human feedback for efficient learning of classification models by labeling groups of examples. Briefly, unlike traditional active learning methods that seek feedback on individual examples, we develop a new group-based active learning framework that solicits label information on groups of multiple examples. In order to describe groups in a user-friendly way, conjunctive patterns are used to compactly represent groups. Our empirical study on 12 UCI data sets demonstrates the advantages and superiority of our approach over both classic instance-based active learning work, as well as existing group-based active-learning methods.

Scene recognition based on integrating active learning with dictionary learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Chengxi; Yin, Xueyan; Yang, Lin; Gong, Chengrong; Zheng, Caixia; Yi, Yugen

2018-04-01

Scene recognition is a significant topic in the field of computer vision. Most of the existing scene recognition models require a large amount of labeled training samples to achieve a good performance. However, labeling image manually is a time consuming task and often unrealistic in practice. In order to gain satisfying recognition results when labeled samples are insufficient, this paper proposed a scene recognition algorithm named Integrating Active Learning and Dictionary Leaning (IALDL). IALDL adopts projective dictionary pair learning (DPL) as classifier and introduces active learning mechanism into DPL for improving its performance. When constructing sampling criterion in active learning, IALDL considers both the uncertainty and representativeness as the sampling criteria to effectively select the useful unlabeled samples from a given sample set for expanding the training dataset. Experiment results on three standard databases demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed IALDL.

Innovative Experiential Learning Activities in Aging: The Experiences of Four BEL Projects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hash, Kristina M.; Poole, Jay; Floyd, Melissa; Moore, Crystal Dea; Rogers, Anissa T.; Tower, Leslie E.

2017-01-01

The BSW Experiential Learning (BEL) Program aims to infuse intergenerational content into the curriculum and recruit students to the field of social work by implementing face-to-face learning opportunities with older adults. This article discusses and compares the experiences of 4 diverse BEL projects that implemented gero-experiential learning…

Active Learning Crosses Generations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Woodard, Diane K.

2002-01-01

Describes the benefits of intergenerational programs, highlighting a child care program that offers age-appropriate and mutually beneficial activities for children and elders within a nearby retirement community. The program has adopted High/Scope's active learning approach to planning and implementing activities that involve both generations. The…

How Positioning Shapes Opportunities for Student Agency in Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

York, Adam; Kirshner, Ben

2015-01-01

This chapter shows how student positioning by adults shapes opportunities for students to learn collective systemic agency including practices such as organizing others, developing a systemic analysis, and taking action in complex institutions, such as schools. We argue that these learning opportunities are expanded when education professionals…

Learning from Schools That Close Opportunity Gaps

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LaCour, Sarah E.; York, Adam; Welner, Kevin; Valladares, Michelle Renée; Kelley, Linda Molner

2017-01-01

The Schools of Opportunity Project recognizes public high schools that employ research-based practices to close opportunity gaps. The commended schools illustrate how school quality can and should be measured by far more than just test scores. In doing so, they offer exemplars and a path forward for the nation's schools. The selection criteria for…

Digital Discourses in Early Childhood Educator Online Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoffman, Emily Brown

2017-01-01

Active, dialogic participation is a necessary component of high quality teacher professional learning (Dunst, Bruder, & Hamby, 2015). However, logistical problems arise when implementing cooperative learning opportunities for early childhood educators, as preschool teachers are habitually separated from peers both institutionally and…

Active-learning processes used in US pharmacy education.

PubMed

Stewart, David W; Brown, Stacy D; Clavier, Cheri W; Wyatt, Jarrett

2011-05-10

To document the type and extent of active-learning techniques used in US colleges and schools of pharmacy as well as factors associated with use of these techniques. A survey instrument was developed to assess whether and to what extent active learning was used by faculty members of US colleges and schools of pharmacy. This survey instrument was distributed via the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) mailing list. Ninety-five percent (114) of all US colleges and schools of pharmacy were represented with at least 1 survey among the 1179 responses received. Eighty-seven percent of respondents used active-learning techniques in their classroom activities. The heavier the teaching workload the more active-learning strategies were used. Other factors correlated with higher use of active-learning strategies included younger faculty member age (inverse relationship), lower faculty member rank (inverse relationship), and departments that focused on practice, clinical and social, behavioral, and/or administrative sciences. Active learning has been embraced by pharmacy educators and is used to some extent by the majority of US colleges and schools of pharmacy. Future research should focus on how active-learning methods can be used most effectively within pharmacy education, how it can gain even broader acceptance throughout the academy, and how the effect of active learning on programmatic outcomes can be better documented.

Active-Learning Processes Used in US Pharmacy Education

PubMed Central

Brown, Stacy D.; Clavier, Cheri W.; Wyatt, Jarrett

2011-01-01

Objective To document the type and extent of active-learning techniques used in US colleges and schools of pharmacy as well as factors associated with use of these techniques. Methods A survey instrument was developed to assess whether and to what extent active learning was used by faculty members of US colleges and schools of pharmacy. This survey instrument was distributed via the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) mailing list. Results Ninety-five percent (114) of all US colleges and schools of pharmacy were represented with at least 1 survey among the 1179 responses received. Eighty-seven percent of respondents used active-learning techniques in their classroom activities. The heavier the teaching workload the more active-learning strategies were used. Other factors correlated with higher use of active-learning strategies included younger faculty member age (inverse relationship), lower faculty member rank (inverse relationship), and departments that focused on practice, clinical and social, behavioral, and/or administrative sciences. Conclusions Active learning has been embraced by pharmacy educators and is used to some extent by the majority of US colleges and schools of pharmacy. Future research should focus on how active-learning methods can be used most effectively within pharmacy education, how it can gain even broader acceptance throughout the academy, and how the effect of active learning on programmatic outcomes can be better documented. PMID:21769144

Can an Opportunity to Learn at Work Reduce Stress?: A Revisitation of the Job Demand-Control Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Panari, Chiara; Guglielmi, Dina; Simbula, Silvia; Depolo, Marco

2010-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to extend the stress-buffering hypothesis of the demand-control model. In addition to the control variable, it seeks to analyse the role of an opportunity for learning and development (L&D) in the workplace as a moderator variable between increased demands and need for recovery. Design/methodology/approach: A…

District Decision-Makers' Considerations of Equity and Equality Related to Students' Opportunities to Learn Algebra

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herbel-Eisenmann, Beth A.; Keazer, Lindsay; Traynor, Anne

2018-01-01

Background/Context: In this article we explore equity issues related to school district decision-making about students' opportunities to learn algebra. We chose algebra because of the important role it plays in the U.S. as a gatekeeper to future academic success. Current research has not yet explored issues of equity in district-level…

Adults as Learners. Increasing Participation and Facilitating Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cross, K. Patricia

The literature on adult learners is reviewed, and two models of adult learning are developed. Demographic, social, and technological trends that stimulate the increasing demand for learning opportunities are examined, and the views of those who see dangers in new pressures on adults to participate in organized learning activities are considered.…

Learning Outcomes between Socioscientific Issues-Based Learning and Conventional Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wongsri, Piyaluk; Nuangchalerm, Prasart

2010-01-01

Problem statement: Socioscientific issues-based learning activity is essential for scientific reasoning skills and it could be used for analyzing problems be applied to each situation for more successful and suitable. The purposes of this research aimed to compare learning achievement, analytical thinking and moral reasoning of seventh grade…

Is Peer Interaction Necessary for Optimal Active Learning?

PubMed

Linton, Debra L; Farmer, Jan Keith; Peterson, Ernie

2014-01-01

Meta-analyses of active-learning research consistently show that active-learning techniques result in greater student performance than traditional lecture-based courses. However, some individual studies show no effect of active-learning interventions. This may be due to inexperienced implementation of active learning. To minimize the effect of inexperience, we should try to provide more explicit implementation recommendations based on research into the key components of effective active learning. We investigated the optimal implementation of active-learning exercises within a "lecture" course. Two sections of nonmajors biology were taught by the same instructor, in the same semester, using the same instructional materials and assessments. Students in one section completed in-class active-learning exercises in cooperative groups, while students in the other section completed the same activities individually. Performance on low-level, multiple-choice assessments was not significantly different between sections. However, students who worked in cooperative groups on the in-class activities significantly outperformed students who completed the activities individually on the higher-level, extended-response questions. Our results provide additional evidence that group processing of activities should be the recommended mode of implementation for in-class active-learning exercises. © 2014 D. L. Linton et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2014 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Boundaries and Bricolage: Examining the Roles of Universities and Schools in Student Teacher Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hutchinson, Steven Andrew

2011-01-01

The literature shows that an active exploration of difference between university- and school-based perspectives can provide important opportunities for student teacher learning in initial teacher education. This paper presents a study that looks at the learning opportunities presented to student teachers as they talk about teaching and learning…

Research on Mobile Learning Activities Applying Tablets

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurilovas, Eugenijus; Juskeviciene, Anita; Bireniene, Virginija

2015-01-01

The paper aims to present current research on mobile learning activities in Lithuania while implementing flagship EU-funded CCL project on application of tablet computers in education. In the paper, the quality of modern mobile learning activities based on learning personalisation, problem solving, collaboration, and flipped class methods is…

Active Learning with Irrelevant Examples

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wagstaff, Kiri; Mazzoni, Dominic

2009-01-01

An improved active learning method has been devised for training data classifiers. One example of a data classifier is the algorithm used by the United States Postal Service since the 1960s to recognize scans of handwritten digits for processing zip codes. Active learning algorithms enable rapid training with minimal investment of time on the part of human experts to provide training examples consisting of correctly classified (labeled) input data. They function by identifying which examples would be most profitable for a human expert to label. The goal is to maximize classifier accuracy while minimizing the number of examples the expert must label. Although there are several well-established methods for active learning, they may not operate well when irrelevant examples are present in the data set. That is, they may select an item for labeling that the expert simply cannot assign to any of the valid classes. In the context of classifying handwritten digits, the irrelevant items may include stray marks, smudges, and mis-scans. Querying the expert about these items results in wasted time or erroneous labels, if the expert is forced to assign the item to one of the valid classes. In contrast, the new algorithm provides a specific mechanism for avoiding querying the irrelevant items. This algorithm has two components: an active learner (which could be a conventional active learning algorithm) and a relevance classifier. The combination of these components yields a method, denoted Relevance Bias, that enables the active learner to avoid querying irrelevant data so as to increase its learning rate and efficiency when irrelevant items are present. The algorithm collects irrelevant data in a set of rejected examples, then trains the relevance classifier to distinguish between labeled (relevant) training examples and the rejected ones. The active learner combines its ranking of the items with the probability that they are relevant to yield a final decision about which item

Creating Dynamic Learning Environment to Enhance Students’ Engagement in Learning Geometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sariyasa

2017-04-01

Learning geometry gives many benefits to students. It strengthens the development of deductive thinking and reasoning; it also provides an opportunity to improve visualisation and spatial ability. Some studies, however, have pointed out the difficulties that students encountered when learning geometry. A preliminary study by the author in Bali revealed that one of the main problems was teachers’ difficulties in delivering geometry instruction. It was partly due to the lack of appropriate instructional media. Coupling with dynamic geometry software, dynamic learning environments is a promising solution to this problem. Employing GeoGebra software supported by the well-designed instructional process may result in more meaningful learning, and consequently, students are motivated to engage in the learning process more deeply and actively. In this paper, we provide some examples of GeoGebra-aided learning activities that allow students to interactively explore and investigate geometry concepts and the properties of geometry objects. Thus, it is expected that such learning environment will enhance students’ internalisation process of geometry concepts.

Animal-Centered Learning Activities in Pharmacy Education

PubMed Central

Lust, Elaine

2006-01-01

Objectives To assess the contribution of animal-centered activities to students achieving learning outcomes in a veterinary therapeutics course. Design Qualitative methods were used to assess the outcome of using “hands-on” animal interactions as tools of engagement in the course. Reflective commentary on animal-centered activities was collected and analyzed. Assessment Animal-centered learning activities are effective tools for engaging students and facilitating their understanding and application of veterinary therapeutic knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Analysis of qualitative data revealed themes of professional caring and caring behaviors as a direct result of animal-centered activities. Elements of empathy, caring, compassion, and self-awareness were strong undercurrents in student's comments. Conclusions Animal-centered learning activities provide an innovative learning environment for the application of veterinary pharmacy knowledge, skills, and attitudes directly to animal patients. The use of animals in the course is a successful active-learning technique to engage pharmacy students and assist them in developing caring attitudes and behaviors beneficial to future health care providers. PMID:17149415

A Decade of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Challenges, Achievements, and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mtebe, Joel S.; Raphael, Christina

2017-01-01

For a decade past, integration of technology in teaching and learning has been received with both apprehension and skeptism from academics and student majority at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM). The study recounts real, professional and practical experiences, challenges, and opportunities of integrating educational technologies using…

Faculty motivations to use active learning among pharmacy educators.

PubMed

Rockich-Winston, Nicole; Train, Brian C; Rudolph, Michael J; Gillette, Chris

2018-03-01

Faculty motivations to use active learning have been limited to surveys evaluating faculty perceptions within active learning studies. Our objective in this study was to evaluate the relationship between faculty intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and demographic variables and the extent of active learning use in the classroom. An online survey was administered to individual faculty members at 137 colleges and schools of pharmacy across the United States. The survey assessed intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, active learning strategies, classroom time dedicated to active learning, and faculty development resources. Bivariate associations and multivariable stepwise linear regression were used to analyze the results. In total, 979 faculty members completed the questionnaire (23.6% response rate). All motivation variables were significantly correlated with percent active learning use (p < 0.001). Intrinsic motivation demonstrated the highest correlation (r = 0.447) followed by current extrinsic motivations (r = 0.245) and ideal extrinsic motivations (r = 0.291). Variables associated with higher intrinsic motivation included the number of resources used (r = 0.233, p < 0.001) and the number of active learning methods used in the last year (r = 0.259, p < 0.001). Years of teaching experience was negatively associated with intrinsic motivation (r = -0.177, p < 0.001). Regression analyses confirmed the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in predicting active learning use. Our results suggest that faculty members who are intrinsically motivated to use active learning are more likely to dedicate additional class time to active learning. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation may be positively associated with encouraging faculty members to attend active learning workshops and supporting faculty to use various active learning strategies in the classroom. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Creating Stimulating Learning and Thinking Using New Models of Activity-Based Learning and Metacognitive-Based Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pang, Katherine

2010-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel way to stimulate learning, creativity, and thinking based on a new understanding of activity-based learning (ABL) and two methods for developing metacognitive-based activities for the classroom. ABL, in this model, is based on the premise that teachers are distillers and facilitators of information…

Active Learning by Querying Informative and Representative Examples.

PubMed

Huang, Sheng-Jun; Jin, Rong; Zhou, Zhi-Hua

2014-10-01

Active learning reduces the labeling cost by iteratively selecting the most valuable data to query their labels. It has attracted a lot of interests given the abundance of unlabeled data and the high cost of labeling. Most active learning approaches select either informative or representative unlabeled instances to query their labels, which could significantly limit their performance. Although several active learning algorithms were proposed to combine the two query selection criteria, they are usually ad hoc in finding unlabeled instances that are both informative and representative. We address this limitation by developing a principled approach, termed QUIRE, based on the min-max view of active learning. The proposed approach provides a systematic way for measuring and combining the informativeness and representativeness of an unlabeled instance. Further, by incorporating the correlation among labels, we extend the QUIRE approach to multi-label learning by actively querying instance-label pairs. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed QUIRE approach outperforms several state-of-the-art active learning approaches in both single-label and multi-label learning.

Learning Activities for the Young Handicapped Child.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bailey, Don; And Others

Presented is a collection of learning activities for the young handicapped child covering 295 individual learning objectives in six areas of development: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, social skills, self help skills, cognitive skills, and language skills. Provided for each learning activity are the teaching objective, teaching procedures,…

The WebQuest: constructing creative learning.

PubMed

Sanford, Julie; Townsend-Rocchiccioli, Judith; Trimm, Donna; Jacobs, Mike

2010-10-01

An exciting expansion of online educational opportunities is occurring in nursing. The use of a WebQuest as an inquiry-based learning activity can offer considerable opportunity for nurses to learn how to analyze and synthesize critical information. A WebQuest, as a constructivist, inquiry-oriented strategy, requires learners to use higher levels of thinking as a means to analyze and apply complex information, providing an exciting online teaching and learning strategy. A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all of the information learners work with comes from the web. This article provides an overview of the WebQuest as a teaching strategy and provides examples of its use. Copyright 2010, SLACK Incorporated.

Older Adults' Training Courses: Considerations for Course Design and the Development of Learning Materials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

du Plessis, Karin; Anstey, Kaarin J.; Schlumpp, Arianne

2011-01-01

Demographic trends indicate that older adults live longer and maintain active lifestyles. The majority are educated and many enjoy the stimulation that ongoing learning opportunities present. In order for these older adults to benefit from learning opportunities, circumstances specific to these individuals (e.g. age-related decline) need to be…

Assessing Student Behaviors and Motivation for Actively Learning Biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moore, Michael Edward

Vision and Change states that one of the major changes in the way we design biology courses should be a switch in approach from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning and identifies active learning as a recommended methods. Studies show performance benefits for students taking courses that use active learning. What is unknown is why active learning is such an effective instructional tool and the limits of this instructional method’s ability to influence performance. This dissertation builds a case in three steps for why active learning is an effective instructional tool. In step one, I assessed the influence of different types of active learning (clickers, group activities, and whole class discussions) on student engagement behavior in one semester of two different introductory biology courses and found that active learning positively influenced student engagement behavior significantly more than lecture. For step two, I examined over four semesters whether student engagement behavior was a predictor of performance and found participation (engagement behavior) in the online (video watching) and in-class course activities (clicker participation) that I measure were significant predictors of performance. In the third, I assessed whether certain active learning satisfied the psychological needs that lead to students’ intrinsic motivation to participate in those activities when compared over two semesters and across two different institutions of higher learning. Findings from this last step show us that student’s perceptions of autonomy, competency, and relatedness in doing various types of active learning are significantly higher than lecture and consistent across two institutions of higher learning. Lastly, I tie everything together, discuss implications of the research, and address future directions for research on biology student motivation and behavior.

Self-Entrustment: How Trainees' Self-Regulated Learning Supports Participation in the Workplace

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sagasser, Margaretha H.; Kramer, Anneke W. M.; Fluit, Cornelia R. M. G.; van Weel, Chris; van der Vleuten, Cees P. M.

2017-01-01

Clinical workplaces offer postgraduate trainees a wealth of opportunities to learn from experience. To promote deliberate and meaningful learning self-regulated learning skills are foundational. We explored trainees' learning activities related to patient encounters to better understand what aspects of self-regulated learning contribute to…

Experiential and authentic learning approaches in vaccine management.

PubMed

Kartoglu, Umit; Vesper, James; Teräs, Hanna; Reeves, Thomas

2017-04-19

A high level of concern is placed on the storage, handling, transportation, and distribution of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, particularly those that are time and temperature sensitive. While active and passive cooling equipment and monitoring devices are important, it is the various personnel responsible for executing and writing procedures, designing and operating systems, and investigating problems and helping prevent them who are paramount in establishing and maintaining a "cold chain" for time and temperature sensitive pharmaceutical products (TTSPPs). These professionals must possess the required competencies, knowledge, skills and abilities so they can effectively perform these activities with appropriate levels of expertise. These are complex tasks that require the development of higher cognitive skills that cannot be adequately addressed through professional development opportunities based on simple information delivery and content acquisition. This paper describes two unique learning solutions (one on a bus called the "wheels course" and the other online called "e-learning") that have been developed by WHO Global Learning Opportunities (WHO/GLO) to provide participants with opportunities not just to learn about cold chain systems or vaccine management, but, rather, to develop high levels of expertise in their respective fields through experiential and authentic learning activities. In these interactive learning environments, participants have opportunities to address real-life situations in contexts similar to what they may face in their own work environments and develop solutions and critical thinking skills they can apply when they return to their jobs. This paper further delineates the managerial and operational vaccine management functions encompassed in these two unique learning environments. The paper also describes the alignment of the objectives addressed in the "wheels course" and the e-learning version with effective vaccine

Lifelong learning in active ageing discourse: its conserving effect on wellbeing, health and vulnerability.

PubMed

Narushima, Miya; Liu, Jian; Diestelkamp, Naomi

2018-04-01

The Active Ageing Framework has been adapted as a global strategy in ageing policies, practices and research over the last decade. Lifelong learning, however, has not been fully integrated into this discourse. Using survey data provided by 416 adults (aged 60 years and above) enrolled in non-formal general-interest courses in a public continuing education programme in Canada, this study examined the association between older adults' duration of participation in the courses and their level of psychological wellbeing, while taking their age, gender, self-rated health and vulnerability level into consideration. An analytical framework was developed based on the literature of old-age vulnerabilities and the benefits of lifelong learning. Two logistic regression and trend analyses were conducted. The results indicate that older adults' participation is independently and positively associated with their psychological wellbeing, even among those typically classified as 'vulnerable'. This result provides additional evidence that suggests the continuous participation in non-formal lifelong learning may help sustain older adults' psychological wellbeing. It provides older learners, even those who are most vulnerable, with a compensatory strategy to strengthen their reserve capacities, allowing them to be autonomous and fulfilled in their everyday life. The result of this study highlights the value of the strategic and unequivocal promotion of community-based non-formal lifelong learning opportunities for developing inclusive, equitable and caring active ageing societies.

It All Adds Up: Learning Early Math through Play and Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramani, Geetha B.; Eason, Sarah H.

2015-01-01

Playing and learning mathematics do not have to be mutually exclusive activities, especially in kindergarten. Play and games can give young children opportunities to learn and develop foundational math skills that are aligned with Common Core standards for mathematics through age-appropriate, fun, and engaging activities.

Something to Say: Children Learning through Story

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quintero, Elizabeth P.

2010-01-01

Research Findings: All children from all backgrounds and histories learn through their stories while engaging in play and other daily activities. They experience development in multiple domains and engage in multidimensional learning when given the opportunity and encouragement. Practice or Policy: This article documents a segment of a larger…

Cyberlearning for Climate Literacy: Challenges and Opportunities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCaffrey, M. S.; Buhr, S. M.; Gold, A. U.; Ledley, T. S.; Mooney, M. E.; Niepold, F.

2010-12-01

Cyberlearning tools provide cost and carbon-efficient avenues for fostering a climate literate society through online engagement with learners. With climate change education becoming a Presidential Priority in 2009, funding for grants from NSF, NASA and NOAA is leading to a new generation of cyberlearning resources that supplement existing online resources. This paper provides an overview of challenges and opportunities relating to the online delivery of high quality, often complex climate science by examining several existing and emerging efforts, including the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN,) a National Science Digital Library Pathway, the development by CIRES Education and Outreach of the Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) online course, TERC’s Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET,) DataTools, and EarthLab modules, the NOAA Climate Stewards Education Program (CSEP) that utilizes the NSTA E-Learning Center, online efforts by members of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), UCAR’s Climate Discovery program, and the Climate Adaptation, Mitigation e-Learning (CAMeL) project. In addition, we will summarize outcomes of the Cyberlearning for Climate Literacy workshop held in Washington DC in the Fall of 2009 and examine opportunities for teachers to develop and share their own lesson plans based on climate-related web resources that currently lack built-in learning activities, assessments or teaching tips.

Taking Responsibility for Your Own Learning: Maximizing Training Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rivers, Carmen

2011-01-01

Teaching young children takes a great deal of dedication and commitment. One spends every day helping young children to grow and change. It's important to be as committed to one's own growth as one is to the children's. By setting goals related to one's own personal growth, being an active participant in learning events, and creating an action…

History and Evolution of Active Learning Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beichner, Robert J.

2014-01-01

This chapter examines active learning spaces as they have developed over the years. Consistently well-designed classrooms can facilitate active learning even though the details of implementing pedagogies may differ.

GeoMapApp Learning Activities: Enabling the democratisation of geoscience learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodwillie, A. M.; Kluge, S.

2011-12-01

GeoMapApp Learning Activities (http://serc.carleton.edu/geomapapp) are step-by-step guided inquiry geoscience education activities that enable students to dictate the pace of learning. They can be used in the classroom or out of class, and their guided nature means that the requirement for teacher intervention is minimised which allows students to spend increased time analysing and understanding a broad range of geoscience data, content and concepts. Based upon GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org), a free, easy-to-use map-based data exploration and visualisation tool, each activity furnishes the educator with an efficient package of downloadable documents. This includes step-by-step student instructions and answer sheet; a teacher's edition annotated worksheet containing teaching tips, additional content and suggestions for further work; quizzes for use before and after the activity to assess learning; and a multimedia tutorial. The activities can be used by anyone at any time in any place with an internet connection. In essence, GeoMapApp Learning Activities provide students with cutting-edge technology, research-quality geoscience data sets, and inquiry-based learning in a virtual lab-like environment. Examples of activities so far created are student calculation and analysis of the rate of seafloor spreading, and present-day evidence on the seafloor for huge ancient landslides around the Hawaiian islands. The activities are designed primarily for students at the community college, high school and introductory undergraduate levels, exposing students to content and concepts typically found in those settings.

Learning Through New Approaches to Forest Governance: Evidence from Harrop-Procter Community Forest, Canada.

PubMed

Egunyu, Felicitas; Reed, Maureen G; Sinclair, John A

2016-04-01

Collaborative forest governance arrangements have been viewed as promising for sustainable forestry because they allow local communities to participate directly in management and benefit from resource use or protection. Such arrangements are strengthened through social learning during management activities that can enhance capacity to solve complex problems. Despite significant research on social learning in collaborative environmental governance, it is not clear how social learning evolves over time, who influences social learning, and whether learning influences management effectiveness. This study investigates how social learning outcomes change over time, using an in-depth study of a community forest in Canada. Personal interviews, focus group meetings, and participant observation revealed that most participants started engaging in community forestry with limited knowledge and learned as they participated in management activities. However, as the community forest organization became effective at complying with forestry legislation, learning opportunities and outcomes became more restricted. Our results run contrary to the prevalent view that opportunities for and outcomes of social learning become enlarged over time. In our case, learning how to meet governmental requirements increased professionalism and reduced opportunities for involvement and learning to a smaller group. Our findings suggest the need to further test propositions about social learning and collaborative governance, particularly to determine how relationships evolve over time.

Learning Through New Approaches to Forest Governance: Evidence from Harrop-Procter Community Forest, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Egunyu, Felicitas; Reed, Maureen G.; Sinclair, John A.

2016-04-01

Collaborative forest governance arrangements have been viewed as promising for sustainable forestry because they allow local communities to participate directly in management and benefit from resource use or protection. Such arrangements are strengthened through social learning during management activities that can enhance capacity to solve complex problems. Despite significant research on social learning in collaborative environmental governance, it is not clear how social learning evolves over time, who influences social learning, and whether learning influences management effectiveness. This study investigates how social learning outcomes change over time, using an in-depth study of a community forest in Canada. Personal interviews, focus group meetings, and participant observation revealed that most participants started engaging in community forestry with limited knowledge and learned as they participated in management activities. However, as the community forest organization became effective at complying with forestry legislation, learning opportunities and outcomes became more restricted. Our results run contrary to the prevalent view that opportunities for and outcomes of social learning become enlarged over time. In our case, learning how to meet governmental requirements increased professionalism and reduced opportunities for involvement and learning to a smaller group. Our findings suggest the need to further test propositions about social learning and collaborative governance, particularly to determine how relationships evolve over time.

Atmosphere Kits: Hands-On Learning Activities with a Foundation in NASA Earth Science Missions.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teige, V.; McCrea, S.; Damadeo, K.; Taylor, J.; Lewis, P. M., Jr.; Chambers, L. H.

2016-12-01

The Science Directorate (SD) at NASA Langley Research Center provides many opportunities to involve students, faculty, researchers, and the citizen science community in real world science. The SD Education Team collaborates with the education community to bring authentic Earth science practices and real-world data into the classroom, provide the public with unique NASA experiences, engaging activities, and advanced technology, and provide products developed and reviewed by science and education experts. Our goals include inspiring the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals and improving STEM literacy by providing innovative participation pathways for educators, students, and the public. The SD Education Team has developed Atmosphere activity kits featuring cloud and aerosol learning activities with a foundation in NASA Earth Science Missions, the Next Generation Science Standards, and The GLOBE Program's Elementary Storybooks. Through cloud kit activities, students will learn how to make estimates from observations and how to categorize and classify specific cloud properties, including cloud height, cloud cover, and basic cloud types. The purpose of the aerosol kit is to introduce students to aerosols and how they can affect the colors we see in the sky. Students will engage in active observation and reporting, explore properties of light, and model the effects of changing amounts/sizes or aerosols on sky color and visibility. Learning activity extensions include participation in ground data collection of environmental conditions and comparison and analysis to related NASA data sets, including but not limited to CERES, CALIPSO, CloudSat, and SAGE III on ISS. This presentation will provide an overview of multiple K-6 NASA Earth Science hands-on activities and free resources will be available.

Active Learning Environment with Lenses in Geometric Optics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tural, Güner

2015-01-01

Geometric optics is one of the difficult topics for students within physics discipline. Students learn better via student-centered active learning environments than the teacher-centered learning environments. So this study aimed to present a guide for middle school teachers to teach lenses in geometric optics via active learning environment…

Publishing activities improves undergraduate biology education

PubMed Central

Smith, Michelle K

2018-01-01

Abstract To improve undergraduate biology education, there is an urgent need for biology instructors to publish their innovative active-learning instructional materials in peer-reviewed journals. To do this, instructors can measure student knowledge about a variety of biology concepts, iteratively design activities, explore student learning outcomes and publish the results. Creating a set of well-vetted activities, searchable through a journal interface, saves other instructors time and encourages the use of active-learning instructional practices. For authors, these publications offer new opportunities to collaborate and can provide evidence of a commitment to using active-learning instructional techniques in the classroom. PMID:29672697

Publishing activities improves undergraduate biology education.

PubMed

Smith, Michelle K

2018-06-01

To improve undergraduate biology education, there is an urgent need for biology instructors to publish their innovative active-learning instructional materials in peer-reviewed journals. To do this, instructors can measure student knowledge about a variety of biology concepts, iteratively design activities, explore student learning outcomes and publish the results. Creating a set of well-vetted activities, searchable through a journal interface, saves other instructors time and encourages the use of active-learning instructional practices. For authors, these publications offer new opportunities to collaborate and can provide evidence of a commitment to using active-learning instructional techniques in the classroom.

Learning Style Activities for Computer Applications. Field Review.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Patton, Jan

This document contains a composite of learning activities for use in a secondary-level course in business computer applications. The collection is unique in that the individual learning activities constituting it have each been tailored to one or more of the diverse learning styles possessed by individual students. The activities are grouped into…

Preserving Neighborhood Opportunity: Where Federal Housing Subsidies Expire

PubMed Central

Lens, Michael C.; Reina, Vincent

2017-01-01

Rent burdens are increasing in U.S. metropolitan areas while subsidies on privately owned, publicly subsidized rental units are expiring. As a result, some of the few remaining affordable units in opportunity neighborhoods are at risk of being converted to market rate. Policy makers face a decision about whether to devote their efforts and scarce resources toward developing new affordable housing, recapitalizing existing subsidized housing, and/or preserving properties with expiring subsidies. There are several reasons to preserve these subsidies, one being that properties may be located in neighborhoods with greater opportunity. In this article, we use several sources of data at the census tract level to learn how subsidy expirations affect neighborhood opportunity for low-income households. Our analysis presents several key findings. First, we find that units that left the project-based Section 8 program were – on average – in lower opportunity neighborhoods, but these neighborhoods were improving. In addition, properties due to expiry from the Section 8 program between 2011 and 2020 are in higher opportunity neighborhoods than any other subsidy program. On the contrary, new Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units were developed in tracts similar to those where LIHTC units are currently active, which tend to be lower opportunity neighborhoods. PMID:28553063

Preserving Neighborhood Opportunity: Where Federal Housing Subsidies Expire.

PubMed

Lens, Michael C; Reina, Vincent

2016-01-01

Rent burdens are increasing in U.S. metropolitan areas while subsidies on privately owned, publicly subsidized rental units are expiring. As a result, some of the few remaining affordable units in opportunity neighborhoods are at risk of being converted to market rate. Policy makers face a decision about whether to devote their efforts and scarce resources toward developing new affordable housing, recapitalizing existing subsidized housing, and/or preserving properties with expiring subsidies. There are several reasons to preserve these subsidies, one being that properties may be located in neighborhoods with greater opportunity. In this article, we use several sources of data at the census tract level to learn how subsidy expirations affect neighborhood opportunity for low-income households. Our analysis presents several key findings. First, we find that units that left the project-based Section 8 program were - on average - in lower opportunity neighborhoods, but these neighborhoods were improving. In addition, properties due to expiry from the Section 8 program between 2011 and 2020 are in higher opportunity neighborhoods than any other subsidy program. On the contrary, new Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units were developed in tracts similar to those where LIHTC units are currently active, which tend to be lower opportunity neighborhoods.

Interprofessional Education: Opportunities and Challenges for Psychology.

PubMed

Ward, Wendy; Zagoloff, Alexandra; Rieck, Cortney; Robiner, William

2018-02-16

This manuscript is an outgrowth of an invited panel presentation at the national Association for Psychologists in Academic Health Centers Conference in 2017 on Interprofessional Education (IPE). IPE is a structured and transformative educational strategy designed to provide active learning experiences where trainees from diverse healthcare professions gain shared content knowledge plus collaboration skills as they learn about, from, and with each other. Collaboration skills include understanding professional role distinctions and overlap, effective team-based communication, shared values/ethics and respect for each other's expertise, and teamwork dynamics. It is increasingly important to expand training beyond the intraprofessional activities in which psychology trainees engage to prepare them to participate in interprofessional collaborative care. As healthcare systems move to team-based collaborative practice and value-based reimbursement models, the profession of psychology needs leaders at every academic health center to facilitate the design and/or implementation of IPE activities. The panel of psychologists presented roles that psychologists play in IPE institutional program design and implementation, graduate training programs, and the perspectives of an early career psychologist and psychology trainee. Opportunities and challenges are highlighted, culminating in a call to action. Psychologists must embrace their identity as health professionals and engage their learners in IPE so that the emerging cognitive schemata of healthcare that is developed includes the profession of psychology. Otherwise, healthcare teams and health professionals will not understand the value, roles, or potential contributions of psychologists in enhancing patient care outcomes, ultimately jeopardizing psychologists' referrals, involvement in healthcare delivery, and career opportunities.

Preparing graduate student teaching assistants in the sciences: An intensive workshop focused on active learning.

PubMed

Roden, Julie A; Jakob, Susanne; Roehrig, Casey; Brenner, Tamara J

2018-03-12

In the past ten years, increasing evidence has demonstrated that scientific teaching and active learning improve student retention and learning gains in the sciences. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), who play an important role in undergraduate education at many universities, require training in these methods to encourage implementation, long-term adoption, and advocacy. Here, we describe the design and evaluation of a two-day training workshop for first-year GTAs in the life sciences. This workshop combines instruction in current research and theory supporting teaching science through active learning as well as opportunities for participants to practice teaching and receive feedback from peers and mentors. Postworkshop assessments indicated that GTA participants' knowledge of key topics increased during the workshop. In follow-up evaluations, participants reported that the workshop helped them prepare for teaching. This workshop design can easily be adapted to a wide range of science disciplines. Overall, the workshop prepares graduate students to engage, include, and support undergraduates from a variety of backgrounds when teaching in the sciences. © 2018 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2018. © 2018 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Learning from Harvey Milk: The Limits and Opportunities of One Hero to Teach about LGBTQ People and Issues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Donahue, David M.

2014-01-01

Highlighting a hero is a common response to including the history of marginalized people in the curriculum. Harvey Milk is becoming that hero as social studies curriculum responds to calls for including LGBTQ people. By studying Milk, what might young people learn about LGBTQ people, issues, and movements? What opportunities and limitations exist…

Opportunities for promoting youth physical activity: an examination of youth summer camps.

PubMed

Hickerson, Benjamin D; Henderson, Karla A

2014-01-01

Youth summer camp programs have the potential to provide opportunities for physical activity, but little to no research has been conducted to determine activity levels of campers. This study aimed to examine physical activity occurring in day and resident summer camps and how activity levels differed in these camps based upon demographic characteristics. Pedometer data were collected during hours of camp operation from 150 day campers and 114 resident campers between the ages of 8 and 12 years old. Independent t tests were used to compare physical activity by sex, race, and Body Mass Index. Campers at day camps averaged 11,916 steps per camp day, while resident campers averaged 19,699 steps per camp day. Day campers averaged 1586 steps per hour over 7.5 hour days and resident campers averaged 1515 steps per hour over 13 hour days. Male sex, Caucasian race, and normal Body Mass Index were significant correlates of more physical activity. Youth summer camps demonstrate the potential to provide ample opportunities for physical activity during the summer months. Traditional demographic disparities persisted in camps, but the structure of camp programs should allow for changes to increase physical activity for all participants.

Collegewide Promotion of E-Learning/Active Learning and Faculty Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ogawa, Nobuyuki; Shimizu, Akira

2016-01-01

Japanese National Institutes of Technology have revealed a plan to strongly promote e-Learning and active learning under the common schematization of education in over 50 campuses nationwide. Our e-Learning and ICT-driven education practiced for more than fifteen years were highly evaluated, and is playing a leading role in promoting e-Learning…

When I grow up: the relationship of science learning activation to STEM career preferences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dorph, Rena; Bathgate, Meghan E.; Schunn, Christian D.; Cannady, Matthew A.

2018-06-01

This paper proposes three new measures of components STEM career preferences (affinity, certainty, and goal), and then explores which dimensions of science learning activation (fascination, values, competency belief, and scientific sensemaking) are predictive of STEM career preferences. Drawn from the ALES14 dataset, a sample of 2938 sixth and eighth grade middle-school students from 11 schools in two purposefully selected diverse areas (Western Pennsylvania & the Bay Area of California) was used for the analyses presented in this paper. These schools were chosen to represent socio-economic and ethnic diversity. Findings indicate that, overall, youth who are activated towards science learning are more likely to have affinity towards STEM careers, certainty about their future career goals, and have identified a specific STEM career goal. However, different dimensions of science learning activation are more strongly correlated with different aspects career preference across different STEM career foci (e.g. science, engineering, technology, health, etc.). Gender, age, minority status, and home resources also have explanatory power. While many results are consistent with prior research, there are also novel results that offer important fodder for future research. Critically, our strategy of measuring affinity towards the specific disciplines that make up STEM, measuring STEM and health career goals separately, and looking at career affinity and career goals separately, offers interesting results and underscores the value of disentangling the conceptual melting pot of what has previously been known as 'career interest.' Study findings also have implications for design of science learning opportunities for youth.

Paired Peer Learning through Engineering Education Outreach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fogg-Rogers, Laura; Lewis, Fay; Edmonds, Juliet

2017-01-01

Undergraduate education incorporating active learning and vicarious experience through education outreach presents a critical opportunity to influence future engineering teaching and practice capabilities. Engineering education outreach activities have been shown to have multiple benefits; increasing interest and engagement with science and…

Pedagogical Distance: Explaining Misalignment in Student-Driven Online Learning Activities Using Activity Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westberry, Nicola; Franken, Margaret

2015-01-01

This paper provides an Activity Theory analysis of two online student-driven interactive learning activities to interrogate assumptions that such groups can effectively learn in the absence of the teacher. Such an analysis conceptualises learning tasks as constructed objects that drive pedagogical activity. The analysis shows a disconnect between…

Manifold Regularized Experimental Design for Active Learning.

PubMed

Zhang, Lining; Shum, Hubert P H; Shao, Ling

2016-12-02

Various machine learning and data mining tasks in classification require abundant data samples to be labeled for training. Conventional active learning methods aim at labeling the most informative samples for alleviating the labor of the user. Many previous studies in active learning select one sample after another in a greedy manner. However, this is not very effective because the classification models has to be retrained for each newly labeled sample. Moreover, many popular active learning approaches utilize the most uncertain samples by leveraging the classification hyperplane of the classifier, which is not appropriate since the classification hyperplane is inaccurate when the training data are small-sized. The problem of insufficient training data in real-world systems limits the potential applications of these approaches. This paper presents a novel method of active learning called manifold regularized experimental design (MRED), which can label multiple informative samples at one time for training. In addition, MRED gives an explicit geometric explanation for the selected samples to be labeled by the user. Different from existing active learning methods, our method avoids the intrinsic problems caused by insufficiently labeled samples in real-world applications. Various experiments on synthetic datasets, the Yale face database and the Corel image database have been carried out to show how MRED outperforms existing methods.

A simple wavelength division multiplexing system for active learning teaching

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zghal, Mourad; Ghalila, Hassen; Ben Lakhdar, Zohra

2009-06-01

The active learning project consists in a series of workshops for educators, researchers and students and promotes an innovative method of teaching physics using simple, inexpensive materials that can be fabricated locally. The objective of the project is to train trainers and inspire students to learn physics. The workshops are based on the use of laboratory work and hands-on activities in the classroom. The interpretation of these experiments is challenging for some students, and the experiments can lead to a significant amount of discussion. The workshops are organized within the framework of the project ``Active Learning in Optics and Photonics" (ALOP) mainly funded by UNESCO, with the support of ICTP (Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics) and SPIE. ALOP workshops offer high school, college or university physics teachers the opportunity to improve their conceptual understanding of optics. These workshops usually run for five days and cover several of the topics usually found in any introductory university physics program. Optics and photonics are used as subject matter because it is relevant as well as adaptable to research and educational conditions in many developing countries [1]. In this paper, we will mainly focus on a specific topic of the ALOP workshops, namely optical communications and Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology (WDM). This activity was originally developed by Mazzolini et al [2]. WDM is a technology used in fibre-optic communications for transmitting two or more separate signals over a single fibre optic cable by using a separate wavelength for each signal. Multiple signals are carried together as separate wavelengths of light in a multiplexed signal. Simple and inexpensive WDM system was implemented in our laboratory using light emitting diodes or diode lasers, plastic optical fibres, a set of optical filters and lenses, prism or grating, and photodiodes. Transmission of audio signals using home-made, simple

Active learning: a step towards automating medical concept extraction.

PubMed

Kholghi, Mahnoosh; Sitbon, Laurianne; Zuccon, Guido; Nguyen, Anthony

2016-03-01

This paper presents an automatic, active learning-based system for the extraction of medical concepts from clinical free-text reports. Specifically, (1) the contribution of active learning in reducing the annotation effort and (2) the robustness of incremental active learning framework across different selection criteria and data sets are determined. The comparative performance of an active learning framework and a fully supervised approach were investigated to study how active learning reduces the annotation effort while achieving the same effectiveness as a supervised approach. Conditional random fields as the supervised method, and least confidence and information density as 2 selection criteria for active learning framework were used. The effect of incremental learning vs standard learning on the robustness of the models within the active learning framework with different selection criteria was also investigated. The following 2 clinical data sets were used for evaluation: the Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside/Veteran Affairs (i2b2/VA) 2010 natural language processing challenge and the Shared Annotated Resources/Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (ShARe/CLEF) 2013 eHealth Evaluation Lab. The annotation effort saved by active learning to achieve the same effectiveness as supervised learning is up to 77%, 57%, and 46% of the total number of sequences, tokens, and concepts, respectively. Compared with the random sampling baseline, the saving is at least doubled. Incremental active learning is a promising approach for building effective and robust medical concept extraction models while significantly reducing the burden of manual annotation. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A Novel Teaching Tool Combined With Active-Learning to Teach Antimicrobial Spectrum Activity.

PubMed

MacDougall, Conan

2017-03-25

Objective. To design instructional methods that would promote long-term retention of knowledge of antimicrobial pharmacology, particularly the spectrum of activity for antimicrobial agents, in pharmacy students. Design. An active-learning approach was used to teach selected sessions in a required antimicrobial pharmacology course. Students were expected to review key concepts from the course reader prior to the in-class sessions. During class, brief concept reviews were followed by active-learning exercises, including a novel schematic method for learning antimicrobial spectrum of activity ("flower diagrams"). Assessment. At the beginning of the next quarter (approximately 10 weeks after the in-class sessions), 360 students (three yearly cohorts) completed a low-stakes multiple-choice examination on the concepts in antimicrobial spectrum of activity. When data for students was pooled across years, the mean number of correct items was 75.3% for the items that tested content delivered with the active-learning method vs 70.4% for items that tested content delivered via traditional lecture (mean difference 4.9%). Instructor ratings on student evaluations of the active-learning approach were high (mean scores 4.5-4.8 on a 5-point scale) and student comments were positive about the active-learning approach and flower diagrams. Conclusion. An active-learning approach led to modestly higher scores in a test of long-term retention of pharmacology knowledge and was well-received by students.

A Novel Teaching Tool Combined With Active-Learning to Teach Antimicrobial Spectrum Activity

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Objective. To design instructional methods that would promote long-term retention of knowledge of antimicrobial pharmacology, particularly the spectrum of activity for antimicrobial agents, in pharmacy students. Design. An active-learning approach was used to teach selected sessions in a required antimicrobial pharmacology course. Students were expected to review key concepts from the course reader prior to the in-class sessions. During class, brief concept reviews were followed by active-learning exercises, including a novel schematic method for learning antimicrobial spectrum of activity (“flower diagrams”). Assessment. At the beginning of the next quarter (approximately 10 weeks after the in-class sessions), 360 students (three yearly cohorts) completed a low-stakes multiple-choice examination on the concepts in antimicrobial spectrum of activity. When data for students was pooled across years, the mean number of correct items was 75.3% for the items that tested content delivered with the active-learning method vs 70.4% for items that tested content delivered via traditional lecture (mean difference 4.9%). Instructor ratings on student evaluations of the active-learning approach were high (mean scores 4.5-4.8 on a 5-point scale) and student comments were positive about the active-learning approach and flower diagrams. Conclusion. An active-learning approach led to modestly higher scores in a test of long-term retention of pharmacology knowledge and was well-received by students. PMID:28381885

Image analysis and machine learning in digital pathology: Challenges and opportunities.

PubMed

Madabhushi, Anant; Lee, George

2016-10-01

With the rise in whole slide scanner technology, large numbers of tissue slides are being scanned and represented and archived digitally. While digital pathology has substantial implications for telepathology, second opinions, and education there are also huge research opportunities in image computing with this new source of "big data". It is well known that there is fundamental prognostic data embedded in pathology images. The ability to mine "sub-visual" image features from digital pathology slide images, features that may not be visually discernible by a pathologist, offers the opportunity for better quantitative modeling of disease appearance and hence possibly improved prediction of disease aggressiveness and patient outcome. However the compelling opportunities in precision medicine offered by big digital pathology data come with their own set of computational challenges. Image analysis and computer assisted detection and diagnosis tools previously developed in the context of radiographic images are woefully inadequate to deal with the data density in high resolution digitized whole slide images. Additionally there has been recent substantial interest in combining and fusing radiologic imaging and proteomics and genomics based measurements with features extracted from digital pathology images for better prognostic prediction of disease aggressiveness and patient outcome. Again there is a paucity of powerful tools for combining disease specific features that manifest across multiple different length scales. The purpose of this review is to discuss developments in computational image analysis tools for predictive modeling of digital pathology images from a detection, segmentation, feature extraction, and tissue classification perspective. We discuss the emergence of new handcrafted feature approaches for improved predictive modeling of tissue appearance and also review the emergence of deep learning schemes for both object detection and tissue classification

Next Generation Scientists - Creating opportunities for high school students through astronomical research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelly, Madeline; Cebulla, Hannah; Powers, Lynn

2015-01-01

Through various opportunities and experiences with extracurricular scientific research, primarily astronomical research with programs like NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Project (NITARP), and the Mars Exploration Student Data Teams (MESDT), we have noticed a change in our learning style, career path, and general outlook on the scientific community that we strongly believe could also be added to the lives of many other high school students given similar opportunities. The purpose of our poster is to emphasize the importance of granting high school students opportunities to explore different styles and methods of learning. We believe that although crucial, a basic high school education is not enough to expose young adults to the scientific community and create enough interest for a career path. As a result, we wish to show that more of these programs and opportunities should be offered to a greater number of students of all ages, allowing them to explore their passions, develop their understanding of different fields, and determine the paths best suited to their interests. Within our poster, we will emphasize how these programs have specifically impacted our lives, what we hope to see in the future, and how we hope to attain the growth of such opportunities. We include such proposals as; increasing outreach programs, expanding the exposure of young students to the sciences, both in the classroom and out, allowing high school students to participate in active scientific research, and involving students in hands-on activities/experiments within school clubs, the classroom, at home, or at local events. Spreading these opportunities to directly interact with the sciences in similar manners as that of professional scientists will allow students to discover their interests, realize what being a scientist truly entails, and allow them to take the first steps into following their career paths.

Improving the Connection between Healthcare Employers and Schools to Increase Work-Based Learning Opportunities for Urban High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loera, Gustavo

2016-01-01

This study advances an experiential learning framework for educators to: (1) identify workforce-building strategies from key healthcare industry informants, (2) strengthen school-industry partnerships, and (3) shape urban high school students' career readiness experiences through curriculum and real life on-the-job training opportunities. Data was…

Adaptive Batch Mode Active Learning.

PubMed

Chakraborty, Shayok; Balasubramanian, Vineeth; Panchanathan, Sethuraman

2015-08-01

Active learning techniques have gained popularity to reduce human effort in labeling data instances for inducing a classifier. When faced with large amounts of unlabeled data, such algorithms automatically identify the exemplar and representative instances to be selected for manual annotation. More recently, there have been attempts toward a batch mode form of active learning, where a batch of data points is simultaneously selected from an unlabeled set. Real-world applications require adaptive approaches for batch selection in active learning, depending on the complexity of the data stream in question. However, the existing work in this field has primarily focused on static or heuristic batch size selection. In this paper, we propose two novel optimization-based frameworks for adaptive batch mode active learning (BMAL), where the batch size as well as the selection criteria are combined in a single formulation. We exploit gradient-descent-based optimization strategies as well as properties of submodular functions to derive the adaptive BMAL algorithms. The solution procedures have the same computational complexity as existing state-of-the-art static BMAL techniques. Our empirical results on the widely used VidTIMIT and the mobile biometric (MOBIO) data sets portray the efficacy of the proposed frameworks and also certify the potential of these approaches in being used for real-world biometric recognition applications.

Secret Buddies: Children Learning about Kindness

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riley, Jeanetta G.

2005-01-01

Teachers must be aware of the social needs that children have and create opportunities to help children learn the skills to interact with others. As teachers help children learn these skills, they are also helping children build important life skills. In this article, the author discusses an activity that she adapted from one of her first grade…

Assessing Learning Styles of Graduate Entry Nursing Students as a Classroom Research Activity: A quantitative research study.

PubMed

Gonzales, Lucia K; Glaser, Dale; Howland, Lois; Clark, Mary Jo; Hutchins, Susie; Macauley, Karen; Close, Jacqueline F; Leveque, Noelle Lipkin; Failla, Kim Reina; Brooks, Raelene; Ward, Jillian

2017-01-01

A number of studies across different disciplines have investigated students' learning styles. Differences are known to exist between graduate and baccalaureate nursing students. However, few studies have investigated the learning styles of students in graduate entry nursing programs. . Study objective was to describe graduate entry nursing students' learning styles. A descriptive design was used for this study. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) was administered to 202 graduate entry nursing student volunteers at a southwestern university. Descriptive statistics, tests of association, reliability, and validity were performed. Graduate nursing students and faculty participated in data collection, analysis, and dissemination of the results. Predominant learning styles were: sensing - 82.7%, visual - 78.7%, sequential - 65.8%, and active - 59.9%. Inter-item reliabilities for the postulated subscales were: sensing/intuitive (α=0.70), visual/verbal (α=0.694), sequential/global (α=0.599), and active/reflective (α=0.572). Confirmatory factor analysis for results of validity were: χ 2 (896)=1110.25, p<0.001, CFI=0.779, TLI=0.766, WRMR=1.14, and RMSEA =0.034. Predominant learning styles described students as being concrete thinkers oriented toward facts (sensing); preferring pictures, diagrams, flow charts, demonstrations (visual); being linear thinkers (sequencing); and enjoying working in groups and trying things out (active),. The predominant learning styles suggest educators teach concepts through simulation, discussion, and application of knowledge. Multiple studies, including this one, provided similar psychometric results. Similar reliability and validity results for the ILS have been noted in previous studies and therefore provide sufficient evidence to use the ILS with graduate entry nursing students. This study provided faculty with numerous opportunities for actively engaging students in data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results. Copyright �

Introduction of active learning method in learning physiology by MBBS students.

PubMed

Gilkar, Suhail Ahmad; Lone, Shabiruddin; Lone, Riyaz Ahmad

2016-01-01

Active learning has received considerable attention over the past several years, often presented or perceived as a radical change from traditional instruction methods. Current research on learning indicates that using a variety of teaching strategies in the classroom increases student participation and learning. To introduce active learning methodology, i.e., "jigsaw technique" in undergraduate medical education and assess the student and faculty response to it. This study was carried out in the Department of Physiology in a Medical College of North India. A topic was chosen and taught using one of the active learning methods (ALMs), i.e., jigsaw technique. An instrument (questionnaire) was developed in English through an extensive review of literature and was properly validated. The students were asked to give their response on a five-point Likert scale. The feedback was kept anonymous. Faculty also provided their feedback in a separately provided feedback proforma. The data were collected, compiled, and analyzed. Of 150 students of MBBS-first year batch 2014, 142 participated in this study along with 14 faculty members of the Physiology Department. The majority of the students (>90%) did welcome the introduction of ALM and strongly recommended the use of such methods in teaching many more topics in future. 100% faculty members were of the opinion that many more topics shall be taken up using ALMs. This study establishes the fact that both the medical students and faculty want a change from the traditional way of passive, teacher-centric learning, to the more active teaching-learning techniques.

Algebra for All and Its Relationship to English Language Learner's Opportunity-to-Learn and Algebra I Success Rates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Veith, Velma

2013-01-01

English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' access and achievement in Algebra I was examined to determine whether ESL students continue to be denied equal opportunity-to-learn (OTL) as a result of unnecessary tracking practices. In this quasi-experiment, a pre-post retrospective comparison group design was used to determine the effects of the…

Impacts of Learning Management System on Learner Autonomy in EFL Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dang, Tin Tan; Robertson, Margaret

2010-01-01

The integration of interactive online communication into different educational settings has been widely researched since the emergence of Web 2.0 technology. It has been particularly identified to give EFL students more opportunities to express ideas, enhance their engagement in learning activities and promote their confidence during virtual…

Active Learning Is Not Enough

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casem, Merri Lynn

2006-01-01

I have examined how frequency of assessment impacts learning in an undergraduate biology course employing a student-centered, active-learning pedagogy. Frequent assessment was associated with better student performance and greater retention of course concepts. Improvement of higher-order thinking skills may require more classroom practice.…

Embodied Experiences of Place: A Study of History Learning with Mobile Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Price, S.; Jewitt, C.; Sakr, M.

2016-01-01

This paper reports an empirical study that takes a multimodal analytical approach to examine how mobile technologies shape students' exploration and experience of place during a history learning activity in situ. In history education, mobile technologies provide opportunities for authentic experiential learning activities that have the potential…

Rapport-Building Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huzieff, Nicholas

2017-01-01

This article defines rapport in a teaching context as knowing your students, their different learning styles, and using that relationship with them to teach on a personal level. The author describes an activity using playdough. While giving learners opportunities to interact with others it naturally appeals to a variety of learning styles,…

Weekly active-learning activities in a drug information and literature evaluation course.

PubMed

Timpe, Erin M; Motl, Susannah E; Eichner, Samantha F

2006-06-15

To incorporate learning activities into the weekly 2-hour Drug Information and Literature Evaluation class sessions to improve student ability and confidence in performing course objectives, as well as to assess student perception of the value of these activities. In-class activities that emphasized content and skills taught within class periods were created and implemented. Three different surveys assessing student ability and confidence in completing drug information and literature retrieval and evaluation tasks were administered prior to and following the appropriate class sessions. At the completion of the course, an additional evaluation was administered to assess the students' impressions of the value of the learning activities. Students reported increased ability and confidence in all course objectives. The teaching activities were also stated to be useful in students' learning of the material. Incorporation of weekly learning activities resulted in an improvement in student ability and confidence to perform course objectives. Students considered these activities to be beneficial and to contribute to the completion of course objectives.

Cognitive milieu therapy and physical activity: experiences of mastery and learning among patients with dual diagnosis.

PubMed

Borge, L; Røssberg, J I; Sverdrup, S

2013-12-01

During the last decade, there has been a growing interest in implementing cognitive milieu therapy (CMT) in psychiatric institutions. However, there is a lack of systematic evaluations from patients' point of view. The aim of this study was to explore and describe patient perceptions of essential experiences of mastery, learning alternative ways of thinking, and acquiring new skills through CMT and physical activity in an inpatient setting. Qualitative interviews were carried out with 20 patients with dual diagnosis. A hermeneutic - phenomenological approach was used in the data collection and analysis. The results showed that the learning climate in the unit was important. This included a proactive attitude from the staff, focusing on cooperation on equal terms between patients and staff, and a professional methodological approach through CMT. The optimal balance between staff-induced activities and patient initiatives was not easy to obtain. Patients appreciated both the education provided by the staff and learning from other patients. The cognitive method was sometimes experienced as too theoretical and difficult to understand. Physical activity, however, was experienced as 'concrete' and providing practical knowledge. It motivated patients to establish new habits and provided opportunities for the development of mastery together with other patients. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Cooperative Language Learning: Increasing Opportunities for Learning in Teams

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wichadee, Saovapa; Orawiwatnakul, Wiwat

2012-01-01

This paper conceptualizes cooperative language learning, group instruction which is under the learner-centered approach where the groups are formed in such a way that each member performs his or her task to achieve the goal. Previous research indicates that cooperative language learning doesn't only improve learners' language skills, but also…

Negotiating Pedagogy Development: Learning to Teach Writing in a Service-Learning Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kelley, Karen S.; Hart, Steven; King, James R.

2007-01-01

Research has called for courses to be developed that provide preservice teachers opportunities to actively engage their pedagogies under construction in order to effectively translate their beliefs into sound instructional practice. This article presents research that examined how a service-learning writing tutoring program affected preservice…

Psychologists and detainee interrogations: key decisions, opportunities lost, and lessons learned.

PubMed

Pope, Kenneth S

2011-01-01

After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, U.S. psychologists faced hard choices about what roles, if any, were appropriate for psychologists in the detainee interrogations conducted in settings such as the Bagram Airbase, the Abu Ghraib Prison, and the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camps. The American Psychological Association (APA) sparked intense controversy with its policies and public statements. This article reviews APA decisions, documents, and public statements in this area, in the context of major criticisms and responses to those criticisms. The review focuses on key issues: how the APA created and reported policies in the areas of ethics and national security; transparency; psychologists' professional identities; psychologists' qualifications; ethical-legal conflicts; policies opposing torture; interpretations of avoiding harm; and effective interrogations. It suggests lessons learned, missed opportunities, and questions in need of a fresh approach. © 2011 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

Active Ageing, Active Learning: Policy and Provision in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tam, M.

2011-01-01

This paper discusses the relationship between ageing and learning, previous literature having confirmed that participation in continued learning in old age contributes to good health, satisfaction with life, independence and self-esteem. Realizing that learning is vital to active ageing, the Hong Kong government has implemented policies and…

Experiential Learning and Learning Environments: The Case of Active Listening Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huerta-Wong, Juan Enrique; Schoech, Richard

2010-01-01

Social work education research frequently has suggested an interaction between teaching techniques and learning environments. However, this interaction has never been tested. This study compared virtual and face-to-face learning environments and included active listening concepts to test whether the effectiveness of learning environments depends…

Balancing Bologna: opportunities for university teaching that integrates academic and practical learning outcomes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Probst, Lorenz; Pflug, Verena; Brandenburg, Christiane; Guggenberger, Thomas; Mentler, Axel; Wurzinger, Maria

2014-05-01

In the course of the Bologna Process, the quality of university teaching has become more prominent in the discourse on higher education. More attention is now paid to didactics and methods and learner-oriented modes of teaching are introduced. The application of knowledge, practical skills and in consequence the employability of university graduates have become requirements for university teaching. Yet, the lecture-style approach still dominates European universities, although empirical evidence confirms that student-centred, interdisciplinary and experiential learning is more effective. Referring to the learning taxonomy introduced by Bloom, we argue that standard approaches rarely move beyond the learning level of comprehension and fail to reach the levels of application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Considering the rapid changes and multiple challenges society faces today, responsible practitioners and scientists who can improve the current management of natural resources are urgently needed. Universities are expected to equip their graduates with the necessary skills to reflect and evaluate their actions when addressing 'real world' problems in order to improve impact and relevance of their work. Higher education thus faces the challenge of providing multi-level learning opportunities for students with diverse practical and theoretical learning needs. In this study, we reflect on three cases of university teaching attempting to bridge theory and practice and based on the principles of systemic, problem based learning. The described courses focus on organic farming, rural development and landscape planning and take place in Uganda, Nicaragua and Italy. We show that being part of a real-world community of stakeholders requires hands-on learning and the reflection and evaluation of actions. This prepares students in a more effective and realistic way for their future roles as responsible decision makers in complex social, economic and ecological systems. We

Student-Student Online Coaching: Conceptualizing an Emerging Learning Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hrastinski, Stefan; Stenbom, Stefan

2013-01-01

The aim of this paper is to describe student-student online coaching, defined as "an online service where a student gets support on a specific subject matter from a more experienced student". Student-student online coaching emphasizes learning a subject matter by giving a student the opportunity to get coached by a coach, i.e. a more experienced…

Promoting youth physical activity in rural southern communities: practitioner perceptions of environmental opportunities and barriers.

PubMed

Edwards, Michael B; Theriault, Daniel S; Shores, Kindal A; Melton, Karen M

2014-01-01

Research on youth physical activity has focused on urban areas. Rural adolescents are more likely to be physically inactive than urban youth, contributing to higher risk of obesity and chronic diseases. Study objectives were to: (1) identify perceived opportunities and barriers to youth physical activity within a rural area and (2) identify rural community characteristics that facilitate or inhibit efforts to promote youth physical activity. Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with expert informants in 2 rural southern US counties. Interviewees were recruited from diverse positions across multiple sectors based on their expert knowledge of community policies and programs for youth physical activity. Informants saw ball fields, natural amenities, and school sports as primary resources for youth physical activity, but they were divided on whether opportunities were abundant or scarce. Physical distance, social isolation, lack of community offerings, and transportation were identified as key barriers. Local social networks facilitated political action and volunteer recruitment to support programs. However, communities often lacked human capital to sustain initiatives. Racial divisions influenced perceptions of opportunities. Despite divisions, there were also examples of pooling resources to create and sustain physical activity opportunities. Developing partnerships and leveraging local resources may be essential to overcoming barriers for physical activity promotion in rural areas. Involvement of church leaders, school officials, health care workers, and cooperative extension is likely needed to establish and sustain youth rural physical activity programs. Allocating resources to existing community personnel and volunteers for continuing education may be valuable. © 2014 National Rural Health Association.

An Interactive Concept Map Approach to Supporting Mobile Learning Activities for Natural Science Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hwang, Gwo-Jen; Wu, Po-Han; Ke, Hui-Ru

2011-01-01

Mobile and wireless communication technologies not only enable anytime and anywhere learning, but also provide the opportunity to develop learning environments that combine real-world and digital-world resources. Nevertheless, researchers have indicated that, without effective tools for helping students organize their observations in the field,…

Lessons Learned in Developing Research Opportunities for Native American Undergraduate Students: The GEMscholars Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zurn-Birkhimer, S. M.; Filley, T. R.; Kroeger, T. J.

2008-12-01

Interventions for the well-documented national deficiency of underrepresented students in higher education have focused primarily on the undergraduate student population with significantly less attention given to issues of diversity within graduate programs. As a result, we have made little progress in transforming faculty composition to better reflect the nation's diversity resulting in relatively few minority mentors joining faculty ranks and schools falling short of the broader representation to create an enriched, diverse academic environment. The GEMscholars (Geology, Environmental Science and Meteorology scholars) Program began in the summer of 2006 with the goal of increasing the number of Native American students pursuing graduate degrees in the geosciences. We drew on research from Native American student education models to address three key themes of (a) mentoring, (b) culturally relevant valuations of geosciences and possible career paths, and (c) connections to community and family. A collaboration between Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN and three institutions in northern Minnesota; Bemidji State University, Red Lake Nation College and Leech Lake Tribal College, is structured to develop research opportunities and a support network for Native American undergraduate students (called GEMscholars) to participate in summer geoscience research projects in their home communities. Research opportunities were specifically chosen to have cultural relevance and yield locally important findings. The GEMscholars work on projects that directly link to their local ecosystems and permit them to engage in long term monitoring and cohesive interaction among each successive year's participants. For example, the GEMscholars have established and now maintain permanent field monitoring plots to assess the impacts of invasive European earthworm activity on forest ecosystem health. The culmination of the summer project is the GEMscholars Symposium at Purdue University

Designing for Inquiry-Based Learning with the Learning Activity Management System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levy, P.; Aiyegbayo, O.; Little, S.

2009-01-01

This paper explores the relationship between practitioners' pedagogical purposes, values and practices in designing for inquiry-based learning in higher education, and the affordances of the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) as a tool for creating learning designs in this context. Using a qualitative research methodology, variation was…

Measuring Opportunity to Learn and Academic Language Exposure for English Language Learners in Elementary Science Classrooms. CRESST Report 767

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez, Jose Felipe; Bailey, Alison L.; Kerr, Deirdre; Huang, Becky H.; Beauregard, Stacey

2010-01-01

The present study piloted a survey-based measure of Opportunity to Learn (OTL) and Academic Language Exposure (ALE) in fourth grade science classrooms that sought to distinguish teacher practices with ELL (English language learner) and non-ELL students. In the survey, participant teachers reported on their instructional practices and the context…

Active learning reduces annotation time for clinical concept extraction.

PubMed

Kholghi, Mahnoosh; Sitbon, Laurianne; Zuccon, Guido; Nguyen, Anthony

2017-10-01

To investigate: (1) the annotation time savings by various active learning query strategies compared to supervised learning and a random sampling baseline, and (2) the benefits of active learning-assisted pre-annotations in accelerating the manual annotation process compared to de novo annotation. There are 73 and 120 discharge summary reports provided by Beth Israel institute in the train and test sets of the concept extraction task in the i2b2/VA 2010 challenge, respectively. The 73 reports were used in user study experiments for manual annotation. First, all sequences within the 73 reports were manually annotated from scratch. Next, active learning models were built to generate pre-annotations for the sequences selected by a query strategy. The annotation/reviewing time per sequence was recorded. The 120 test reports were used to measure the effectiveness of the active learning models. When annotating from scratch, active learning reduced the annotation time up to 35% and 28% compared to a fully supervised approach and a random sampling baseline, respectively. Reviewing active learning-assisted pre-annotations resulted in 20% further reduction of the annotation time when compared to de novo annotation. The number of concepts that require manual annotation is a good indicator of the annotation time for various active learning approaches as demonstrated by high correlation between time rate and concept annotation rate. Active learning has a key role in reducing the time required to manually annotate domain concepts from clinical free text, either when annotating from scratch or reviewing active learning-assisted pre-annotations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Combining Active Learning with Service Learning: A Student-Driven Demonstration Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatcher-Skeers, Mary; Aragon, Ellen

2002-01-01

Describes a project that integrates active learning into service learning targeting both college students and middle schools students wherein college students perform chemical demonstrations for middle school students. (YDS)

Differences between Higher and Lower Achievement Rate and Leadership Qualities, Instructional Practices, Parental Involvement, Opportunity to Learn, and Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ficarra, Laura

2017-01-01

The purpose of this mixed study was to investigate the differences between higher and lower achievement middle school rates pertaining to leadership qualities, opportunity to learn, instructional practices, parental involvement, and professional development. Qualitatively, principals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol.…

Assessing student clinical learning experiences.

PubMed

Nehyba, Katrine; Miller, Susan; Connaughton, Joanne; Singer, Barbara

2017-08-01

This article describes the use of an activity worksheet and questionnaire to investigate the learning experience of students on clinical placement. The worksheet measures the amount of time students spend in different learning activities, and the questionnaire explores student satisfaction and preferred learning activities. An activity worksheet and questionnaire … investigate[d] the learning experiences of students on clinical placement METHODS: The activity worksheet and questionnaire were used in a cohort pilot study of physiotherapy students on clinical placement. The activity worksheet provides details of the amount of time students engage in a range of clinical and non-clinical tasks while on placement, such as time spent treating patients, working individually, working with their peers and engaging in reflective practice. In combination with the questionnaire results, it allows clinicians to gain an understanding of the clinical learning environment experienced by their students. The data collected using these tools provide a description of the students' activities while undertaking the clinical placement. This information may guide the refinement of the clinical experience, and offers an opportunity to individualise learning activities to match students' needs and preferences. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and The Association for the Study of Medical Education.

The e-Poster Conference: An Online Nursing Research Course Learning Activity.

PubMed

Pierce, Linda L

2016-09-01

Posters have become one of the most important types of scientific communication. This article describes an e-poster conference as an online learning activity for professional nursing students. Research and evidence-based practice (EBP) project posters from colleagues across the country were placed on a university research course Web site, along with an evaluation tool and discussion prompts. During one semester, students experienced a range of activities focused on understanding research and EBP basic processes in preparation for evaluation and discussion of the layout and content of these e-posters. From all accounts, the conference was rated as positive, providing nursing students with opportunities to (a) view studies and projects from a wider nursing science audience, (b) foster the development of important evaluation and communication skills, and (c) be exposed to evidence that could be translated into their practice. Other schools and organizations may adopt this e-poster conference activity to stimulate professional nurses' critical thinking ability. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(9):533-535.]. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

Attitudes of Face-to-Face and E-Learning Instructors toward "Active Learning"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pundak, David; Herscovitz, Orit; Shacham, Miri

2010-01-01

Instruction in higher education has developed significantly over the past two decades, influenced by two trends: promotion of active learning methods and integration of web technology in e-Learning. Many studies found that active teaching improves students' success, involvement and thinking skills. Nevertheless, internationally, most instructors…

ENERGY-NET (Energy, Environment and Society Learning Network): Best Practices to Enhance Informal Geoscience Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rossi, R.; Elliott, E. M.; Bain, D.; Crowley, K. J.; Steiner, M. A.; Divers, M. T.; Hopkins, K. G.; Giarratani, L.; Gilmore, M. E.

2014-12-01

While energy links all living and non-living systems, the integration of energy, the environment, and society is often not clearly represented in 9 - 12 classrooms and informal learning venues. However, objective public learning that integrates these components is essential for improving public environmental literacy. ENERGY-NET (Energy, Environment and Society Learning Network) is a National Science Foundation funded initiative that uses an Earth Systems Science framework to guide experimental learning for high school students and to improve public learning opportunities regarding the energy-environment-society nexus in a Museum setting. One of the primary objectives of the ENERGY-NET project is to develop a rich set of experimental learning activities that are presented as exhibits at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). Here we detail the evolution of the ENERGY-NET exhibit building process and the subsequent evolution of exhibit content over the past three years. While preliminary plans included the development of five "exploration stations" (i.e., traveling activity carts) per calendar year, the opportunity arose to create a single, larger topical exhibit per semester, which was assumed to have a greater impact on museum visitors. Evaluative assessments conducted to date reveal important practices to be incorporated into ongoing exhibit development: 1) Undergraduate mentors and teen exhibit developers should receive additional content training to allow richer exhibit materials. 2) The development process should be distributed over as long a time period as possible and emphasize iteration. This project can serve as a model for other collaborations between geoscience departments and museums. In particular, these practices may streamline development of public presentations and increase the effectiveness of experimental learning activities.

Active Learning and Cooperative Learning in the Organic Chemistry Lecture Class

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paulson, Donald R.

1999-08-01

Faculty in the physical sciences are one of the academic groups least receptive to the use of active learning strategies and cooperative learning in their classrooms. This is particularly so in traditional lecture classes. It is the objective of this paper to show how effective these techniques can be in improving student performance in classes. The use of active learning strategies and cooperative learning groups in my organic chemistry lecture classes has increased the overall pass rate in my classes by an astounding 20-30% over the traditional lecture mode. This has been accomplished without any reduction in "standards". The actual methods employed are presented as well as a discussion of how I came to radically change the way I teach my classes.

Measuring Opportunity to Learn and Achievement Growth: Key Research Issues with Implications for the Effective Education of All Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elliott, Stephen N.

2015-01-01

The related constructs of opportunity to learn (OTL) and achievement growth are fundamental aspects of the current large-scale assessment and accountability system in operation in the United States. For purposes of this article, OTL is defined as the degree to which a teacher dedicates instructional time and content coverage to the intended…

Functional anatomy of the cardiovascular system: professional development for PreK-3 teachers using a "train and equip" method results in learning opportunities for students.

PubMed

Burns, E Robert

2008-01-01

Preadolescent students are interested in learning the structure and function of the human body. However, their teachers are not trained in this content. The purpose of this project was to expand a successful outreach effort in the health sciences for grade 7-12 teachers to include PreK-3 teachers. A "Healthy Hearts" workshop was offered to train the teachers in relevant content and also to give them a resource kit of supplies and equipment to facilitate the transference of the training into educational opportunities for their students. The workshop included many role-playing activities and use of all items in the resource kit. A total of 25 workshops were conducted in 14 different community locations with 716 PreK-3 teachers attending from 169 communities representing 59 (79%) of the state's 75 counties. African American (AA) teacher participation was 35%, twice the state AA population rate and 3.5x the AA public school teacher rate. Pre to Posttest scores increased an average of 15%. The results of the evaluation measures regarding the workshop and the transference of the training and use of resource kit items into learning opportunities for students were excellent. Universities have the capability, perhaps the responsibility, to provide the much-needed professional development training to PreK-12 teachers. Anatomists in medical and nonmedical school settings are well positioned to participate in this process and help close the gap between the interest young children have in learning about the human body and the lack of teacher training in this content. (c) 2008 American Association of Anatomists.

Active Learning and Teaching: Improving Postsecondary Library Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Eileen E.

1995-01-01

Discusses ways to improve postsecondary library instruction based on theories of active learning. Topics include a historical background of active learning; student achievement and attitudes; cognitive development; risks; active teaching; and instructional techniques, including modified lectures, brainstorming, small group work, cooperative…

Using and Assessing an Experiential Learning Project in a Retail Marketing Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maskulka, Therese A.; Stout, David E.; Massad, Victor J.

2011-01-01

Business educators have been challenged recently to provide increased experiential learning opportunities for students. Proponents of experienced-based learning subscribe to the view that such experiences engage students actively in the learning process, and because of the linkage between practice and theory, better prepare students for the…

Resource Letter ALIP-1: Active-Learning Instruction in Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meltzer, David E.; Thornton, Ronald K.

2012-06-01

This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on research-based active-learning instruction in physics. These are instructional methods that are based on, assessed by, and validated through research on the teaching and learning of physics. They involve students in their own learning more deeply and more intensely than does traditional instruction, particularly during class time. The instructional methods and supporting body of research reviewed here offer potential for significantly improved learning in comparison to traditional lecture-based methods of college and university physics instruction. We begin with an introduction to the history of active learning in physics in the United States, and then discuss some methods for and outcomes of assessing pedagogical effectiveness. We enumerate and describe common characteristics of successful active-learning instructional strategies in physics. We then discuss a range of methods for introducing active-learning instruction in physics and provide references to those methods for which there is published documentation of student learning gains.