Integrating Interview Methodology to Analyze Inter-Institutional Comparisons of Service-Learning within the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification Framework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plante, Jarrad D.; Cox, Thomas D.

2016-01-01

Service-learning has a longstanding history in higher education in and includes three main tenets: academic learning, meaningful community service, and civic learning. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching created an elective classification system called the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification for higher education…

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…

Game Over: Assessment as Formative Transitions through and beyond Playful Media

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zuiker, Steven J.

2016-01-01

Educational videogames support productive learning by organizing content in relation to meaningful contexts and roles. Videogames can also create new opportunities for understanding and supporting learning when the game ends. This presents formative transitions as a strategy for revealing what players learn through videogames, while also…

Unleashing the Future: Educators "Speak Up" about the Use of Emerging Technologies for Learning. Speak Up 2009 National Findings: Teachers, Aspiring Teachers & Administrators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Project Tomorrow, 2010

2010-01-01

Technology has enabled students to have greater access to vast array of resources, classes and experts; empowering students to become "Free Agent Learners" who are creating meaningful personalized learning experiences 24/7 outside of the traditional classroom and school structure. In the report "Creating our Future: Students Speak Up about their…

Expressing Yourself Poe-etically

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gillespie, Joanne S.

2011-01-01

Middle grades teachers should create meaningful learning activities involving stimulating literature and interesting composition prompts. This article describes a unit in which eighth graders read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Using multiple learning and teaching approaches, they expanded their vocabularies, responded artistically to "The…

Middle School Students' Perceptions of the Instructional Value of Analogies, Summaries and Answering Questions in Life Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

BouJaoude, Saouma; Tamim, Rana

2008-01-01

Meaningful learning is the fundamental process that underlies the acquisition of useful information and the construction of new knowledge. By creating meaningful relations, learners are able to organize the information in bigger and more organized chunks of information; an organization that reduces memory overload and increases processing…

"Assessment Drives Learning": Do Assessments Promote High-Level Cognitive Processing?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bezuidenhout, M. J.; Alt, H.

2011-01-01

Students tend to learn in the way they know, or think, they will be assessed. Therefore, to ensure deep, meaningful learning, assessments must be geared to promote cognitive processing that requires complex, contextualised thinking to construct meaning and create knowledge. Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive levels is used worldwide to assist in…

Tuning: A Guide for Creating Discipline-Specific Frameworks to Foster Meaningful Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall, David W.

2017-01-01

Tuning, as a methodology, implies a philosophy of curriculum design, pedagogy, and assignment design. It implies that successful study in a discipline depends on intentional construction of learning experiences for students. Intentional construction of learning experiences requires an understanding of the learning goals set forth by faculty for…

Creating Meaningful Partnerships: Connecting Teaching Candidates with Professional Development Schools through Service Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrison, Lisa; Reiser, Cortney; Hawk, Robin

2016-01-01

Through the use of constructed narratives, this article shares the experiences of two preservice teachers and their university professor in implementing service learning projects that took place within their Professional Development School partnerships. Findings suggest that (1) service learning was a valuable instructional strategy to enhance the…

Social Learning Theories--An Important Design Consideration for Geoscience Fieldwork

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Streule, M. J.; Craig, L. E.

2016-01-01

The nature of field trips in geoscience lends them to the application of social learning theories for three key reasons. First, they provide opportunity for meaningful practical experience and promote effective learning afforded by no other educational vehicle in the subject. Second, they are integral for students creating a strong but changing…

Developing an instrument to measure emotional behaviour abilities of meaningful learning through the Delphi technique.

PubMed

Cadorin, Lucia; Bagnasco, Annamaria; Tolotti, Angela; Pagnucci, Nicola; Sasso, Loredana

2017-09-01

To identify items for a new instrument that measures emotional behaviour abilities of meaningful learning, according to Fink's Taxonomy. Meaningful learning is an active process that promotes a wider and deeper understanding of concepts. It is the result of an interaction between new and previous knowledge and produces a long-term change of knowledge and skills. To measure meaningful learning capability, it is very important in the education of health professionals to identify problems or special learning needs. For this reason, it is necessary to create valid instruments. A Delphi Study technique was implemented in four phases by means of e-mail. The study was conducted from April-September 2015. An expert panel consisting of ten researchers with experience in Fink's Taxonomy was established to identify the items of the instrument. Data were analysed for conceptual description and item characteristics and attributes were rated. Expert consensus was sought in each of these phases. An 87·5% consensus cut-off was established. After four rounds, consensus was obtained for validation of the content of the instrument 'Assessment of Meaningful learning Behavioural and Emotional Abilities'. This instrument consists of 56 items evaluated on a 6-point Likert-type scale. Foundational Knowledge, Application, Integration, Human Dimension, Caring and Learning How to Learn were the six major categories explored. This content validated tool can help educators (teachers, trainers and tutors) to identify and improve the strategies to support students' learning capability, which could increase their awareness of and/or responsibility in the learning process. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Blended Learning Approach to Teaching Project Management: A Model for Active Participation and Involvement--Insights from Norway

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hussein, Bassam A.

2015-01-01

The paper demonstrates and evaluates the effectiveness of a blended learning approach to create a meaningful learning environment. We use the term blended learning approach in this paper to refer to the use of multiple or hybrid instructional methods that emphasize the role of learners as contributors to the learning process rather than recipients…

Effect of Blended Learning Strategy on Achievement in Biology and Social and Environmental Attitude of Students at Secondary Level

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nair, Tara S.; Bindu, R. L.

2016-01-01

Blended Learning is mostly understood as the use of resources which combine e-learning with other educational resources. In this study, a blended learning strategy was designed with a variety of factors addressed to create a meaningful learning environment facilitated by a variety of modes, methods and moments through a combination of Objectives…

Journaling: A Bridge between School and Home

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGough, Julie

2013-01-01

This article describes how first-grade students create meaningful communication with families and help build the student-teacher-parent relationship through journaling. Journals are a useful tool to bridge school and home. A journal can communicate learning goals, develop scientific vocabulary, and create dialogue through oral and written…

Making Meaningful Decisions about Time, Workload and Pedagogy in the Digital Age: The Course Resource Appraisal Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kennedy, Eileen; Laurillard, Diana; Horan, Bernard; Charlton, Patricia

2015-01-01

This article reports on a design-based research project to create a modelling tool to analyse the costs and learning benefits involved in different modes of study. The Course Resource Appraisal Model (CRAM) provides accurate cost-benefit information so that institutions are able to make more meaningful decisions about which kind of…

Using a Multimodal Learning System to Support Music Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yu, Pao-Ta; Lai, Yen-Shou; Tsai, Hung-Hsu; Chang, Yuan-Hou

2010-01-01

This paper describes a multimodality approach that helps primary-school students improve their learning performance during music instruction. Multimedia instruction is an effective way to help learners create meaningful knowledge and to make referential connections between mental representations. This paper proposes a multimodal, dual-channel,…

Cognitive Diffusion Model: Facilitating EFL Learning in an Authentic Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shadiev, Rustam; Hwang, Wu-Yuin; Huang, Yueh-Min; Liu, Tzu-Yu

2017-01-01

For this study, we designed learning activities in which students applied newly acquired knowledge to solve meaningful daily life problems in their local community--a real, familiar, and relevant environment for students. For example, students learned about signs and rules in class and then applied this new knowledge to create their own rules for…

Experiencing authenticity - the core of student learning in clinical practice.

PubMed

Manninen, Katri

2016-10-01

Learning in clinical practice is challenging regarding organizational and pedagogical issues. Clinical education wards are one way to meet these challenges by focusing on both patient care and student learning. However, more knowledge is needed about how students' learning can be enhanced and about patients' and supervisors' roles in these settings. The aim was to explore nursing students' learning on a clinical education ward with an explicit pedagogical framework. Semi-structured interviews of students were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and an ethnographic study including observations and follow-up interviews of students, patients and supervisors was conducted. The core of student meaningful learning experiences both external and internal authenticity. Students in early stages immediately created mutual relationships, experienced both external and internal authenticity, and patients became active participants in student learning. Without a mutual relationship, patients passively let students practice on their bodies. Students nearing graduation experienced only external authenticity, creating uncertainty as a threshold for learning. Caring for patients with complex needs helped students overcome the threshold and experience internal authenticity. Supervisors' challenges were to balance patient care and student learning by working as a team. They supported students coping with the complex challenges on the ward. Students need to experience external and internal authenticity to make learning meaningful. Experiencing authenticity, involving meaning-making processes and knowledge construction, is linked to transformative learning and overcoming thresholds. Therefore, an explicit pedagogical framework, based on patient-centredness, peer learning and the supervisory team, creates the prerequisites for experiencing external and internal authenticity.

Developing Coherent Conceptual Storylines: Two Elementary Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanuscin, Deborah; Lipsitz, Kelsey; Cisterna-Alburquerque, Dante; Arnone, Kathryn A.; van Garderen, Delinda; de Araujo, Zandra; Lee, Eun Ju

2016-01-01

The "conceptual storyline" of a lesson refers to the flow and sequencing of learning activities such that science concepts align and progress in ways that are instructionally meaningful to student learning of the concepts. Research demonstrates that when teachers apply lesson design strategies to create a coherent science content…

The Design of Learning Experiences: A Connection to Physical Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stueck, Lawrence E.; Tanner, C. Kenneth

The school environment must create a rich, beautiful, dynamic, meaningful experience for students to learn; however, architects, school boards, and the state focus almost exclusively only on the building when making design decisions. This document lists specific aspects to developing a visionary campus: one that provides a three-dimensional…

Performing Our World: Affirming Cultural Diversity through Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoffman, Adria R.

2012-01-01

This article describes a culturally responsive music curriculum through which students and teachers affirmed diverse stories of individuals present in our public school community. An arts-integrated curriculum project helped make learning more meaningful while concurrently creating a safe learning space for students. This grant-funded project…

High School Online: Pedagogy, Preferences, and Practices of Three Online Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kerr, Shantia

2011-01-01

This multiple case study explores how three online, high school teachers used technological tools to create meaningful learning activities for their students. Findings reveal that teachers use a wide variety of tools and approaches to online learning. Tools are categorized as content, communication, and management tools. Approaches include…

Project-Based Learning in Scottish Prisons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sams, Kirsten

2014-01-01

The article describes the development of a project-based approach to learning in seven Scottish prisons. It argues that the project-based approach is ideally suited to prison education due to its flexibility and ability to enrich the relatively narrow prison curriculum and create meaningful links with wider society, reducing the isolation of…

The Role of Leadership and Culture in Creating Meaningful Assessment: A Mixed Methods Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guetterman, Timothy C.; Mitchell, Nancy

2016-01-01

With increased demands for institutional accountability and improved student learning, involvement in assessment has become a fundamental role of higher education faculty (Rhodes, 2010). However, faculty members and administrators often question whether assessment efforts do indeed improve student learning (Hutchings, 2010). This mixed methods…

Air Age Education. Elementary Units.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fountain Valley School District, CA.

The purpose of these units are: 1) to teach social science concepts using aviation as a vehicle to create interest and provide a meaningful context; 2) to facilitate skilled development through varied learning experiences which meet the individual needs of the students; 3) to provide learning experiences which build upon previous knowledge; 4) to…

Designing a Technology-Enhanced Learning Environment to Support Scientific Modeling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Hsin-Kai; Hsu, Ying-Shao; Hwang, Fu-Kwun

2010-01-01

Modeling of a natural phenomenon is of value in science learning and increasingly emphasized as an important component of science education. However, previous research has shown that secondary school students encounter difficulties when engaging in modeling activities and need substantial support in order to create meaningful scientific models.…

Bears. Interactive Animal Kit. Grades 1-3.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernard, Robin

This kit was created to make learning about bears a fun and meaningful experience for teachers and students. It offers students opportunities to learn about favorite animals through an assortment of fun activities filled with information. The activities interact with science, language arts, critical thinking, music, social studies, math, art, and…

Human Connections.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sgroi, Angela; Saltiel, Iris M.

1998-01-01

The power of collaborative learning partnerships is the synergy created through productive, meaningful activity. Key elements include trust, respect, self-selection, mutual goals, a belief that the sum is greater than the parts, and complementary qualities. (SK)

Mindfulness as a Prerequisite to Effective Leadership; Exploring the Constructs That Foster Productive Use of Feedback for Professional Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Day, Danette V.; Gregory, Jess L.

2017-01-01

This paper proposes a model that integrates mindfulness, ego, and mindset as filters of the information available for professional learning. The paper explores connections between mindset, ego, and mindfulness that promote or inhibit an educator's ability to use feedback for learning. A leader's commitment to creating spaces for meaningful use of…

The Impact of Project-Based Learning on Minority Student Achievement: Implications for School Redesign

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cervantes, Bernadine; Hemmer, Lynn; Kouzekanani, Kamiar

2015-01-01

Project-Based Learning (PBL) serves as an instructional approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in the investigation of real-world problems to create meaningful and relevant educational experiences. The causal-comparative study compared 7th and 8th students who had utilized the PBL with a comparison group in…

Using Google Drive to Facilitate a Blended Approach to Authentic Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rowe, Michael; Bozalek, Vivienne; Frantz, Jose

2013-01-01

While technology has the potential to create opportunities for transformative learning in higher education, it is often used to merely reinforce didactic teaching that aims to control access to expert knowledge. Instead, educators should consider using technology to enhance communication and provide richer, more meaningful platforms for the social…

Using Electronic Technologies To Support Teaching and Learning: Building a Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eastwood, Kenneth W.; And Others

The Oswego City School District is committed to creating--through the implementation of its technology plan--an environment that supports effective teaching and learning and prepares all students to succeed in a technologically sophisticated world. This report summarizes the efforts to build a community-wide consensus for a meaningful technology…

Creating a Complex Measurement Model Using Evidence Centered Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williamson, David M.; Bauer, Malcom; Steinberg, Linda S.; Mislevy, Robert J.; Behrens, John T.

In computer-based simulations meant to support learning, students must bring a wide range of relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to bear jointly as they solve meaningful problems in a learning domain. To function efficiently as an assessment, a simulation system must also be able to evoke and interpret observable evidence about targeted…

Games for Language Learning. New Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Andrew; And Others

To help students practice and manipulate a newly learned language, games that help the teacher create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful are presented in this book. The introduction provides answers to questions teachers may have--including why and for whom games are useful--and also offers practical pointers for explaining…

Constructing Concept Maps to Encourage Meaningful Learning in Science Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akcay, Hakan

2017-01-01

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate science teaching and assessing what is learned via using concept maps. Concept mapping is a technique for visually representing the structure of information. Concept mapping allows students to understand the relationships between concepts of science by creating a visual map of the connections. Concept…

Creating Personal Meaning through Technology-Supported Science Inquiry Learning across Formal and Informal Settings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anastopoulou, Stamatina; Sharples, Mike; Ainsworth, Shaaron; Crook, Charles; O'Malley, Claire; Wright, Michael

2012-01-01

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or…

O-Tu-Kapua ('What Clouds See'): A Mixed Reality Experience Bridging Art, Science and Technology in Meaningful Ways

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jowsey, Susan; Aguayo, Claudio

2017-01-01

Mixed Reality learning environments can provide opportunities to educationally enhance previously isolated scientific concepts by using art and technology as mediums for understanding the world. Participatory experiences provide a kinetic means of comprehending often-abstract knowledge, creating the conditions for sensory learning that is…

Modeling To Enhance Critical Thinking and Decision Making Skills Development in the Instructional Process: The Social Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peters, Richard

Students must be actively involved in the process of learning for it to have personal meaning and importance in their lives. Teachers must also become critical thinkers, creative individuals, and decision makers in order to create more challenging learning environments. Teachers need to blend structure and spontaneity into meaningful learning…

"Don't Worry, You Know More than They Do": The Autoethnography of an Accidental English Professor

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akst, Leslie Anne

2016-01-01

This dissertation is a qualitative study of a curriculum I designed for composition students in the Fall of 2012. The curriculum I created is informed by the Freirean edict that a self-generated desire to "create knowledge" is far more likely to result in meaningful, holistic learning than simply "banking" information. In the…

Beyond individualism: professional culture and its influence on feedback.

PubMed

Watling, Christopher; Driessen, Erik; van der Vleuten, Cees P M; Vanstone, Meredith; Lingard, Lorelei

2013-06-01

Although feedback is widely considered essential to learning, its actual influence on learners is variable. Research on responsivity to feedback has tended to focus on individual rather than social or cultural influences on learning. In this study, we explored how feedback is handled within different professional cultures, and how the characteristics and values of a profession shape learners' responses to feedback. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, we conducted 12 focus groups and nine individual interviews (with a total of 50 participants) across three cultures of professional training in, respectively, music, teacher training and medicine. Constant comparative analysis for recurring themes was conducted iteratively. Each of the three professional cultures created a distinct context for learning that influenced how feedback was handled. Despite these contextual differences, credibility and constructiveness emerged as critical constants, identified by learners across cultures as essential for feedback to be perceived as meaningful. However, the definitions of credibility and constructiveness were distinct to each professional culture and the cultures varied considerably in how effectively they supported the occurrence of feedback with these critical characteristics. Professions define credibility and constructiveness in culturally specific ways and create contexts for learning that may either facilitate or constrain the provision of meaningful feedback. Comparison with other professional cultures may offer strategies for creating a productive feedback culture within medical education. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Mediation of Teaching and Learning Processes through "Identity Artefacts." A Vygotskian Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Subero, David; Llopart, Mariona; Siqués, Carina; Esteban-Guitart, Moises

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is to address the teaching and learning processes in schools from a Vygotskian perspective based on the notion of "identity artefacts" (IAs) which, for our purposes, consist of documents created by the learners about themselves, in which they try to capture all the things that make sense and are meaningful to them…

Thinking Skills by Design: Using a Capstone ePortfolio to Promote Reflection, Critical Thinking, and Curriculum Integration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morreale, Cathleen; Van Zile-Tamsen, Carol; Emerson, Cheryl A.; Herzog, Matthew

2017-01-01

A capstone ePortfolio is a digital space where students can gather and integrate their learning experiences from their undergraduate careers into a meaningful whole, demonstrate their growth as learners, and connect their learning to the world. The process of creating a capstone ePortfolio equips students with the digital composition skills…

Travel Schooling: Helping Children Learn through Travel.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrnes, Deborah A.

2001-01-01

Provides information for teachers to help parents create rewarding and educational travel experiences for children. Examines the benefits of travel schooling, fundamental elements of a meaningful travel schooling experience, fostering cross cultural sensitivity through travel, and returning to the traditional classroom. (SD)

The Brain-Compatible Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westwater, Anne; Wolfe, Pat

2000-01-01

Demonstrates how teachers can make instruction more meaningful by linking new subject matter to students' previous experiences and by using community resources to create exciting new learning experiences. If the content is rigorous and relevant, debates, storytelling, the arts, graphic organizers, and mnemonics can dramatically enhance student…

The Impact of Language on Educational Access in South Africa. CREATE Pathways to Access. Research Monograph No. 24

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lafon, Michel

2009-01-01

The role of Medium of Instruction or Language of Learning and Teaching has not received sufficient attention as a factor denying meaningful access to education in South Africa. Yet the majority of under-performing learners are also children who learn in a language that is not their mother-tongue. This research aims to assess how recent language…

The Application of CSCL Scripts to Support Teaching and Learning for Children with Intellectual Disabilities.

PubMed

Boyle, Bryan; Arnedillo-Sánchez, Inmaculada

2017-01-01

This paper describes the application of collaboration scripts to guide social interaction behaviours of children with intellectual disabilities. The use of such scripts demonstrate potential as a means of creating CSCL environments that can be used to provide children with communication and social interaction impairments with a platform for learning and practicing such skills in a meaningful social context.

Professional Development That Sticks: How Do I Create Meaningful Learning Experiences for Educators? (ASCD Arias)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ende, Fred

2016-01-01

How can we approach professional development in a thoughtful way, keep teachers motivated, and make the process worthwhile? It's a truth that school leaders can't deny: teachers tend to think of PD as a distraction from the "real work" of the classroom--as something to get through instead of an opportunity to engage, learn, and grow as…

Reflective learning in community-based dental education.

PubMed

Deogade, Suryakant C; Naitam, Dinesh

2016-01-01

Community-based dental education (CBDE) is the implementation of dental education in a specific social context, which shifts a substantial part of dental clinical education from dental teaching institutional clinics to mainly public health settings. Dental students gain additional value from CBDE when they are guided through a reflective process of learning. We propose some key elements to the existing CBDE program that support meaningful personal learning experiences. Dental rotations of 'externships' in community-based clinical settings (CBCS) are year-long community-based placements and have proven to be strong learning environments where students develop good communication skills and better clinical reasoning and management skills. We look at the characteristics of CBDE and how the social and personal context provided in communities enhances dental education. Meaningfulness is created by the authentic context, which develops over a period of time. Structured reflection assignments and methods are suggested as key elements in the existing CBDE program. Strategies to enrich community-based learning experiences for dental students include: Photographic documentation; written narratives; critical incident reports; and mentored post-experiential small group discussions. A directed process of reflection is suggested as a way to increase the impact of the community learning experiences. We suggest key elements to the existing CBDE module so that the context-rich environment of CBDE allows for meaningful relations and experiences for dental students and enhanced learning.

Building Literacy with Child-Constructed Sociodramatic Play Centers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ferguson, Christine J.

1999-01-01

Presents suggestions for creating play-learning environments designed to promote children's early literacy. Suggests that stimulating and inviting environments, abundant in print-rich materials, realistic props, and manipulatives meaningful to children are most valuable. Themes include hospital, pizza restaurant, hardware store, flower shop, candy…

Integrating Community in Culturally Conscientious Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanchez, Rebecca M.

2008-01-01

Developing a trusting community of learners is vital for critical, inclusive, culturally conscientious social studies teaching. Social studies teachers work to create meaningful relationships among their students and themselves. The classroom community serves as a place where students and teachers learn together; disagree with one another; and…

Relationships between students' meaningful learning orientation and their understanding of genetics topics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cavallo, Ann M. Liberatore; Schafer, Larry E.

This study explored factors predicting the extent to which high school students (N = 140) acquired meaningful understanding of the biological topics of meiosis, the Punnett-square method, and the relationships between these topics. This study (a) examined mental modeling as a technique for measuring students' meaningful understanding of the topics, (b) measured students' predisposed, generalized tendency to learn meaningfully (meaningful learning orientation), (c) determined the extent to which students' meaningful learning orientation predicted meaningful understanding beyond that predicted by aptitude and achievement motivation, (d) experimentally tested two instructional treatments (relationships presented to students, relationships generated by students), (e) explored the relationships of meaningful learning orientation, prior knowledge, instructional treatment, and all interactions of these variables in predicting meaningful understanding. The results of correlations and multiple regressions indicated that meaningful learning orientation contributed to students' attainment of meaningful understanding independent of aptitude and achievement motivation. Meaningful learning orientation and prior knowledge interacted in unique ways for each topic to predict students' attainment of meaningful understanding. Instructional treatment had relatively little relationship to students' acquisition of meaningful understanding, except for learners midrange between meaningful and rote. These findings imply that a meaningful learning approach among students may be important, perhaps as much or more than aptitude and achievement motivation, for their acquisition of interrelated, meaningful understandings of science.

Teaching astronomy with case studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slater, Timothy F.

2015-11-01

Breaking the students into small, collaborative learning groups to solve a meaningful task together is one of the most successful and fully evaluated teaching techniques implemented over the last century. Although there are many ways to accomplish small group learning, a long-standing and consistently successful collaborative class activity is to use the case study teaching strategy. The use of case studies is common in medical schools and law schools, but not so common in the teaching of astronomy. Case studies create meaningful conversations among students and with the professor by focusing on life-like dilemmas to be solved. Case study tasks ask audience members to synthesize several ideas or evaluate scenarios that have not been explicitly presented to them in the lecture or in available readings.

Creating the learning situation to promote student deep learning: Data analysis and application case

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Yuanyuan; Wu, Shaoyan

2017-05-01

How to lead students to deeper learning and cultivate engineering innovative talents need to be studied for higher engineering education. In this study, through the survey data analysis and theoretical research, we discuss the correlation of teaching methods, learning motivation, and learning methods. In this research, we find that students have different motivation orientation according to the perception of teaching methods in the process of engineering education, and this affects their choice of learning methods. As a result, creating situations is critical to lead students to deeper learning. Finally, we analyze the process of learning situational creation in the teaching process of «bidding and contract management workshops». In this creation process, teachers use the student-centered teaching to lead students to deeper study. Through the study of influence factors of deep learning process, and building the teaching situation for the purpose of promoting deep learning, this thesis provide a meaningful reference for enhancing students' learning quality, teachers' teaching quality and the quality of innovation talent.

Case Study: Focus on Personal/Professional Preparation in Physical Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

University of South Florida, Tampa. Coll. of Education.

This paper describes a program featuring integrated course sequences and continuous teaching experience that prepares teachers who can create a variety of learning environments that provide meaningful movement experiences for grades K-12,. The 2-year program sequence includes the following elements: (a) selective admissions and retention…

Accountability for College and Career Readiness: Developing a New Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darling-Hammond, Linda; Wilhoit, Gene; Pittenger, Linda

2014-01-01

As schools across the country prepare for new standards under the Common Core, states are moving toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. This paper recommends an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and…

Hacking Say and Reviving ELIZA: Lessons from Virtual Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mazar, Rochelle; Nolan, Jason

2009-01-01

As text-based predecessors to Second Life, MOOs can offer educators important insights on managing virtual communities to create rich, meaningful learning experiences. Rochelle Mazar and Jason Nolan outline two instructional experiments in MOOs that have implications for current educational practice in Second Life. One involves modifying and…

Word-Play and "Musike": Young Children Learning Literacies while Communicating Playfully

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alcock, Sophie; Cullen, Joy; St George, Alison

2008-01-01

This paper explores young children's rhythmic, musical, humorous and playful communication in the context of empowering themselves to create meaningful curriculum during teacher-controlled routine morning-tea times in an early childhood education centre. The data, presented as "events", formed part of an interpretive qualitative study…

Sport Nutritionist: A New Sport Education Role

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Matthew R.; Zimmerman, Ryan; Ciotto, Carol

2015-01-01

Considering the challenges associated with adolescent obesity and the need for innovative and meaningful physical education curricula, the authors of this article decided to create a new sport education role to help students learn about the fundamental nutritional concepts and practices that contribute to a healthy and active lifestyle. The new…

DVD Newsletters: New Ways to Encourage Communication with Families

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sanchez, Claudia; Walsh, Bridget A.; Rose, Katherine Kensinger

2011-01-01

Early childhood educators are always looking for accessible, easy-to-use strategies to enhance communication with families. Technology innovations have the potential to enhance and create more meaningful school and home communication that involves families and encourages them to support their children's learning at home. Effective technological…

Using Playful Practice to Communicate with Special Children. David Fulton/Nasen

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corke, Margaret

2011-01-01

Playfulness is important; it creates an alternative space where emotional, cognitive and social dimensions can be explored and tested. This highly practical book explores the endless possibilities of using playful, creative and interactive activities to meaningfully engage with children with multiple learning difficulties or autistic spectrum…

Using Media as Subject Matter to Teach Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Kannel-Ray, Nancy; Newlin-Haus, Esther

2009-01-01

Learning should occur in social environments in which students are engaged in meaningful activities that require them to think critically and solve problems (Dewey, 1933; Phillips & Soltis, 1998). This article describes how an urban middle school interdisciplinary teaching team partnered with the authors to create a hands-on, highly engaging…

Whole-Language Strategies for Integrating Technology into Language Arts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stuhlmann, Janice; Taylor, Harriet

This paper presents proven strategies and benefits of integrating technology into the language-arts curriculum and instruction. Benefits include creating a risk-free learning environment; increasing student empowerment; providing the opportunity for students to practice skills in meaningful contexts; and increasing interest in reading and writing.…

Environmental Peace Education in Foreign Language Learners' English Grammar Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arikan, Arda

2009-01-01

English language teachers create contexts to teach grammar so that meaningful learning occurs. In this study, English grammar is contextualized through environmental peace education activities to raise students' awareness of global issues. Two sources provided data to evaluate the success of this instructional process. Fourth-year pre-service…

Sensing Matter--Is It a Liquid or Solid?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Troncale, Jennifer M.

2016-01-01

Reading and writing are essential skills that students use as they learn science. For students to attain scientific literacy, they must create meaningful lessons capitalizing on curiosity and natural wonders about the world, through which students speak, read, and write about their science experiences. The inquiry-based lesson described in this…

When Curriculum Meets Art

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giardina, Nicola

2016-01-01

A three-year grant program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City encourages teachers to draw connections between curricular topics and works of art. In this article, museum educator Nicola Giardina describes how the program uses inquiry-based lessons to create meaningful learning experiences for underserved students. She highlights…

Making the Learning of Mathematics More Meaningful

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ward, Robin A.

1998-01-01

In the early 1980's, the National Commission on Excellence in Education responded to the call for reform in the teaching and learning of mathematics. In particular, the Commission developed a document addressing the consensus that all students need to learn more, and often different, mathematics and that instruction in mathematics must be significantly revised. In a response to these calls for mathematics education reform, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) developed its Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (1989) with a two-fold purpose: 1) to create a coherent vision of what it means to be mathematically literate in a world that relies on calculators and computers, and 2) to create a set of standards to guide the revisions of school mathematics curriculum.

The promise of new ideas and new technology for improving teaching and learning.

PubMed

Novak, Joseph D

2003-01-01

There have been enormous advances in our understanding of human learning in the past three decades. There have also been important advances in our understanding of the nature of knowledge and new knowledge creation. These advances, when combined with the explosive development of the Internet and other technologies, permit advances in educational practices at least as important as the invention of the printing press in 1460. We have built on the cognitive learning theory of David Ausubel and various sources of new ideas on epistemology. Our research program has focused on understanding meaningful learning and on developing better methods to achieve such learning and to assess progress in meaningful learning. The concept map tool developed in our program has proved to be highly effective both in promoting meaningful learning and in assessing learning outcomes. Concept mapping strategies are also proving powerful for eliciting, capturing, and archiving knowledge of experts and organizations. New technology for creating concept maps developed at the University of West Florida permits easier and better concept map construction, thus facilitating learning, knowledge capture, and local or distance creation and sharing of structured knowledge, especially when utilized with the Internet. A huge gap exists between what we now know to improve learning and use of knowledge and the practices currently in place in most schools and corporations. There are promising projects in progress that may help to achieve accelerated advances. These include projects in schools at all educational levels, including projects in Colombia, Costa Rica, Italy, Spain, and the United States, and collaborative projects with corporate organizations and distance learning projects. Results to date have been encouraging and suggest that we may be moving from the lag phase of educational innovation to a phase of exponential growth.

The Promise of New Ideas and New Technology for Improving Teaching and Learning

PubMed Central

Novak, Joseph D.

2003-01-01

There have been enormous advances in our understanding of human learning in the past three decades. There have also been important advances in our understanding of the nature of knowledge and new knowledge creation. These advances, when combined with the explosive development of the Internet and other technologies, permit advances in educational practices at least as important as the invention of the printing press in 1460. We have built on the cognitive learning theory of David Ausubel and various sources of new ideas on epistemology. Our research program has focused on understanding meaningful learning and on developing better methods to achieve such learning and to assess progress in meaningful learning. The concept map tool developed in our program has proved to be highly effective both in promoting meaningful learning and in assessing learning outcomes. Concept mapping strategies are also proving powerful for eliciting, capturing, and archiving knowledge of experts and organizations. New technology for creating concept maps developed at the University of West Florida permits easier and better concept map construction, thus facilitating learning, knowledge capture, and local or distance creation and sharing of structured knowledge, especially when utilized with the Internet. A huge gap exists between what we now know to improve learning and use of knowledge and the practices currently in place in most schools and corporations. There are promising projects in progress that may help to achieve accelerated advances. These include projects in schools at all educational levels, including projects in Colombia, Costa Rica, Italy, Spain, and the United States, and collaborative projects with corporate organizations and distance learning projects. Results to date have been encouraging and suggest that we may be moving from the lag phase of educational innovation to a phase of exponential growth. PMID:12888848

Chemistry Teacher Candidates' Acceptance and Opinions about Virtual Reality Technology for Molecular Geometry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saritas, M. T.

2015-01-01

The meaningful knowledge creation about molecular geometry has always been the challenge of chemistry learning. In particular, microscopic world of chemistry science (example, atoms, molecules, structures) used in traditional two dimensional way of chemistry teaching can lead to such problem as students create misconceptions. In recent years,…

Where Poems Hide: Finding Reflective, Critical Spaces inside Writing Workshop

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flint, Amy Seely; Laman, Tasha Tropp

2012-01-01

Research and teaching resources are replete with ideas for creating a more culturally responsive and critical curricula (Allen, 2010; Bomer & Bomer, 2001; Lewison, Leland, & Harste, 2008). Many have suggested that by offering a curriculum that is authentic and meaningful to children, real differences will be made in teaching and learning.…

Evaluation of the Effect of a Digital Mathematics Game on Academic Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wale, Christine M.

2013-01-01

Digital games are widely popular and interest has increased for their use in education. Digital games are thought to be powerful instructional tools because they promote active learning and feedback, provide meaningful contexts to situate knowledge, create engagement and intrinsic motivation, and have the ability individualize instruction.…

Nature-Culture Constructs in Science Learning: Human/Non-Human Agency and Intentionality

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bang, Megan; Marin, Ananda

2015-01-01

The field of science education has struggled to create robust, meaningful forms of education that effectively engage students from historically non-dominant communities and women. This paper argues that a primary issue underlying this on-going struggle pivots on constructions of nature-culture relations. We take up structuration theory (Giddens,…

It Takes a Village to Make a Scientist: Reflections of a Faculty Learning Community

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cervato, Cinzia; Gallus, William; Flory, Dave; Moss, Elizabeth; Slade, Michael; Kawaler, Steve; Marengo, Massimo; Woo, Keith; Krumhardt, Barbara; Clough, Mike; Campbell, Alexis; Acerbo, Martin

2015-01-01

Lab components of undergraduate science courses typically have students complete highly directed cookbook-like laboratory activities. These experiences rarely engage students in a meaningful manner and do not accurately convey what the work of science entails. With funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), we have created more…

Technology, Togetherness, and Adolescents: Creating a Meaningful Adolescent Learning Community in the Digital Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moudry, Ben

2016-01-01

Ben Moudry has written a comprehensive overview of the current challenges facing parents, schools, administrators, and students regarding what he calls "handheld computers," commonly known as smart phones. His annotated statistics and description of American society in 2015 are frightening in their clarity, while the percentages and…

Whose Voices Will Be Heard? Creating a Vision for the Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGuire, Margit E.

1992-01-01

Discusses society in the future. Expresses concern over social problems and misuse by the media of terms relating to diversity and multiculturalism. Lists themes for effective instruction in social studies as integration of topics and meaningful, challenging, active, and value-based learning. Urges that self-esteem, mutual respect, and cooperative…

Creating a Meaningful Learning Environment: Reflection in Leadership Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Jillian Volpe; Guthrie, Kathy L.

2016-01-01

This article examines the use of a book discussion as an instructional tool for developing leadership exploration competency skills in university students, as it pertains to the study of women and leadership. A book discussion centered on Sheryl Sandberg's book "Lean In" was held as a means to conceptualize discourse regarding leadership…

The Power of Investigating: Guiding Authentic Assessments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McGough, Julie V.; Nyberg, Lisa M.

2017-01-01

Children want to explore, dig, build, play, and wonder. To do this they need to touch, feel, see, observe, listen, manipulate, plan, and create. How does a teacher build and maintain a learning environment that will help students investigate meaningful questions? How does a teacher plan and manage ongoing investigations? How does a teacher use…

21st-Century Urban Renewal: Mathematical Understanding of Real-World Graphical Data Using Geospatial Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeBay, Dennis J.

2017-01-01

The introduction of real-world, meaningful tasks in mathematics classrooms promises to create opportunities for enhancing students' learning through active engagement with mathematical ideas; however, researchers have given little consideration to the contexts in which urban high-school students live. The case study of three students reported in…

Rhode Island Model Evaluation & Support System: Teacher. Edition III

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rhode Island Department of Education, 2015

2015-01-01

Rhode Island educators believe that implementing a fair, accurate, and meaningful educator evaluation and support system will help improve teaching and learning. The primary purpose of the Rhode Island Model Teacher Evaluation and Support System (Rhode Island Model) is to help all teachers improve. Through the Model, the goal is to help create a…

Practical Applications for Using Curriculum-Based Assessment to Create Embedded Learning Opportunities for Young Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macy, Marisa G.; Bricker, Dianer D.

2006-01-01

Meaningful assessments should inform early childhood intervention practices. The essential relationship between assessment and curriculum is an organizing principle of the Division of Early Childhood Recommended Practices. One tool that combines assessment and curriculum into a comprehensive system for supporting and serving young children and…

Women's Center Volunteer Intern Program: Building Community While Advancing Social and Gender Justice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murray, Margaret A.; Vlasnik, Amber L.

2015-01-01

This program description explores the purpose, structure, activities, and outcomes of the volunteer intern program at the Wright State University Women's Center. Designed to create meaningful, hands-on learning experiences for students and to advance the center's mission, the volunteer intern program builds community while advancing social and…

Making the Most of the One-Shot You Got

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deemer, Kevin

2007-01-01

It is a challenge, especially for librarians new to instruction, to create effective and meaningful classroom experiences for students when given only one class session. While a one-shot BI class is not an ideal learning environment, it is still a very common instructional practice. This article describes the Direct-Instruction Teaching Model and…

Getting to Teacher Ownership: How Schools Are Creating Meaningful Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saunders, Marissa; Alcantara, Vianna; Cervantes, Laura; Del Razo, Jaime; Lopez, Ruth; Perez, Wendy

2017-01-01

Improving student learning in our country's highest need schools is and endeavor that is challenging, complicated, and imperative. The major school reform efforts of the last few decades have largely failed to influence student achievement or to impact the ever-widening achievement or opportunity gap. These disappointing results have led…

Biology, literacy, and the African American voice: A case study of meaningful learning in the biology classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reese, Keturah

Under the direction of Sharon Murphy Augustine, Ph.D./Ph.D Curriculum and Instruction There was a substantial performance gap among African Americans and other ethnic groups. Additionally, African American students in a Title I school were at a significantly high risk of not meeting or exceeding on performance tests in science. Past reports have shown average gains in some subject areas, and declines in others (NCES, 2011; GADOE, 2012). Current instructional strategies and the lack of literacy within the biology classroom created a problem for African American high school students on national and state assessments. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of African American students and teachers in the context of literacy and biology through the incorporation of an interactive notebook and other literacy strategies. The data was collected three ways: field notes for a two week observation period within the biology classroom, student and teacher interviews, and student work samples. During the observations, student work collection, and interviews, I looked for the following codes: active learning, constructive learning, collaborative learning, authentic learning, and intentional learning. In the process of coding for the pre-determined codes, three more codes emerged. The three codes that emerged were organization, studying/student ownership, and student teacher relationships. Students and teachers both solidified the notion that literacy and biology worked well together. The implemented literacy strategies were something that both teachers and students appreciated in their learning of biology. Overall students and teachers perceived that the interactive notebook along Cornell notes, Thinking maps, close reads, writing, lab experiments, and group work created meaningful learning experiences within the biology classroom.

[Learning about social determinants of health through chronicles, using a virtual learning environment].

PubMed

Restrepo-Palacio, Sonia; Amaya-Guio, Jairo

2016-01-01

To describe the contributions of a pedagogical strategy based on the construction of chronicles, using a Virtual Learning Environment for training medical students from Universidad de La Sabana on social determinants of health. Descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Design and implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment based on the ADDIE instructional model. A Virtual Learning Environment was implemented with an instructional design based on the five phases of the ADDIE model, on the grounds of meaningful learning and social constructivism, and through the narration of chronicles or life stories as a pedagogical strategy. During the course, the structural determinants and intermediaries were addressed, and nine chronicles were produced by working groups made up of four or five students, who demonstrated meaningful learning from real life stories, presented a coherent sequence, and kept a thread; 82% of these students incorporated in their contents most of the social determinants of health, emphasizing on the concepts of equity or inequity, equality or inequality, justice or injustice and social cohesion. A Virtual Learning Environment, based on an appropriate instructional design, allows to facilitate learning of social determinants of health through a constructivist pedagogical approach by analyzing chronicles or life stories created by ninth-semester students of medicine from Universidad de La Sabana.

How To Create Complex Measurement Models: A Case Study of Principled Assessment Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauer, Malcolm; Williamson, David M.; Steinberg, Linda S.; Mislevy, Robert J.; Behrens, John T.

In computer-based simulations, students must bring a wide range of relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to bear jointly as they solve meaningful problems in a learning domain. To function effectively as an assessment, a simulation system must additionally be able to evoke and interpret observable evidence about targeted knowledge in a manner…

Creating Interactive Web-Based Environments to Scaffold Creative Reasoning and Meaningful Learning: From Physics to Products

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jou, Min; Chuang, Chien-Pen; Wu, Yu-Shiang

2010-01-01

With the evolution of the surrounding world market, engineers have to propose innovations in products and processes. Industrial innovation frequently results from an improved understanding of basic physics. In this paper, an approach to accelerate inventive preliminary design is presented. This method combines the main advantages of CBR (Case…

Examining the Potential for Response to Intervention (RTI) Delivery Models in Secondary Education: Emerging Research and Opportunities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Epler, Pam

2017-01-01

To provide the highest quality of education to students, school administrators must adopt new frameworks to meet learners' needs. This allows teaching practices to be optimized to create a meaningful learning environment. "Examining the Potential for Response to Intervention (RTI) Delivery Models in Secondary Education: Emerging Research and…

Service Learning in a Psychology of Women Course: Transforming Students and the Community

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smirles, Kimberly Eretzian

2011-01-01

Teaching empowers students to find their own voice, critically evaluate the arguments presented to them, create meaningful knowledge by applying content to the real world, and be open to the diverse perspectives of those around them. These ideas are fundamental to feminist pedagogy, which views the classroom as a community of learners where the…

Moving Out of the Cellar: A New (?) Existentialism for a Future without Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kline, Kip; Abowitz, Kathleen Knight

2013-01-01

In this article authors Kip Kline and Kathleen Abowitz write that the "new breed of accountability-driven schools is more interested in reaching some number at the end of the school year" than in actually constructing places where teachers can create meaningful learning experiences for students. In this article they argue that…

To Cheat or Not to Cheat: A Review with Implications for Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hensley, Lauren

2013-01-01

Cheating is antithetical to the goals of meaningful learning and moral development. The more that community college faculty, staff, and administrators understand the nature of cheating and factors associated with the behavior, the more effective they can be in creating environments of integrity both inside and outside of the formal classroom. This…

Erasure and Survival: Creating a Future and Managing a Past in a Restructuring High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galletta, Anne; Ayala, Jennifer

2008-01-01

Background/Context: With the growth of the small-school movement, many urban districts have restructured large underperforming high schools into new, small high schools or schools-within-a-school designed to engage adolescents in rigorous and meaningful learning along with strong teacher-student relationships. In the case of this study, the…

Empathy 2.0 and the Wonderful World of Wiki Collaboration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tarrant, Cindy; Godwin, Kathryn; Daniel, Stacey; Bolton, Dawn

2013-01-01

In a perfect world, diversity would abound in people's daily lives, promoting friendships across racial, ethnic, and religious lines. When that is not possible and students learn in a more segregated setting, wikis provide a tool to reach beyond the school walls, find a diverse audience, and create meaningful discourse. This article narrates an…

Catching the Moments--Coteaching to Stimulate Science in the Preschool Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nilsson, Pernilla

2015-01-01

An important task for the preschool teacher is to create meaningful learning situations where children have opportunities to experience science. However, many teachers have both weak subject knowledge and a lack of confidence to teach science. The aim of the project presented in this article was to capture how nine preschool teachers developed…

The Evolution of the Krebs Cycle: A Promising Subject for Meaningful Learning of Biochemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

da Costa, Caetano; Galembeck, Eduardo

2016-01-01

Evolution has been recognized as a key concept for biologists. To enhance comprehension and motivate biology undergraduates for the contents of central energetic metabolism, we addressed the Krebs cycle structure and functions in an evolutionary view. To this end, we created a study guide that contextualizes the emergence of the cyclic pathway, in…

Understanding Science Teaching Effectiveness: Examining How Science-Specific and Generic Instructional Practices Relate to Student Achievement in Secondary Science Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mikeska, Jamie N.; Shattuck, Tamara; Holtzman, Steven; McCaffrey, Daniel F.; Duchesneau, Nancy; Qi, Yi; Stickler, Leslie

2017-01-01

In order to create conditions for students' meaningful and rigorous intellectual engagement in science classrooms, it is critically important to help science teachers learn which strategies and approaches can be used best to develop students' scientific literacy. Better understanding how science teachers' instructional practices relate to student…

Skills for Living: Group Counseling Activities for Young Adolescents, Volume Two.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smead, Rosemarie

Group counseling offers a content-plus-process approach to counseling of youth. Counselors in schools or mental health settings can use this book to learn how to create meaningful group experiences for adolescents. The group agendas are aimed at middle school youth and offer them the opportunity to experience positive growth and change in the…

Are 20th-Century Methods of Teaching Applicable in the 21st Century?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bassendowski, Sandra Leigh; Petrucka, Pammla

2013-01-01

The image of students passively absorbing information from an educator who is lecturing from behind a podium does not reflect the current scope and dimension of higher education. There are now tools of technology that can be used to create learning experiences to actively and meaningfully "pull" students into course content. The author…

Digital Media in Today's Classrooms: The Potential for Meaningful Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Dawn; Alaniz, Katie; Sikora, Joshua

2016-01-01

Educators who engage with today's students appreciate the impact digital media has on the lives of our younger generations. Learners of today consume, create, and publish multimedia content continuously, using a variety of devices such as cell phones, tablets, and computers. They generate original and innovative products through programs, apps,…

Creating and sustaining an academic-practice Partnership Engagement Model.

PubMed

Schaffer, Marjorie A; Schoon, Patricia M; Brueshoff, Bonnie L

2017-11-01

Public health clinical educators and practicing public health nurses (PHNs) are experiencing challenges in creating meaningful clinical learning experiences for nursing students due to an increase in nursing programs and greater workload responsibilities for both nursing faculty and PHNs. The Henry Street Consortium (HSC), a collaborative group of PHNs and nursing faculty, conducted a project to identify best practices for public health nursing student clinical learning experiences. Project leaders surveyed HSC members about preferences for teaching-learning strategies, facilitated development of resources and tools to guide learning, organized faculty/PHN pilot teams to test resources and tools with students, and evaluated the pilot team experiences through two focus groups. The analysis of the outcomes of the partnership engagement project led to the development of the Partnership Engagement Model (PEM), which may be used by nursing faculty and their public health practice partners to guide building relationships and sustainable partnerships for educating nursing students. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Effects of Learning Styles and Meaningful Learning on the Learning Achievement of Gamification Health Education Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fan, Kuo-Kuang; Xiao, Peng-wei; Su, Chung-Ho

2015-01-01

This study aims to discuss the correlations among learning styles, meaningful learning, and learning achievement. Directed at the rather difficult to comprehend human blood circulation unit in the biology materials for junior high school students, a Mobile Meaningful Blood Circulation Learning System, called MMBCLS gamification learning, was…

Meaningful learning: The essential factor for conceptual change in limited or inappropriate propositional hierarchies leading to empowerment of learners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Novak, Joseph D.

2002-07-01

The construction and reconstruction of meanings by learners requires that they actively seek to integrate new knowledge with knowledge already in their cognitive structure. Ausubel's assimilation theory of cognitive learning has been shown to be effective in guiding research and instructional design to facilitate meaningful learning (Ausubel, The psychology of meaningful verbal learning, New York: Grune and Stratton, 1963; Educational psychology: A cognitive view, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968; The acquisition and retention of knowledge, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000). Gowin's Vee heuristic has been employed effectively to aid teachers and students in understanding the constructed nature of knowledge (Gowin, Educating, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). Situated learning occurs when learning is by rote or at a lower level of meaningful learning. Concept mapping has been used effectively to aid meaningful learning with resulting modification of student's knowledge structures. When these knowledge structures are limited or faulty in some way, they may be referred to as Limited or Inappropriate Propositional Hierarchies (LIPH's). Conceptual change, or more accurately conceptual reconstrution, requires meaningful learning to modify LIPH's. Collaborative group learning facilitates meaningful learning and new knowledge construction. World-wide economic changes are forcing major changes in business and industry placing a premium on the power and value of knowledge and new knowledge production. These changes require changes in school and university education that centers on the nature and power of meaningful learning. New computer tools are available to facilitate teaching activities targeted at modifying LIPH's, and aiding meaningful learning in general.

Partnering with American Indian communities in health using methods of strategic collaboration.

PubMed

Rajaram, Shireen S; Grimm, Brandon; Giroux, Jennifer; Peck, Magda; Ramos, Athena

2014-01-01

The Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR) sponsored six regional workshops in 2010 on community engagement and community-engaged research. One of the six workshops was a collaborative effort between the Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Health Board (GPTCHB)-Northern Plains Tribal Epidemiology Center and the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC-COPH). To create a meaningful and dynamic forum for the exchange of ideas and co-learning between researchers from urban, tribal and nontribal communities and to build the groundwork for development of sustainable partnerships between researchers and American Indian (AI) communities to eliminate health disparities. To enhance meaningful community engagement, we utilized methods of Strategic Collaboration using the Appreciative Inquiry, 4D Change Process Model and designed several interactive group activities including Collaborative Learning and Understanding Exercises (CLUE) and the Research Café. The key themes that emerged from the interactive sessions stressed the importance of building relationships and trust; mutual use and sharing of data; and acquiring knowledge, skills, and abilities to enable sustainable research partnerships with AI communitiesConclusions: Innovative, dynamic, and strategic collaborative methods of Appreciative Inquiry and the World Café can served to engage people in a constructive dialogue to create a shared vision and plan for more meaningful research partnerships based on principles of equity and social justice, essential for the elimination of health disparities. These collaborative methods can be replicated and adapted in diverse communities, locally, nationally, and globally.

Assessment of Adaptive PBL's Impact on HOT Development of Computer Science Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Raiyn, Jamal; Tilchin, Oleg

2015-01-01

Meaningful learning based on PBL is new learning strategy. Compared to traditional learning strategy, the meaningful learning strategy put the student in center of the learning process. The roles of the student in the meaningful learning strategy will be increased. The Problem-based Learning (PBL) model is considered the most productive way to…

Kaiser Permanente's performance improvement system, Part 4: Creating a learning organization.

PubMed

Schilling, Lisa; Dearing, James W; Staley, Paul; Harvey, Patti; Fahey, Linda; Kuruppu, Francesca

2011-12-01

In 2006, recognizing variations in performance in quality, safety, service, and efficiency, Kaiser Permanente leaders initiated the development of a performance improvement (PI) system. Kaiser Permanente has implemented a strategy for creating the systemic capacity for continuous improvement that characterizes a learning organization. Six "building blocks" were identified to enable Kaiser Permanente to make the transition to becoming a learning organization: real-time sharing of meaningful performance data; formal training in problem-solving methodology; workforce engagement and informal knowledge sharing; leadership structures, beliefs, and behaviors; internal and external benchmarking; and technical knowledge sharing. Putting each building block into place required multiple complex strategies combining top-down and bottom-up approaches. Although the strategies have largely been successful, challenges remain. The demand for real-time meaningful performance data can conflict with prioritized changes to health information systems. It is an ongoing challenge to teach PI, change management, innovation, and project management to all managers and staff without consuming too much training time. Challenges with workforce engagement include low initial use of tools intended to disseminate information through virtual social networking. Uptake of knowledge-sharing technologies is still primarily by innovators and early adopters. Leaders adopt new behaviors at varying speeds and have a range of abilities to foster an environment that is psychologically safe and stimulates inquiry. A learning organization has the capability to improve, and it develops structures and processes that facilitate the acquisition and sharing of knowledge.

A Continuum of Learning: From Rote Memorization to Meaningful Learning in Organic Chemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grove, Nathaniel P.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2012-01-01

The Assimilation Theory of Ausubel and Novak has typically been used in the research literature to describe two extremes to learning chemistry: meaningful learning "versus" rote memorization. It is unlikely, however, that such discrete categories of learning exist. Rote and meaningful learning, rather, are endpoints along a continuum of…

The Impact of Montessori Teaching on Academic Achievement of Elementary School Students in a Central Texas School District: A Causal-Comparative Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salazar, Minerva Mungia

2013-01-01

Providing a meaningful and experiential learning environment for all students has long created a concern for alternate ways to teach students who are reportedly demonstrating non-mastery on state standardized assessments. As the benchmark for showing successful academic achievement increases, so does the need for discovering effective ways for…

The Virtual Workroom: Using Social Media, Teachers Reach beyond School Walls to Learn and Grow

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carpenter, Jeffrey P.; Trust, Torrey; Krutka, Daniel G.

2016-01-01

Rather than just teach students facts about history, high school social studies teacher Amy Presley searched for ways to create meaningful experiences they would remember forever. This article describes how she found a group of social studies educators using a Twitter hashtag as a way to share resources and improve her teaching skills. Energized…

Into the Community and Not on the Shelf: Learning to Develop a Meaningful HIV/AIDS Curriculum for Multiple Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riley, Tasha

2014-01-01

This paper describes the process involved in creating a community-based training curriculum designed to build capacity and foster new knowledge in support of HIV/AIDS education. Highlighted are the challenges and triumphs incurred while working with community and academic partners to ensure the production of an adaptable curriculum designed to…

A Critical Pedagogy Approach for Engaging Urban Youth in Mobile App Development in an After-School Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vakil, Sepehr

2014-01-01

To understand the digital divide as a matter of social justice, I identify access to computational fluency as a civil rights issue. "Access" refers to material as well as social resources, including meaningful learning opportunities that create the conditions for urban youth to engage in computational thinking. In this article, I explore…

Developing Knowledge Connections to Promote an Integrated Learning Experience for Students in a First Year Management Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Connolly, Heather; Spiller, Dorothy

2017-01-01

A key challenge for lecturers of many first year Management courses is how to help students create meaningful knowledge connections while at the same time introducing considerable foundational material. This article reports on an instructional innovation that explores how we can better design and teach a first year Management course that provide…

The process of co-creating the interface for VENSTER, an interactive artwork for nursing home residents with dementia.

PubMed

Jamin, Gaston; Luyten, Tom; Delsing, Rob; Braun, Susy

2017-10-17

Interactive art installations might engage nursing home residents with dementia. The main aim of this article was to describe the challenging design process of an interactive artwork for nursing home residents, in co-creation with all stakeholders and to share the used methods and lessons learned. This process is illustrated by the design of the interface of VENSTER as a case. Nursing home residents from the psychogeriatric ward, informal caregivers, client representatives, health care professionals and members of the management team were involved in the design process, which consisted of three phases: (1) identify requirements, (2) develop a prototype and (3) conduct usability tests. Several methods were used (e.g. guided co-creation sessions, "Wizard of Oz"). Each phase generated "lessons learned", which were used as the departure point of the next phase. Participants hardly paid attention to the installation and interface. There, however, seemed to be an untapped potential for creating an immersive experience by focussing more on the content itself as an interface (e.g. creating specific scenes with cues for interaction, scenes based on existing knowledge or prior experiences). "Fifteen lessons learned" which can potentially assist the design of an interactive artwork for nursing home residents suffering from dementia were derived from the design process. This description provides tools and best practices for stakeholders to make (better) informed choices during the creation of interactive artworks. It also illustrates how co-design can make the difference between designing a pleasurable experience and a meaningful one. Implications for rehabilitation Co-design with all stakeholders can make the difference between designing a pleasurable experience and a meaningful one. There seems to be an untapped potential for creating an immersive experience by focussing more on the content itself as an interface (e.g. creating specific scenes with cues for interaction, scenes based on existing knowledge or prior experiences). Content as an interface proved to be a crucial part of the overall user experience. The case-study provides tools and best practices (15 "lessons learned") for stakeholders to make (better) informed choices during the creation of interactive artworks.

Development of an Assessment Tool to Measure Students' Meaningful Learning in the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2015-01-01

Research on learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory necessitates an understanding of students' perspectives of learning. Novak's Theory of Meaningful Learning states that the cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and psychomotor (doing) domains must be integrated for meaningful learning to occur. The psychomotor domain is the…

What Makes Learning Meaningful?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Arthur L.; Burket, Lee

This document examines the work of Dewey, Kolb, Jarvis, Mezirow, Freire, Rogers, and Houle to find out what these experiential learning theorists have to say about the role experience plays in making learning meaningful. The first section addresses each writer's work for specific ideas of how experience is related to making learning meaningful,…

Improving Multimedia Foundations: Design of a Micro-Syllabus for Integrating Multimedia Modules into College Courses at the University of Delaware

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Aaron

2013-01-01

At the University of Delaware there has been growth in the use of multimedia technologies to facilitate the process of learning. However, many students entering higher educational institutions today, despite growing up with access to these tools, do not use them in interesting and meaningful ways. When given the opportunity to create multimedia…

How Education Policy Is Made Meaningful--A Narrative Exploration of How Teachers Show Autonomy in the Development of Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barman, Linda; Josephsson, Staffan; Silén, Charlotte; Bolander-Laksov, Klara

2016-01-01

This study addresses how the autonomy of teachers in higher education, in relation to education policy and reform, can be understood. By taking a narrative-in-action approach, we studied health profession teachers' activities and reasoning within their ongoing practice during one year. The findings show how the teachers created their own policies…

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.

Initial Development of the Meaningful Learning with Technology Scale (MeLTS) for High-School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Chwee Beng

2018-01-01

With the rapid developments in emerging technologies and the emphasis on technologies in learning environments, the connection between technologies and meaningful learning has strengthened. Developing an understanding of the components of meaningful learning with technology is pivotal, as this may enable educators to make more informed decisions…

The power of print reading: comics in the classroom.

PubMed

Gabaron, Sabine

2017-09-01

Evidence from neuroscience and psychological studies supporting benefits of print reading over digital reading has recently been discussed in these columns (Perbal 2017 J. Cell Commun. Signal. 11:1-4). In the present commentary, I would like to add my perspective as a Humanities educator, and build upon the idea that print reading results in better comprehension, learning and communication. The argumentation that is presented herein is based on a study performed in a French Comics language class aimed at broadening students' knowledge and experience of graphic novels, and providing them with a cultural representation in the foreign language. The results that are discussed in this commentary indicate that upon reading printed books students created connections for a more meaningful learning experience, leading to personal growth and linguistic development. The impact these graphic novels had on students' learning capacity and relationship to reading was tremendous. The kinesthetic relationship with printed text was deeply enriching and gratifying. The stimulatory effects on their imagination allowed for a more creative reading, and a deeper comprehension, resulting in meaningful communication.

Creating Personal Meaning through Technology-Supported Science Inquiry Learning across Formal and Informal Settings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anastopoulou, Stamatina; Sharples, Mike; Ainsworth, Shaaron; Crook, Charles; O'Malley, Claire; Wright, Michael

2012-01-01

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or outdoors. We report on a case study of personal inquiry learning with 28 high school students on the topic of healthy eating. An analysis of how the personal inquiry was enacted in the classroom and at home, based on issues identified from a study of interviews with the students and their teacher, is provided. The outcomes showed that students were alerted to challenges associated with fieldwork and how they responded to the uncertainty and challenge of an open investigation. The study, moreover, raised an unexpected difficulty for researchers of finding the 'sweet spot' between scientifically objective but unengaging inquiry topics, and ones that are personally meaningful but potentially embarrassing. Implications for further research are shaped around ways of overcoming this difficulty.

Can Connecting and Collaborating with Industry Professionals and Community Partners through a Project-Based Initiative Create a Meaningful Learning and Leadership Experience for College Students?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jensen-Inman, Leslie Reese

2012-01-01

The author served as facilitator of a group of graphic design college students at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). These students embarked on a collaborative, 24-hour+, work-around-the-clock, creative blitz and used design thinking to serve the needs of Dalewood Middle School in Chattanooga. Students collaborated with industry…

Focusing on Active, Meaningful Learning. IDEA Paper No. 34.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stalheim-Smith, Ann

This paper discusses active and meaningful learning and the application of this instructional approach to the college classroom, focusing on techniques used in the author's biology classes. Active and meaningful learning places emphasis on students actually doing things and thinking about what they are doing, relating new information to…

Viewing equitable practices through the lens of intersecting identities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lyons, Renée; Dsouza, Nikeetha; Quigley, Cassie

2016-12-01

This review explores Archer, Dawson, Seakins, and Wong's "Disorienting, fun or meaningful? Disadvantaged families' experiences of a science museum visit" by examining the analytic frameworks guiding this study. To expand on Archer et al.'s use of feminist post-structuralist theories of identity we draw from the theory of intersectionality to provide a more robust framework for analyzing barriers to engagement within an informal learning space. Our response to this work ends by exploring the types of solutions generated from an intersectionality framework—solutions aimed at transforming institutional programs and practices to create more equitable spaces for learning.

The Retention of Meaningful Understanding of Meiosis and Genetics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavallo, Ann Liberatore

This study investigated the retention of meaningful understanding of the biological topics of meiosis, the Punnett square method and the relations between these two topics. This study also explored the predictive influence of students' general tendency to learn meaningfully or by rote (meaningful learning orientation), prior knowledge of meiosis,…

Community-based medical education: is success a result of meaningful personal learning experiences?

PubMed

Kelly, Len; Walters, Lucie; Rosenthal, David

2014-01-01

Community-based medical education (CBME) is the delivery of medical education in a specific social context. Learners become a part of social and medical communities where their learning occurs. Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) are year-long community-based placements where the curriculum and clinical experience is typically delivered by primary care physicians. These programs have proven to be robust learning environments, where learners develop strong communication skills and excellent clinical reasoning. To date, no learning model has been offered to describe CBME. The characteristics of CBME are explored by the authors who suggest that the social and professional context provided in small communities enhances medical education. The authors postulate that meaningfulness is engendered by the authentic context, which develops over time. These relationships with preceptors, patients and the community provide meaningfulness, which in turn enhances learning. The authors develop a novel learning model. They propose that the context-rich environment of CBME allows for meaningful relationships and experiences for students and that such meaningfulness enhances learning.

Meaningful Learning and Summative Assessment in Geography Education: An Analysis in Secondary Education in the Netherlands

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bijsterbosch, Erik; van der Schee, Joop; Kuiper, Wilmad

2017-01-01

Enhancing meaningful learning is an important aim in geography education. Also, assessment should reflect this aim. Both formative and summative assessments contribute to meaningful learning when more complex knowledge and cognitive processes are assessed. The internal school-based geography examinations of the final exam in pre-vocational…

Instructor-Created Activities to Engage Undergraduate Nursing Research Students.

PubMed

Pierce, Linda L; Reuille, Kristina M

2018-03-01

In flipped or blended classrooms, instruction intentionally shifts to a student-centered model for a problem-based learning approach, where class time explores topics in greater depth, creating meaningful learning opportunities. This article describes instructor-created activities focused on research processes linked to evidence-based practice that engage undergraduate nursing research students. In the classroom, these activities include individual and team work to foster critical thinking and stimulate student discussion of topic material. Six activities for small and large student groups are related to quantitative, qualitative, and both research processes, as well as applying research evidence to practice. Positive student outcomes included quantitative success on assignments and robust student topic discussions, along with instructor-noted overall group engagement and interest. Using these activities can result in class time for the construction of meaning, rather than primarily information transmission. Instructors may adopt these activities to involve and stimulate students' critical thinking about research and evidence-based practice. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(3):174-177.]. Copyright 2018, SLACK Incorporated.

Inclusive jet cross sections in proton-proton collisions at 7.0 TeV center-of-mass energy with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park-Martinez, Jayne Irene

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of node-link mapping on students' meaningful learning and conceptual change in a 1-semester introductory life-science course. This study used node-link mapping to integrate and apply the National Research Council's (NRC, 2005) three principles of human learning: engaging students' prior knowledge, fostering their metacognition, and supporting their formulation of a scientific conceptual framework. The study was a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group design. The sample consisted of 68 primarily freshmen non-science majors enrolled in two intact sections of the targeted course. Both groups received the same teacher-centered instruction and student-centered activities designed to promote meaningful learning and conceptual change; however, the activity format differed. Control group activities were written; treatment group activities were node-link mapped. Prior to instruction, both groups demonstrated equivalent knowledge and misconceptions associated with genetics and evolution (GE), and ecology and environmental science (EE). Mean differences, pre-to-post instruction, on the GE and EE meaningful learning exam scores and the EE conceptual change inventory scores between the writing group (control) and the node-link mapping group (treatment) were analyzed using repeated measures MANOVAs. There were no significant mean pre-to-post differences between groups with respect to meaningful learning in the GE or EE units, or conceptual change in the EE unit. However, independent of group membership, the overall mean pre-to-post increases in meaningful learning and conceptual change were significant. These findings suggest that both node-link mapping and writing, when used in conjunction with the National Research Council's (NRC, 2005) three principles of human learning, can promote meaningful learning and conceptual change. The only significant interaction found with respect to meaningful learning, conceptual change, and learning styles (Kolb, 2005) was a positive effect of node-link mapping on converger's meaningful learning. However, that result was probably an artifact of small sample size rather than a true treatment effect. No other significant interactions were found. These results suggest that all students, regardless of their learning style, can benefit from either node-link mapping or writing to promote meaningful learning and conceptual change in general life-science courses.

Use of individualized learning plans among fourth-year sub-interns in pediatrics and internal medicine.

PubMed

Shepard, Michelle E; Sastre, Elizabeth A; Davidson, Mario A; Fleming, Amy E

2012-01-01

Individualized Learning Plans (ILPs) are an effective tool for promoting self-directed learning among residents. However, no literature details ILP use among medical students. Fifty fourth-year sub-interns in pediatrics and internal medicine created ILPs, including a self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses based on ACGME core competencies and the setting of learning objectives. During weekly follow-up meetings with faculty mentors and peers, students discussed challenges and revised goals. Upon completion of the rotation, students completed a survey of Likert-scale questions addressing satisfaction with and perceived utility of ILP components. Students most often self-identified strengths in the areas of Professionalism and Interpersonal and Communication Skills and weaknesses in Patient Care and Systems-Based Practice. Eighty-two percent set at least one learning objective in an identified area of weakness. Students expressed high confidence in their abilities to create achievable learning objectives and to generate strategies to meet those objectives. Students agreed that discussions during group meetings were meaningful, and they identified the setting learning objectives and weekly meetings as the most important elements of the exercise. Fourth-year sub-interns reported that ILPs helped them to accomplish rotation goals, with the setting of learning objectives and weekly discussions being the most useful elements.

Designing a serious game for historical heritage: a case study of Heerlen Roman bathhouse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Wen

2014-01-01

The advances of computer games have shown their potentials for developing edutainment content and services. Current cultural heritages often make use of games in order to complement existing presentations and to create a memorable exhibition. It offers opportunities to reorganize and conceptualize historical, cultural and technological information about the exhibits. To demonstrate the benefits of serious games in terms of facilitating the learning activities in a constructive and meaningful way, we designed a video game about the Heerlen bathhouse heritage. This paper explains the design considerations of this Roman bathhouse game, with a particular focus on the link between game play and learning.

Representing Authentic Learning Designs Supporting the Development of Online Communities of Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oliver, Ron; Herrington, Anthony; Herrington, Jan; Reeves, Thomas C.

2007-01-01

Authentic learning designs have been explored for some time now and have frequently been shown to provide learning settings that provide many meaningful contexts for learning. These meaningful contexts provide not only encouragement for students to learn but also a raft of learning enhancements including higher-order learning and forms of learning…

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.

An investigation of meaningful understanding and effectiveness of the implementation of Piagetian and Ausubelian theories in physics instruction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, Karen Ann

One section of college students (N = 25) enrolled in an algebra-based physics course was selected for a Piagetian-based learning cycle (LC) treatment while a second section (N = 25) studied in an Ausubelian-based meaningful verbal reception learning treatment (MVRL). This study examined the students' overall (concept + problem solving + mental model) meaningful understanding of force, density/Archimedes Principle, and heat. Also examined were students' meaningful understanding as measured by conceptual questions, problems, and mental models. In addition, students' learning orientations were examined. There were no significant posttest differences between the LC and MVRL groups for students' meaningful understanding or learning orientation. Piagetian and Ausubelian theories explain meaningful understanding for each treatment. Students from each treatment increased their meaningful understanding. However, neither group altered their learning orientation. The results of meaningful understanding as measured by conceptual questions, problem solving, and mental models were mixed. Differences were attributed to the weaknesses and strengths of each treatment. This research also examined four variables (treatment, reasoning ability, learning orientation, and prior knowledge) to find which best predicted students' overall meaningful understanding of physics concepts. None of these variables were significant predictors at the.05 level. However, when the same variables were used to predict students' specific understanding (i.e. concept, problem solving, or mental model understanding), the results were mixed. For forces and density/Archimedes Principle, prior knowledge and reasoning ability significantly predicted students' conceptual understanding. For heat, however, reasoning ability was the only significant predictor of concept understanding. Reasoning ability and treatment were significant predictors of students' problem solving for heat and forces. For density/Archimedes Principle, treatment was the only significant predictor of students' problem solving. None of the variables were significant predictors of mental model understanding. This research suggested that Piaget and Ausubel used different terminology to describe learning yet these theories are similar. Further research is needed to validate this premise and validate the blending of the two theories.

Designing and Integrating Reusable Learning Objects for Meaningful Learning: Cases from a Graduate Programme

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koh, Joyce Hwee Ling

2017-01-01

E-learning quality depends on sound pedagogical integration between the content resources and lesson activities within an e-learning system. This study proposes that a meaningful learning with technology framework can be used to guide the design and integration of content resources with e-learning activities in ways that promote learning…

Meaningful Learning in the Cooperative Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sharan, Yael

2015-01-01

Meaningful learning is based on more than what teachers transmit; it promotes the construction of knowledge out of learners' experience, feelings and exchanges with other learners. This educational view is based on the constructivist approach to learning and the co-operative learning approach. Researchers and practitioners in various…

Implementation and evaluation of a community-based interprofessional learning activity.

PubMed

Luebbers, Ellen L; Dolansky, Mary A; Vehovec, Anton; Petty, Gayle

2017-01-01

Implementation of large-scale, meaningful interprofessional learning activities for pre-licensure students has significant barriers and requires novel approaches to ensure success. To accomplish this goal, faculty at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, USA, used the Ottawa Model of Research Use (OMRU) framework to create, improve, and sustain a community-based interprofessional learning activity for large numbers of medical students (N = 177) and nursing students (N = 154). The model guided the process and included identification of context-specific barriers and facilitators, continual monitoring and improvement using data, and evaluation of student learning outcomes as well as programme outcomes. First year Case Western Reserve University medical students and undergraduate nursing students participated in team-structured prevention screening clinics in the Cleveland Metropolitan Public School District. Identification of barriers and facilitators assisted with overcoming logistic and scheduling issues, large class size, differing ages and skill levels of students and creating sustainability. Continual monitoring led to three distinct phases of improvement and resulted in the creation of an authentic team structure, role clarification, and relevance for students. Evaluation of student learning included both qualitative and quantitative methods, resulting in statistically significant findings and qualitative themes of learner outcomes. The OMRU implementation model provided a useful framework for successful implementation resulting in a sustainable interprofessional learning activity.

Measuring Meaningful Learning in the Undergraduate General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry Laboratories: A Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2015-01-01

Understanding how students learn in the undergraduate chemistry teaching laboratory is an essential component to developing evidence-based laboratory curricula. The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was developed to measure students' cognitive and affective expectations and experiences for learning in the chemistry…

Engagement and Kindness in Digitally Mediated Learning with Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cramp, Andy; Lamond, Catherine

2016-01-01

This paper explores the significance of designing online learning led by the principle of direct and meaningful participant engagement. It considers the notion of kindness as a crucial value contributing to pedagogy and the development of meaningful learning relationships. The paper challenges the "delivery" approach to online learning,…

Integrating Concept Mapping into Information Systems Education for Meaningful Learning and Assessment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wei, Wei; Yue, Kwok-Bun

2017-01-01

Concept map (CM) is a theoretically sound yet easy to learn tool and can be effectively used to represent knowledge. Even though many disciplines have adopted CM as a teaching and learning tool to improve learning effectiveness, its application in IS curriculum is sparse. Meaningful learning happens when one iteratively integrates new concepts and…

Meaningful Learning with Mobile Devices: Pre-Service Class Teachers' Experiences of Mobile Learning in the Outdoors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kärki, Tomi; Keinänen, Heli; Tuominen, Anu; Hoikkala, Marianna; Matikainen, Eila; Maijala, Hanna

2018-01-01

The authors consider the use of mobile learning environment ActionTrack in teacher education. Pre-service class teachers' (N = 277) experiences of the mobile learning environment were measured with a 7-point Likert-scale questionnaire based on seven attributes of meaningful learning. Students' ratings for different attributes were analysed…

Adaptive eLearning modules for cytopathology education: A review and approach.

PubMed

Samulski, T Danielle; La, Teresa; Wu, Roseann I

2016-11-01

Clinical training imposes time and resource constraints on educators and learners, making it difficult to provide and absorb meaningful instruction. Additionally, innovative and personalized education has become an expectation of adult learners. Fortunately, the development of web-based educational tools provides a possible solution to these challenges. Within this review, we introduce the utility of adaptive eLearning platforms in pathology education. In addition to a review of the current literature, we provide the reader with a suggested approach for module creation, as well as a critical assessment of an available platform, based on our experience in creating adaptive eLearning modules for teaching basic concepts in gynecologic cytopathology. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2016;44:944-951. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[How to design workshops to promote health in community groups].

PubMed

Hernández-Díaz, Josefina; Paredes-Carbonell, Joan J; Marín Torrens, Rosa

2014-01-01

One of the strategies of health promotion is to develop life skills people considering themselves as the main health resource. A workshop has to get its participants become «asset» to make decisions and create health, focusing on the development and acquisition of skills in a motivating group and in order to achieve health objectives. The concepts behind the design of a workshop are: participatory planning, training, meaningful learning, group learning and participatory techniques. The steps to follow to design a workshop and facilitate their application are: Stage 0, founding; initial stage, host and initial evaluation; central or construction stage based learning in the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes and skills, and final stage or evaluation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.

Computer Algebra, Virtual Learning Environment and Meaningful Learning: Is It Possible?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abar, Celina A. A. P.; Barbosa, Lisbete Madsen

2011-01-01

A major challenge faced by teachers nowadays relates to the usage of proper educational technology to achieve a true and meaningful learning experience involving time for reflection. Teachers constantly seek new ways to improve instruction, but in virtual learning environments they often find themselves in a new role, interacting in a dynamic…

Investigating Affective Experiences in the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory: Students' Perceptions of Control and Responsibility

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Malakpa, Zoebedeh; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2016-01-01

Meaningful learning requires the integration of cognitive and affective learning with the psychomotor, i.e., hands-on learning. The undergraduate chemistry laboratory is an ideal place for meaningful learning to occur. However, accurately characterizing students' affective experiences in the chemistry laboratory can be a very difficult task. While…

Meaningful Dialogue in Digitally Mediated Learning for In-Service Teacher Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cramp, Andy

2015-01-01

This paper considers the role and development of meaningful dialogue in digitally mediated learning (DML) in UK higher education for teachers. It argues that more research is vital in the field of meaningful dialogue if we are to avoid the risk that pedagogic values in DML become increasingly driven by market forces toward "data vending"…

Cache-Cache Comparison for Supporting Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Jingyun; Fujino, Seiji

2015-01-01

The paper presents a meaningful discovery learning environment called "cache-cache comparison" for a personalized learning support system. The processing of seeking hidden relations or concepts in "cache-cache comparison" is intended to encourage learners to actively locate new knowledge in their knowledge framework and check…

The Search for Meaningful E-Learning at Canadian Universities: A Multi-Institutional Research Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salyers, Vincent; Carter, Lorraine; Carter, Alanna; Myers, Sue; Barrett, Penelope

2014-01-01

While e-learning is now characterized by a past and trends within that past, there continues to be uncertainty about how e-learning is defined and conceptualized, whether or not we like e-learning, and whether or not it is as meaningful to us as face to face learning. The purpose of this study was to document the e-learning perceptions of students…

An Investigation of the Factors Motivating Meaningful Learning of Statistics by Graduate Systems Management Students at AFIT.

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-09-01

DAC-RiB 271 AN INVESTIGATION OF THE FACTORS MOTIVATING MEANINGFUL v’ LEARNING OF STATIST (U) AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSON RFB OH SCHOOL OF...Furthermore, the views expressed in the document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the School of Systems and...MEANINGFUL LEARNING OF STATISTICS BY GRADUATE SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT STUDENTS AT AFIT THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the School of Systems and Logistics

Knowledge Brokers in the Making: Opportunities to Connect Researchers and Stakeholders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pennell, K. G.; Pennell, M. C.

2014-12-01

Environmental science and engineering graduate students often lack training on how to communicate with policy decision makers who are grappling with questions to which research is responding. They communicate directly with mutual experts, but are many times unable to engage with non-experts about their research, thereby limiting the reach and impact of their findings. This presentation highlights opportunities within environmental science and engineering research to create opportunities for researchers to hone skills as knowledge brokers, so they learn ways to meaningfully engage with a range of stakeholders. A knowledge broker is an individual who connects scientific experts and relevant stakeholders with meaningful and useable information. Recognizing that information must flow in multiple directions, the knowledge broker must quickly and effectively translate needs and questions using established relationships. It is these relationships, as well as the synthesis of scientific knowledge into useable information, on which the success of the knowledge broker lies. Using lessons learned, as well as communication science theory related to knowledge brokering, this presentation highlights training opportunities for knowledge brokers who are primarily educated in science and engineering fields, yet seek to engage with societally relevant stakeholders. We present case study examples of knowledge brokering within two large multi-disciplinary research centers. These centers provide unique experiences for researchers to build relationships with stakeholders, so that the scientific experts not only create novel research within their specific discipline, but also inform policy decision makers, community members and regulatory officials.

The new and improved learning community at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine resembles that at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

PubMed

Stewart, Rosalyn W; Barker, Allison R; Shochet, Robert B; Wright, Scott M

2007-05-01

In July 2005, a learning community was created at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) to foster camaraderie, networking, advising, mentoring, professionalism, clinical skills, and scholarship--The Colleges. The cultural and structural changes that emerged with the creation of this program have resulted in JHUSOM bearing a resemblance to J. K. Rowling's fictional Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This manuscript will describe the similarities between these two revered schools, and highlight the innovations and improvements made to JHUSOM's learning environment. The intense, stressful, and lengthy professional training required to achieve competency in the practice of medicine and in the practice of witchcraft (albeit fictional) have meaningful parallels. The supportive learning environment at these two schools should afford the next generation of graduates to have an even more enriching experience than those who have come before them.

Engaging Inner City Students in Learning Through Designing Remote Operated Vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnett, Michael

2005-03-01

For the past year we have been developing and implementing a program in which students design and construct remote operated vehicles. In this paper, we report on a pilot study that occurred over the course of an academic year in an inner city high school. Specifically, we have been investigating whether students learn meaningful science content through design activities. Through our teaching experiment methodological stance and analysis we found that (1) student attendance and engagement increased, (2) students learned physics content and recognized connections to their other coursework (3) teachers adopted an "organized chaos" posture and shifted their role from one of discipline keeper and content gatekeeper to one of coach and facilitator, (4) design projects need to be modularized if they are to be effective urban classrooms, and (5) teachers need to balance the tradeoffs between allowing students to develop aesthetically pleasing designs versus learning content and creating designs that are functional and useable.

Individuals with Alzheimer's learn to play a tile placement game: Results of a pilot study.

PubMed

Miltiades, Helen B; Thatcher, W Gregory

2016-10-25

With the ongoing need to determine effective memory interventions for persons with dementia and other memory impairments, the purpose of this study was to create a unique learning opportunity, where persons with early to moderate Alzheimer's engaged in game play activity. Six female participants, diagnosed with early to moderate dementia, were recruited from an adult day care center and participated in a 10-week study. The participants were placed in groups of three and were taught a tile placement game. Results indicate playing the game yielded inconsistent, but some significant, increases and eventual plateauing of knowing when it was their turn. The results also indicate the participant's maintained improvement in tile placement over the study period. Tile placement accuracy increased over rounds, which points to the importance of practice to maintain learned behavior. The game provided a platform for learning, social engagement, and occupied their time meaningfully. © The Author(s) 2016.

Lessons Learned from Developing a Patient Engagement Panel: An OCHIN Report.

PubMed

Arkind, Jill; Likumahuwa-Ackman, Sonja; Warren, Nate; Dickerson, Kay; Robbins, Lynn; Norman, Kathy; DeVoe, Jennifer E

2015-01-01

There is renewed interest in patient engagement in clinical and research settings, creating a need for documenting and publishing lessons learned from efforts to meaningfully engage patients. This article describes early lessons learned from the development of OCHIN's Patient Engagement Panel (PEP). OCHIN supports a national network of more than 300 community health centers (CHCs) and other primary care settings that serve over 1.5 million patients annually across nearly 20 states. The PEP was conceived in 2009 to harness the CHC tradition of patient engagement in this new era of patient-centered outcomes research and to ensure that patients were engaged throughout the life cycle of our research projects, from conception to dissemination. Developed by clinicians and researchers within our practice-based research network, recruitment of patients to serve as PEP members began in early 2012. The PEP currently has a membership of 18 patients from 3 states. Over the past 24 months, the PEP has been involved with 12 projects. We describe developing the PEP and challenges and lessons learned (eg, recruitment, funding model, creating value for patient partners, compensation). These lessons learned are relevant not only for research but also for patient engagement in quality improvement efforts and other clinical initiatives. © Copyright 2015 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

Meaningful Learning in the Teaching of Culture: The Project Based Learning Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kean, Ang Chooi; Kwe, Ngu Moi

2014-01-01

This paper reports on a collaborative effort taken by a team of three teacher educators in using the Project Based Learning (PBL) approach in the teaching of Japanese culture with the aim to investigate the presence of actual "meaningful learning" among 15 students of a 12-Week Preparatory Japanese Language course under a teacher…

Measuring Meaningful Learning in the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory: A National, Cross-Sectional Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2015-01-01

Research on laboratory learning points to the need to better understand what and how students learn in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was administered to general and organic chemistry students from 15 colleges and universities across the United States in order to measure the…

Using Cluster Analysis to Characterize Meaningful Learning in a First-Year University Chemistry Laboratory Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2015-01-01

The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was designed to measure students' cognitive and affective learning in the university chemistry laboratory. The MLLI was administered at the beginning and the end of the first semester to first-year university chemistry students to measure their expectations and experiences for learning in…

Incorporating Meaningful Gamification in a Blended Learning Research Methods Class: Examining Student Learning, Engagement, and Affective Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Meng; Hew, Khe Foon

2016-01-01

In this study, we investigated how the use of meaningful gamification affects student learning, engagement, and affective outcomes in a short, 3-day blended learning research methods class using a combination of experimental and qualitative research methods. Twenty-two postgraduates were randomly split into two groups taught by the same…

Building a Learning Experience: What Do Learners' Online Interaction Data Imply?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kokoç, Mehmet; Altun, Arif

2016-01-01

It is still under debate whether learners' interaction data within e-learning and/or open learning environments could be considered as reflections of their learning experiences to be effective or not. Therefore, it is meaningful to explore the nature of these interactions and to make meaningful conclusions. This study aims to explore what the…

E-Learning Content Design Standards Based on Interactive Digital Concepts Maps in the Light of Meaningful and Constructivist Learning Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Afify, Mohammed Kamal

2018-01-01

The present study aims to identify standards of interactive digital concepts maps design and their measurement indicators as a tool to develop, organize and administer e-learning content in the light of Meaningful Learning Theory and Constructivist Learning Theory. To achieve the objective of the research, the author prepared a list of E-learning…

Motivating People To Learn.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pastoll, Gregory

This book describes what is wrong with the western schooling process and shows how it manipulates learners through grading them. It also describes what an education process requires to be truly educative. The chapters of section A, "The Relation between Motivation and Meaningful Learning," are: (A1) "Meaningful Learning and…

Explorations in Statistics: Correlation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2010-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This sixth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores correlation, a familiar technique that estimates the magnitude of a straight-line relationship between two variables. Correlation is meaningful only when the…

Role of Social Knowledge Networking technology in facilitating meaningful use of Electronic Health Record medication reconciliation.

PubMed

Rangachari, Pavani

2016-06-01

Despite the federal policy impetus towards EHR Medication Reconciliation, hospital adherence has lagged for one chief reason; low physician engagement, which in turn emanates from lack of consensus in regard to which physician is responsible for managing a patient's medication list, and the importance of medication reconciliation as a tool for improving patient safety and quality of care. The Technology-in-Practice (TIP) framework stresses the role of human action in enacting structures of technology use or "technologies-in-practice." Applying the TIP framework to the EHR Medication Reconciliation context, helps frame the problem as one of low physician engagement in performing EHR Medication Reconciliation, translating to limited-use-EHR-in-practice. Concurrently, the problem suggests a hierarchical network structure, reflecting limited communication among hospital administrators and clinical providers on the importance of EHR Medication Reconciliation in improving patient safety. Integrating the TIP literature with the more recent knowledge-in-Practice (KIP) literature suggests that EHR-in-practice could be transformed from "limited use" to "meaningful use" through the use of Social Knowledge Networking (SKN) Technology to create new social network structures, and enable engagement, learning, and practice change. Correspondingly, the objectives of this paper are to: 1) Conduct a narrative review of the literature on "technology use," to understand how technologies-in-practice may be transformed from limited use to meaningful use; 2) Conduct a narrative review of the literature on "organizational change implementation," to understand how changes in technology use could be successfully implemented and sustained in a healthcare organizational context; and 3) Apply lessons learned from the narrative literature reviews to identify strategies for the meaningful use and successful implementation of EHR Medication Reconciliation technology.

Blended learning in ethics education: a survey of nursing students.

PubMed

Hsu, Li-Ling

2011-05-01

Nurses are experiencing new ethical issues as a result of global developments and changes in health care. With health care becoming increasingly sophisticated, and countries facing challenges of graying population, ethical issues involved in health care are bound to expand in quantity and in depth. Blended learning rather as a combination of multiple delivery media designed to promote meaningful learning. Specifically, this study was focused on two questions: (1) the students' satisfaction and attitudes as members of a scenario-based learning process in a blended learning environment; (2) the relationship between students' satisfaction ratings of nursing ethics course and their attitudes in the blended learning environment. In total, 99 senior undergraduate nursing students currently studying at a public nursing college in Taiwan were invited to participate in this study. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted in this study. The participants were asked to fill out two Likert-scale questionnaire surveys: CAAS (Case Analysis Attitude Scale), and BLSS (Blended Learning Satisfaction Scale). The results showed what students felt about their blended learning experiences - mostly items ranged from 3.27-3.76 (the highest score is 5). Another self-assessment of scenario analysis instrument revealed the mean scores ranged from 2.87-4.19. Nearly 57.8% of the participants rated the course 'extremely helpful' or 'very helpful.' This study showed statistically significant correlations (r=0.43) between students' satisfaction with blended learning and case analysis attitudes. In addition, results testified to a potential of the blended learning model proposed in this study to bridge the gap between students and instructors and the one between students and their peers, which are typical of blended learning, and to create meaningful learning by employing blended pedagogical consideration in the course design. The use of scenario instruction enables students to develop critical analysis and problem solving skills through active learning and social exchange of ideas. © The Author(s) 2011

An empirical typology of hospital nurses' individual learning paths.

PubMed

Poell, Rob F; Van der Krogt, Ferd J

2014-03-01

A relatively new theoretical concept is proposed in this paper, namely, the individual learning path. Learning paths are created by individual employees and comprise a set of learning-relevant activities that are both coherent as a whole and meaningful to them. To explore the empirical basis of this theoretical concept. A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews. Two academic medical centers (university hospitals) and two general hospitals in the Netherlands. A total of 89 nurses were involved in the study. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed qualitatively; cluster analysis was then performed on quantified data from the interviews. Four types of learning path emerged, namely, the formal-external, self-directed, social-emotional, and information-oriented learning paths. The relatively new theoretical concept of an individual learning path can be observed in practice and a number of different learning-path types can be distinguished. Nurses were found to create their own learning paths, that is, select a theme that is relevant primarily to themselves, conduct a variety of learning activities around this theme, participate in social contexts that might help them, and mobilize learning facilities provided by their organization. These activities go way beyond the notion of employees as self-directed learners merely in a didactic sense (establishing learning goals, choosing the right learning activities for these goals, evaluating to what extent their goals have been met as a result). The findings can be interpreted as evidence of employees acting strategically when it comes to their professional development. Providers of continuing professional education/development need to take this into account. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of Learning Models Based on Problem Solving and Meaningful Learning Standards by Expert Validity for Animal Development Course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lufri, L.; Fitri, R.; Yogica, R.

2018-04-01

The purpose of this study is to produce a learning model based on problem solving and meaningful learning standards by expert assessment or validation for the course of Animal Development. This research is a development research that produce the product in the form of learning model, which consist of sub product, namely: the syntax of learning model and student worksheets. All of these products are standardized through expert validation. The research data is the level of validity of all sub products obtained using questionnaire, filled by validators from various field of expertise (field of study, learning strategy, Bahasa). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The result of the research shows that the problem solving and meaningful learning model has been produced. Sub products declared appropriate by expert include the syntax of learning model and student worksheet.

The Effect of Case Teaching on Meaningful and Retentive Learning When Studying Genetic Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Güccük, Ahmet; Köksal, Mustafa Serdar

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of case teaching on how students learn about genetic engineering, in terms of meaningful learning and retention of learning. The study was designed as quasi-experimental research including 63 8th graders (28 boys and 35 girls). To collect data, genetic engineering achievement tests were…

Exclusively visual analysis of classroom group interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tucker, Laura; Scherr, Rachel E.; Zickler, Todd; Mazur, Eric

2016-12-01

Large-scale audiovisual data that measure group learning are time consuming to collect and analyze. As an initial step towards scaling qualitative classroom observation, we qualitatively coded classroom video using an established coding scheme with and without its audio cues. We find that interrater reliability is as high when using visual data only—without audio—as when using both visual and audio data to code. Also, interrater reliability is high when comparing use of visual and audio data to visual-only data. We see a small bias to code interactions as group discussion when visual and audio data are used compared with video-only data. This work establishes that meaningful educational observation can be made through visual information alone. Further, it suggests that after initial work to create a coding scheme and validate it in each environment, computer-automated visual coding could drastically increase the breadth of qualitative studies and allow for meaningful educational analysis on a far greater scale.

Cortical visual prostheses: from microstimulation to functional percept

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Najarpour Foroushani, Armin; Pack, Christopher C.; Sawan, Mohamad

2018-04-01

Cortical visual prostheses are intended to restore vision by targeted electrical stimulation of the visual cortex. The perception of spots of light, called phosphenes, resulting from microstimulation of the visual pathway, suggests the possibility of creating meaningful percept made of phosphenes. However, to date electrical stimulation of V1 has still not resulted in perception of phosphenated images that goes beyond punctate spots of light. In this review, we summarize the clinical and experimental progress that has been made in generating phosphenes and modulating their associated perceptual characteristics in human and macaque primary visual cortex (V1). We focus specifically on the effects of different microstimulation parameters on perception and we analyse key challenges facing the generation of meaningful artificial percepts. Finally, we propose solutions to these challenges based on the application of supervised learning of population codes for spatial stimulation of visual cortex.

Learning from the coffee shop: increasing junior high school students’ self-confidence through contextual learning based on local culture of Aceh

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarmini; Supriono, A.; Ridwan

2018-01-01

Teachers should be able to provide meaningful learning, create a fun learning, and encourage the self-confidence of students. The reality is learning in Junior High School still teacher-centered learning that results the level of self-confidence of students is low. Pre-action showed 30% of students do not have self-confidence. The research aims to improve the self-confidence of students through contextual learning in the course from the social studies of Aceh based on the local culture. This type of research is classroom action research that conducted in two cycles. The research focus is the students’ responses. The coffee shop is a source of learning social studies. Students Involved in the coffee shop interact with villagers who have made the coffee shop as social media. Students participate meetings to address issues of rural villagers. The coffee shop as a public share with characteristics of particularly subject as a gathering place for many people regardless of social strata, convey information, chat, and informal atmosphere that stimulates self-confidence.

Using Design-Based Research to Develop Meaningful Online Discussions in Undergraduate Field Experience Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Carol; Hill, Laurie; Lock, Jennifer; Altowairiki, Noha; Ostrowski, Chris; da Rosa dos Santos, Luciano; Liu, Yang

2017-01-01

From a design perspective, the intentionality of students to engage in surface or deep learning is often experienced through prescribed activities and learning tasks. Educators understand that meaningful learning can be furthered through the structural and organizational design of the online environment that motivates the student towards task…

Assessing Assessment: In Pursuit of Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rootman-le Grange, Ilse; Blackie, Margaret A. L.

2018-01-01

The challenge of supporting the development of meaningful learning is prevalent in chemistry education research. One of the core activities used in the learning process is assessments. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the semantics dimension of Legitimation Code Theory can be a helpful tool to critique the quality of assessments and…

Self-Regulated Learning Procedure for University Students: The "Meaningful Text-Reading" Strategy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roman Sanchez, Jose Maria

2004-01-01

Introduction: Experimental validation of a self-regulated learning procedure for university students, i.e. the "meaningful text-reading" strategy, is reported in this paper. The strategy's theoretical framework is the "ACRA Model" of learning strategies. The strategy consists of a flexible, recurring sequence of five mental operations of written…

A technology training protocol for meeting QSEN goals: Focusing on meaningful learning.

PubMed

Luo, Shuhong; Kalman, Melanie

2018-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss how we designed and developed a 12-step technology training protocol. The protocol is meant to improve meaningful learning in technology education so that nursing students are able to meet the informatics requirements of Quality and Safety Education in Nursing competencies. When designing and developing the training protocol, we used a simplified experiential learning model that addressed the core features of meaningful learning: to connect new knowledge with students' prior knowledge and real-world workflow. Before training, we identified students' prior knowledge and workflow tasks. During training, students learned by doing, reflected on their prior computer skills and workflow, designed individualized procedures for integration into their workflow, and practiced the self-designed procedures in real-world settings. The trainer was a facilitator who provided a meaningful learning environment, asked the right questions to guide reflective conversation, and offered scaffoldings at critical moments. This training protocol could significantly improve nurses' competencies in using technologies and increase their desire to adopt new technologies. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Co-Creating an Expansive Health Care Learning System.

PubMed

Cribb, Alan; Owens, John; Singh, Guddi

2017-11-01

How should practices of co-creation be integrated into health professions education? Although co-creation permits a variety of interpretations, we argue that realizing a transformative vision of co-creation-one that invites professionals to genuinely reconsider the purposes, relationships, norms, and priorities of health care systems through new forms of collaborative thought and practice-will require radically rethinking existing approaches to professional education. The meaningful enactment of co-creative roles and practices requires health professionals and students to negotiate competing traditions, pressures, and expectations. We therefore suggest that the development of what we call an "expansive health care learning system" is crucial for supporting learners in meeting the challenges of establishing genuinely co-creative health care systems. © 2017 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.

Creating Meaningful Inquiry in Inclusive Classrooms: Practitioners' Stories of Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Phyllis, Ed.; Whitehurst, Teresa, Ed.; Egerton, Jo, Ed.

2012-01-01

In recent years, the concept of teachers as researchers in both special and mainstream school settings has become part of our everyday language. Whilst many educational practitioners will see the need for research within their setting, many may not be familiar with the technical elements they believe are required. "Creating Meaningful Inquiry in…

Understanding science teaching effectiveness: examining how science-specific and generic instructional practices relate to student achievement in secondary science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mikeska, Jamie N.; Shattuck, Tamara; Holtzman, Steven; McCaffrey, Daniel F.; Duchesneau, Nancy; Qi, Yi; Stickler, Leslie

2017-12-01

In order to create conditions for students' meaningful and rigorous intellectual engagement in science classrooms, it is critically important to help science teachers learn which strategies and approaches can be used best to develop students' scientific literacy. Better understanding how science teachers' instructional practices relate to student achievement can provide teachers with beneficial information about how to best engage their students in meaningful science learning. To address this need, this study examined the instructional practices that 99 secondary biology teachers used in their classrooms and employed regression to determine which instructional practices are predictive of students' science achievement. Results revealed that the secondary science teachers who had well-managed classroom environments and who provided opportunities for their students to engage in student-directed investigation-related experiences were more likely to have increased student outcomes, as determined by teachers' value-added measures. These findings suggest that attending to both generic and subject-specific aspects of science teachers' instructional practice is important for understanding the underlying mechanisms that result in more effective science instruction in secondary classrooms. Implications about the use of these observational measures within teacher evaluation systems are discussed.

Change IS Possible: Reducing High-Risk Drinking Using a Collaborative Improvement Model.

PubMed

Lanter, Patricia L; Wolff, Kristina B; Johnson, Lisa C; Ercolano, Ellyn M; Kilmer, Jason R; Provost, Lloyd

2015-01-01

To describe the adoption of public health and improvement methodologies to address college students' high-risk drinking behaviors and to aid in prevention efforts. Members of 32 colleges and universities, content experts, and staff members of the National College Health Improvement Program (NCHIP). A 2-year learning collaborative developed by NCHIP trained individuals from 32 different college and universities in using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle as a method to create and implement initiatives aimed at reducing students' high-risk drinking behaviors and related harms. Participants experienced success ranging from noteworthy increases in type and amount of interventions directed at reducing high-risk drinking, to creating collaboratives across campus, the local community, and stakeholders. Challenges related to data collection and creating lasting cultural change remain. The use of quality improvement methodologies and creation of a national collaborative successfully effected meaningful change in high-risk drinking behaviors on college campuses.

Conceptualisation of knowledge construction in community service-learning programmes in nursing education.

PubMed

Mthembu, Sindi Z; Mtshali, Fikile G

2013-01-01

Practices in higher education have been criticised for not developing and preparing students for the expertise required in real environments. Literature reports that educational programmes tend to favour knowledge conformation rather than knowledge construction; however, community service learning (CSL) is a powerful pedagogical strategy that encourages students to make meaningful connections between the content in the classroom and real-life experiences as manifested by the communities. Through CSL, learning is achieved by the active construction of knowledge supported by multiple perspectives within meaningful real contexts, and the social interactions amongst students are seen to play a critical role in the processes of learning and cognition. This article reflects facilitators’ perspective of the knowledge construction process as used with students doing community service learning in basic nursing programmes. The aim of this article was to conceptualise the phenomenon of knowledge construction and thereby provide educators with a shared meaning and common understanding, and to analyse the interaction strategies utilised by nurse educators in the process of knowledge construction in community service-learning programmes in basic nursing education. A qualitative research approach based on a grounded theory research design was used in this article. Two nursing education institutions were purposively selected. Structured interviews were conducted with 16 participants. The results revealed that the knowledge construction in community service-learning programmes is conceptualised as having specific determinants, including the use of authentic health-related problems, academic coaching through scaffolding, academic discourse-dialogue, interactive learning in communities of learners, active learning, continuous reflection as well as collaborative and inquiry-based learning. Upon completion of an experience, students create and test generated knowledge in different contextual health settings. It was concluded that knowledge is constructed by students as a result of their interaction with the communities in their socio-cultural context and is mediated by their prior concrete experiences. The implication of this is that students construct knowledge that can be applied in their future work places.

Concept Development and Meaningful Learning among Electrical Engineering Students Engaged in a Problem-Based Laboratory Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bledsoe, Karen E.; Flick, Lawrence

2012-01-01

This phenomenographic study documented changes in student-held electrical concepts the development of meaningful learning among students with both low and high prior knowledge within a problem-based learning (PBL) undergraduate electrical engineering course. This paper reports on four subjects: two with high prior knowledge and two with low prior…

Aligning Learning and Talent Development Performance Outcomes with Organizational Objectives: A Proposed Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ware, Iris

2017-01-01

The value proposition for learning and talent development (LTD) is often challenged due to human resources' inability to demonstrate meaningful outcomes in relation to organizational needs and return-on-investment. The primary role of human resources (HR) and the learning and talent development (LTD) function is to produce meaningful outcomes to…

Does (Non-)Meaningful Sensori-Motor Engagement Promote Learning with Animated Physical Systems?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pouw, Wim T. J. L.; Eielts, Charly; Gog, Tamara; Zwaan, Rolf A.; Paas, Fred

2016-01-01

Previous research indicates that sensori-motor experience with physical systems can have a positive effect on learning. However, it is not clear whether this effect is caused by mere bodily engagement or the intrinsically meaningful information that such interaction affords in performing the learning task. We investigated (N = 74), through the use…

Exploring In-Service Teachers' Perceptions on Values-Based Water Education via Interactive Instructional Strategies that Enhance Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thoe, Ng Khar

2007-01-01

Instructional strategies determine the approaches an educator may take to achieve learning objectives. Research has shown that sets of strategies or instructional models anchored on social constructivist learning theories were found to be effective in enhancing active participation. It is particularly influential and meaningful in many areas of…

Meaningful Learning from Practice: Web-Based Video in Professional Preparation Programmes in University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Admiraal, Wilfried

2014-01-01

Web-based video is one of the technologies which can support meaningful learning from practice--in addition to practical benefits such as accessibility of practices, flexibility in updating information, and incorporating video into multimedia resources. A multiple case study was set up on the use of a web-based video learning environment in two…

The Role of Post-Visit Action Resources in Facilitating Meaningful Free-Choice Learning after a Zoo Visit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bueddefeld, Jill N. H.; Van Winkle, Christine M.

2018-01-01

Places like zoos, where free-choice learning is encouraged, are important for conveying climate change and sustainability issues to the public. Free-choice learning that targets environmentally focused sustainable behavior changes must be meaningful in order to encourage actual behavior change post-visit. However, visitors often fail to translate…

Creating a meaningful infection control program: one home healthcare agency's lessons.

PubMed

Poff, Renee McCoy; Browning, Sarah Via

2014-03-01

Creating a meaningful infection control program in the home care setting proved to be challenging for agency leaders of one hospital-based home healthcare agency. Challenges arose when agency leaders provided infection control (IC) data to the hospital's IC Committee. The IC Section Chief asked for national benchmark comparisons to align home healthcare reporting to that of the hospital level. At that point, it was evident that the home healthcare IC program lacked definition and structure. The purpose of this article is to share how one agency built a meaningful IC program.

Acquisition and Retention of STEM Concepts through Inquiry Based Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lombardi, Candice

This study explores the integration of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) concepts through inquiry based learning. Students are exposed to a constructivist style learning environment where they create understanding for themselves. This way of learning lets students plan and justify their ideas and beliefs while discussing and examining the ideas of their classmates. Students are engaged in solving a scientific problem in a meaningful, inquiry-based manner through hypothesis testing, experimentation, and investigation. This mode of learning introduces students to real life, authentic science experiences within the confines of a typical classroom. The focus of the unit is for the students to create connections and understanding about geography and the globe in order to ultimately identify the exact latitude and longitude of 10 mystery sites. The students learn about latitude and longitude and apply their knowledge through a set of clues to determine where their Mystery Class is located. Journey North provides an internationally accessed game of hide-and-seek called Mystery Class Seasons Challenge. Throughout this challenge, over the course of eleven weeks, students will record, graph, interpret and analysis data and research to ultimate identify the location of ten mystery locations. Students will track seasonal changes in sunlight while investigating, examining and researching clues to find these ten secret sites around the world. My research was done to prove the success of students' ability to learn new mathematics, science, technology and engineering concepts through inquiry based design.

Creating Meaningful Change in Education: A Cascading Logic Model. Scaling-Up Brief. Number 6

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blase, Karen; Fixsen, Dean; Jackson, Kathleen Ryan

2015-01-01

Creating meaningful change in a state's education system from the capitol to the classroom is complex and challenging work. Over the past several decades, considerable research, policy, and funding have focused on the use of evidence-based programs (EBP) in schools. However, these practices only are effective when fully and effectively implemented…

Digital Photography and Journals in a Kindergarten-First-Grade Classroom: Toward Meaningful Technology Integration in Early Childhood Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ching, Cynthia Carter; Wang, X. Christine; Shih, Mei-Li; Kedem, Yore

2006-01-01

To explore meaningful and effective technology integration in early childhood education, we investigated how kindergarten-first-grade students created and employed digital photography journals to support social and cognitive reflection. These students used a digital camera to document their daily school activities and created digital photo…

Using an improved virtual learning environment for engineering students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lourdes Martínez Cartas, Ma

2012-06-01

In recent years, e-learning has been used in a chemical engineering subject in the final course of a mining engineering degree, a subject concerned with fuel technology. The low results obtained by students in this subject have led the teacher to search for new strategies to increase grades. Such strategies have consisted of incorporating into the existing virtual environment a dynamics of work with conceptual maps and a consideration of the different learning styles in the classroom. In an attempt to adapt teaching to the individual methods of learning for each student, various activities aimed at strengthening different learning styles have been proposed and concept maps have been used to create meaningful learning experiences. In addition, different modalities of assessment have been proposed, which can be selected by each student according to his or her particular method of learning to avoid penalising one style preference in contrast to another. This combination of e-learning, use of concept maps and catering for different learning styles has involved the implementation of the improved virtual learning environment. This has led to an increase in participation in the subject and has improved student assessment results.

Creating an inclusive leisure space: strategies used to engage children with and without disabilities in the arts-mediated program Spiral Garden.

PubMed

Smart, Eric; Edwards, Brydne; Kingsnorth, Shauna; Sheffe, Sarah; Curran, C J; Pinto, Madhu; Crossman, Shannon; King, Gillian

2018-01-01

This article describes how service providers use a set of practical strategies to create an inclusive leisure space in Spiral Garden, an arts-mediated outdoor summer day program for children with and without disabilities. This study was guided by an interpretive qualitative approach. Fourteen Spiral Garden service providers participated in semi-structured interviews. Nine had extensive experience with the program and had been present during key phases of program development spanning over a 26-year period and five were service providers during the summer of 2013. Transcript data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. The analysis produced eight strategies organized under three larger categories that service providers perceived to be essential in creating an inclusive leisure space: (1) engaging children in collective experiences; (2) encouraging peer interactions and friendships; and (3) facilitating collaborative child-directed experiences. Service providers working across different inclusive settings can use findings from this study to contribute to program design and implementation. Presented strategies enable children to experience opportunities for spontaneous free play, individualized structured support, and meaningful social participation. Overall, service providers are encouraged to enhance supportive child and service provider relationships and reciprocal child and environment relationships in group-based programs. Implications for Rehabilitation Exploring and facilitating reciprocal relationships between children and their environment is essential to creating inclusive leisure spaces. Transforming program intentions of meaningful social participation into practice requires learning about and affecting change in children's individual social contexts. Service providers can engage themselves as full participants in inclusive leisure spaces through playful negotiations, internal reflections, and artistic expressions.

A contemporary examination of workplace learning culture: an ethnomethodology study.

PubMed

Newton, Jennifer M; Henderson, Amanda; Jolly, Brian; Greaves, Judith

2015-01-01

Creating and maintaining a sustainable workforce is currently an international concern. Extensive literature suggest that students and staff need to be 'engaged', that is they need to interact with the health team if they are to maximise learning opportunities. Despite many studies since the 1970s into what creates a 'good' learning environment, ongoing issues continue to challenge healthcare organisations and educators. A 'good' learning environment has been an intangible element for many professions as learning is hindered by the complexity of practice and by limitations on practitioners' time available to assist and guide novices. This study sought to explore the nature of the learning interactions and experiences in clinical nursing practice that enhance a 'good' workplace learning culture for both nursing students and qualified nurses. An ethnomethodology study. A range of clinical settings in Victoria and Queensland, Australia. Students and registered nurses (n=95). Fieldwork observations were carried out on student nurses and registered nurses, followed by an individual interview with each participant. An iterative approach to analysis was undertaken; field notes of observations were reviewed, interviews transcribed verbatim and entered into NVivo10. Major themes were then extracted. Three central themes: learning by doing, navigating through communication, and 'entrustability', emerged providing insights into common practices potentially enhancing or detracting from learning in the workplace. Students' and registered nurses' learning is constrained by a myriad of interactions and embedded workplace practices, which can either enhance the individual's opportunities for learning or detract from the richness of affordances that healthcare workplace settings have to offer. Until the culture/or routine practices of the healthcare workplace are challenged, the trust and meaningful communication essential to learning in practice, will be achievable only serendipitously. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Qualitative Insights from a Canadian Multi-Institutional Research Study: In Search of Meaningful E-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carter, Lorraine M.; Salyers, Vince; Myers, Sue; Hipfner, Carol; Hoffart, Caroline; MacLean, Christa; White, Kathy; Matus, Theresa; Forssman, Vivian; Barrett, Penelope

2014-01-01

This paper reports the qualitative findings of a mixed methods research study conducted at three Canadian post-secondary institutions. Called the Meaningful E-learning or MEL project, the study was an exploration of the teaching and learning experiences of faculty and students as well as their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of…

Achieving meaningful mathematics literacy for students with learning disabilities. Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt.

PubMed

Goldman, S R; Hasselbring, T S

1997-01-01

In this article we consider issues relevant to the future of mathematics instruction and achievement for students with learning disabilities. The starting point for envisioning the future is the changing standards for mathematics learning and basic mathematical literacy. We argue that the shift from behaviorist learning theories to constructivist and social constructivist theories (see Rivera, this series) provides an opportunity to develop and implement a hybrid model of mathematics instruction. The hybrid model we propose embeds, or situates, important skill learning in meaningful contexts. We discuss some examples of instructional approaches to complex mathematical problem solving that make use of meaningful contexts. Evaluation data on these approaches have yielded positive and encouraging results for students with learning disabilities as well as general education students. Finally, we discuss various ways in which technology is important for realizing hybrid instructional models in mathematics.

Meaningful and Purposeful Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clementi, Donna

2014-01-01

This article describes a graphic, designed by Clementi and Terrill, the authors of "Keys to Planning for Learning" (2013), visually representing the components that contribute to meaningful and purposeful practice in learning a world language, practice that leads to greater proficiency. The entire graphic is centered around the letter…

Promoting Hmong refugees' well-being through mutual learning: valuing knowledge, culture, and experience.

PubMed

Goodkind, Jessica R

2006-03-01

Refugees who resettle in a new country face numerous struggles, including overcoming past traumas and coping with post-migration stressors, such as lack of meaningful social roles, poverty, discrimination, lack of environmental mastery, and social isolation. Thus, in addition to needing to learn concrete language skills and gain access to resources and employment, it is important for refugees to become a part of settings where their experiences, knowledge, and identity are valued and validated. The Refugee Well-Being Project (RWBP) was developed to promote the well-being of Hmong refugees by creating settings for mutual learning to occur between Hmong adults and undergraduate students. The RWBP had two major components: (1) Learning Circles, which involved cultural exchange and one-on-one learning opportunities, and (2) an advocacy component, which involved undergraduates advocating for and transferring advocacy skills to Hmong families to increase their access to resources in their communities. The project was evaluated using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. This article discusses data from qualitative interviews with participants, during which the importance of reciprocal helping relationships and mutual learning emerged as significant themes.

Concept Mapping Using Cmap Tools to Enhance Meaningful Learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cañas, Alberto J.; Novak, Joseph D.

Concept maps are graphical tools that have been used in all facets of education and training for organizing and representing knowledge. When learners build concept maps, meaningful learning is facilitated. Computer-based concept mapping software such as CmapTools have further extended the use of concept mapping and greatly enhanced the potential of the tool, facilitating the implementation of a concept map-centered learning environment. In this chapter, we briefly present concept mapping and its theoretical foundation, and illustrate how it can lead to an improved learning environment when it is combined with CmapTools and the Internet. We present the nationwide “Proyecto Conéctate al Conocimiento” in Panama as an example of how concept mapping, together with technology, can be adopted by hundreds of schools as a means to enhance meaningful learning.

Reflections on experiential learning in evaluation capacity building with a community organization, Dancing With Parkinson's.

PubMed

Nakaima, April; Sridharan, Sanjeev

2017-05-08

This paper discusses what was learned about evaluation capacity building with community organizations who deliver services to individuals with neurological disorders. Evaluation specialists engaged by the Ontario Brain Institute Evaluation Support Program were paired with community organizations, such as Dancing With Parkinson's. Some of the learning included: relationship building is key for this model of capacity building; community organizations often have had negative experiences with evaluation and the idea that evaluations can be friendly tools in implementing meaningful programs is one key mechanism by which such an initiative can work; community organizations often need evaluation most to be able to demonstrate their value; a strength of this initiative was that the focus was not just on creating products but mostly on developing a learning process in which capacities would remain; evaluation tools and skills that organizations found useful were developing a theory of change and the concept of heterogeneous mechanisms (informed by a realist evaluation lens). Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Simulation in Nursing Education-International Perspectives and Contemporary Scope of Practice.

PubMed

Kelly, Michelle A; Berragan, Elizabeth; Husebø, Sissel Eikeland; Orr, Fiona

2016-05-01

This article provides insights and perspectives from four experienced educators about their approaches to developing, delivering, and evaluating impactful simulation learning experiences for undergraduate nurses. A case study format has been used to illustrate the commonalities and differences of where simulation has been positioned within curricula, with examples of specialized clinical domains and others with a more generic focus. The importance of pedagogy in developing and delivering simulations is highlighted in each case study. A range of learning theories appropriate for healthcare simulations are a reminder of the commonalities across theories and that no one theory can account for the engaging and impactful learning that simulation elicits. Creating meaningful and robust learning experiences through simulation can benefit students' performance in subsequent clinical practice. The ability to rehearse particular clinical scenarios, which may be difficult to otherwise achieve, assists students in anticipating likely patient trajectories and understanding how to respond to patients, relatives, and others in the healthcare team. © 2016 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Students' Meaningful Learning Orientation and Their Meaningful Understandings of Meiosis and Genetics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cavallo, Ann Liberatore

This 1-week study explored the extent to which high school students (n=140) acquired meaningful understanding of selected biological topics (meiosis and the Punnett square method) and the relationship between these topics. This study: (1) examined "mental modeling" as a technique for measuring students' meaningful understanding of the…

The Effects of Cognitive Process and Decision Making Training in Reading Experience on Meaningful Learning with Underachieving College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dean, Rebecca J.

2010-01-01

The ability of underprepared college students to read and learn from their reading is essential to their academic success and to their ability to persist towards completing their degree. The purposes of this study were to (a) assess the relationship between the cognitive processes of reading-based decision making and meaningful learning and (b)…

Effects of Node-Link Mapping on Non-Science Majors' Meaningful Learning and Conceptual Change in a Life-Science Survey Lecture Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park-Martinez, Jayne Irene

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of node-link mapping on students' meaningful learning and conceptual change in a 1-semester introductory life-science course. This study used node-link mapping to integrate and apply the National Research Council's (NRC, 2005) three principles of human learning: engaging students' prior…

Conceptual assessment in the biological sciences: a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop.

PubMed

Michael, Joel

2007-12-01

Twenty-one biology teachers from a variety of disciplines (genetics, ecology, physiology, biochemistry, etc.) met at the University of Colorado to begin discussions about approaches to assessing students' conceptual understanding of biology. We considered what is meant by a "concept" in biology, what the important biological concepts might be, and how to go about developing assessment items about these concepts. We also began the task of creating a community of biologists interested in facilitating meaningful learning in biology. Input from the physiology education community is essential in the process of developing conceptual assessments for physiology.

What makes a day at work extraordinary.

PubMed

Leach, Francine; Yeager, Kerry

2013-04-01

To prevent high rates of nurse burnout and staff turnover, hospitals must create environments that fulfil nurses' expectations and foster positive emotional responses to their job. To gain an understanding of what triggers positive emotional responses, a group of nurses were asked to recall an 'extraordinary day'. Their descriptions were analysed to identify these triggers and to determine whether their perceptions of what makes an extraordinary day change over time. This article discusses the results of the study and suggests that enabling nurses to describe meaningful experiences is a step toward learning what it is they value.

Transforming a Traditional Inquiry-Based Science Unit into a STEM Unit for Elementary Pre-service Teachers: A View from the Trenches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmidt, Matthew; Fulton, Lori

2016-04-01

The need to prepare students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching is strong, especially at the elementary level. However, most teacher education preparation programs do not focus on STEM education. In an attempt to provide an exemplary model of a STEM unit, we used a rapid prototyping approach to transform an inquiry-based unit on moon phases into one that integrated technology in a meaningful manner to develop technological literacy and scientific concepts for pre-service teachers (PSTs). Using qualitative case study methodology, we describe lessons learned related to the development and implementation of a STEM unit in an undergraduate elementary methods course, focusing on the impact the inquiry model had on PSTs' perceptions of inquiry-based science instruction and how the integration of technology impacted their learning experience. Using field notes and survey data, we uncovered three overarching themes. First, we found that PSTs held absolutist beliefs and had a need for instruction on inquiry-based learning and teaching. Second, we determined that explicit examples of effective and ineffective technology use are needed to help PSTs develop an understanding of meaningful technology integration. Finally, the rapid prototyping approach resulted in a successful modification of the unit, but caused the usability of our digital instructional materials to suffer. Our findings suggest that while inquiry-based STEM units can be implemented in existing programs, creating and testing these prototypes requires significant effort to meet PSTs' learning needs, and that iterating designs is essential to successful implementation.

Rising to the Challenge: Meaningful Assessment of Student Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, 2010

2010-01-01

"Rising to the Challenge: Meaningful Assessment of Student Learning" was envisioned in response to a 2007 request for proposals from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE). FIPSE called for national, consortial contributions to improving the knowledge and abilities to assess student…

A New Lease on Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Lorin W.; Pellicer, Leonard O.

1993-01-01

South Carolina has found that meaningful improvement in Chapter 1 schools requires taking six crucial steps: (1) set meaningful goals; (2) pay attention to school culture; (3) revamp the curriculum; (4) pick up the pace; (5) integrate learning objectives with the regular program; and (6) change teaching tactics. An insert summarizes changes…

Connecting the Dots: The Decline in Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stewart, Kenneth; Kilmartin, Christopher

2014-01-01

The authors describe cross-decades changes in the achievement attitudes and behaviors of average U. S. undergraduates that parallel the declines in meaningful learning reported by Arum and colleagues. Comparisons of pre-1987 and 2004-8 students on seven achievement-predictive measures revealed that (a) average 2004-8 undergraduates scored…

Enhancing meaningful learning and self-efficacy through collaboration between dental hygienist and physiotherapist students - a scholarship project.

PubMed

Johannsen, A; Bolander-Laksov, K; Bjurshammar, N; Nordgren, B; Fridén, C; Hagströmer, M

2012-11-01

Within the field of Dental Hygiene (DH) and Physiotherapy (PT), students are taught to use an evidence-based approach. Educators need to consider the nature of evidence-based practice from the perspective of content knowledge and learning strategies. Such effort to seek best available evidence and to apply a systematic and scholarly approach to teaching and learning is called scholarship of teaching and learning. To evaluate the application of the scholarship model including an evidence-based approach to enhance meaningful learning and self-efficacy among DH and PT students. Based on the research on student learning, three central theories were identified (constructivism, meaningful learning and self-efficacy). These were applied in our context to support learner engagement and the application of prior knowledge in a new situation. The DH students performed an oral health examination on the PT students, and the PT students performed an individual health test on the DH students; both groups used motivational interviewing. Documentation of student's learning experience was carried out through seminars and questionnaires. The students were overall satisfied with the learning experience. Most appreciated are that it reflected a 'real' professional situation and that it also reinforced important learning from their seminars. The scholarship model made the teachers aware of the importance of evidence-based teaching. Furthermore, the indicators for meaningful learning and increased self-efficacy were high, and the students became more engaged by practising in a real situation, more aware of other health professions and reflected about tacit knowledge. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

Creating Situational Awareness in Spacecraft Operations with the Machine Learning Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Z.

2016-09-01

This paper presents a machine learning approach for the situational awareness capability in spacecraft operations. There are two types of time dependent data patterns for spacecraft datasets: the absolute time pattern (ATP) and the relative time pattern (RTP). The machine learning captures the data patterns of the satellite datasets through the data training during the normal operations, which is represented by its time dependent trend. The data monitoring compares the values of the incoming data with the predictions of machine learning algorithm, which can detect any meaningful changes to a dataset above the noise level. If the difference between the value of incoming telemetry and the machine learning prediction are larger than the threshold defined by the standard deviation of datasets, it could indicate the potential anomaly that may need special attention. The application of the machine-learning approach to the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on Japanese Himawari spacecraft series is presented, which has the same configuration as the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on Geostationary Environment Operational Satellite (GOES) R series. The time dependent trends generated by the data-training algorithm are in excellent agreement with the datasets. The standard deviation in the time dependent trend provides a metric for measuring the data quality, which is particularly useful in evaluating the detector quality for both AHI and ABI with multiple detectors in each channel. The machine-learning approach creates the situational awareness capability, and enables engineers to handle the huge data volume that would have been impossible with the existing approach, and it leads to significant advances to more dynamic, proactive, and autonomous spacecraft operations.

Methodological pluralism in the teaching of Astronomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Macedo, Josué Antunes; Voelzke, Marcos Rincon

2015-04-01

This paper discusses the feasibility of using a teaching strategy called methodological pluralism, consisting of the use of various methodological resources in order to provide a meaningful learning. It is part of a doctoral thesis, which aims to investigate contributions to the use of traditional resources combined with digital technologies, in order to create autonomy for future teachers of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in relation to themes in Astronomy. It was offered an extension course at the "Federal Institution of Education, Science and Technology" in the North of Minas Gerais (FINMG), Campus Januaria, for thirty-two students of licentiate courses in Physics, Mathematics and Biological Sciences, involving themes of Astronomy, in order to search and contribute to improving the training of future teachers. The following aspects are used: the mixed methodology, with pre-experimental design, combined with content analysis. The results indicate the rates of students' prior knowledge in relation to Astronomy was low; meaningful learning indications of concepts related to Astronomy, and the feasibility of using digital resources Involving technologies, articulated with traditional materials in the teaching of Astronomy. This research sought to contribute to the initial teacher training, especially in relation to Astronomy Teaching, proposing new alternatives to promote the teaching of this area of knowledge, extending the methodological options of future teachers.

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 conditions that promote meaningful student learning may help us make decisions that result in improved student learning in our own classes.

Transforming City Schools through Art: Approaches to Meaningful K-12 Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hutzel, Karen; Bastos, Flavia M. C.; Cozier, Kimberly J.

2012-01-01

This anthology places art at the center of meaningful urban education reform. Providing a fresh perspective on urban education, the contributors describe a positive, asset-based community development model designed to tap into the teaching/learning potential already available in urban cities. Rather than focusing on a lack of resources, this…

Is This a Meaningful Learning Experience? Interactive Critical Self-Inquiry as Investigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allard, Andrea C.; Gallant, Andrea

2012-01-01

What conditions enable educators to engage in meaningful learning experiences with peers and beginning practitioners? This article documents a self-study on our actions-in-practice in a peer mentoring project. The investigation involved an iterative process to improve our knowledge as teacher educators, reflective practitioners, and researchers.…

Does Constructivist Approach Applicable through Concept Maps to Achieve Meaningful Learning in Science?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jena, Ananta Kumar

2012-01-01

This study deals with the application of constructivist approach through individual and cooperative modes of spider and hierarchical concept maps to achieve meaningful learning on science concepts (e.g. acids, bases & salts, physical and chemical changes). The main research questions were: Q (1): is there any difference in individual and…

Telepresence: A "Real" Component in a Model to Make Human-Computer Interface Factors Meaningful in the Virtual Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Selverian, Melissa E. Markaridian; Lombard, Matthew

2009-01-01

A thorough review of the research relating to Human-Computer Interface (HCI) form and content factors in the education, communication and computer science disciplines reveals strong associations of meaningful perceptual "illusions" with enhanced learning and satisfaction in the evolving classroom. Specifically, associations emerge…

Meaningful Statistics in Professional Practices as a Bridge between Mathematics and Science: An Evaluation of a Design Research Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dierdorp, Adri; Bakker, Arthur; van Maanen, Jan A.; Eijkelhof, Harrie M. C.

2014-01-01

Background: Creating coherence between school subjects mathematics and science and making these school subjects meaningful are still topical challenges. This study investigates how students make meaningful connections between mathematics, statistics, science and applications when they engage in a specially developed unit that is based on…

A team-based interprofessional education course for first-year health professions students.

PubMed

Peeters, Michael J; Sexton, Martha; Metz, Alexia E; Hasbrouck, Carol S

2017-11-01

Interprofessional education (IPE) is required within pharmacy education, and should include classroom-based education along with experiential interprofessional collaboration. For classroom-based education, small-group learning environments may create a better platform for engaging students in the essential domain of interprofessional collaboration towards meaningful learning within IPE sub-domains (interprofessional communication, teams and teamwork, roles and responsibilities, and values and ethics). Faculty envisioned creating a small-group learning environment that was inviting, interactive, and flexible using situated learning theory. This report describes an introductory, team-based, IPE course for first-year health-professions students; it used small-group methods for health-professions students' learning of interprofessional collaboration. The University of Toledo implemented a 14-week required course involving 554 first-year health-sciences students from eight professions. The course focused on the Interprofessional Education Collaborative's (IPEC) Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaboration. Students were placed within interprofessional teams of 11-12 students each and engaged in simulations, standardized-patient interviews, case-based communications exercises, vital signs training, and patient safety rotations. Outcomes measured were students' self-ratings of attaining learning objectives, perceptions of other professions (from word cloud), and satisfaction through end-of-course evaluations. This introductory, team-based IPE course with 554 students improved students' self-assessed competency in learning objectives (p < 0.01, Cohen's d = 0.9), changed students' perceptions of other professions (via word clouds), and met students' satisfaction through course evaluations. Through triangulation of our various assessment methods, we considered this course offering a success. This interprofessional, team-based, small-group strategy to teaching and learning IPE appeared helpful within this interactive, classroom-based course. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Meeting the Challenge of Chronic Conditions in a Sustainable Manner: Building on the AHC Learning.

PubMed

Delgado, Pedro

2016-01-01

The Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration for Innovation and Improvement in Chronic Disease (AHC) set out to achieve three aims: to create a patient- and family-centred approach to manage chronic diseases; to build a network of organizational, regional and provincial teams to share evidence-informed, systems-level solutions and work together to develop, implement and sustain improvement initiatives; and to promote the sustainability of the participating health systems. Important elements of all three aims were achieved and the synthesis provides a meaningful contribution to systems working to improve chronic care. This paper explores those achievements as well as some of the areas for improvement, including replicability, expanded outcome measurement, greater detail around patient and family engagement, increased focus on specific outcomes and processes, and further articulation of lessons learned and recommendations.

Digital Storytelling: A Meaningful Technology-Integrated Approach for Engaged Student Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sadik, Alaa

2008-01-01

Although research emphasizes the importance of integrating technology into the curriculum, the use of technology can only be effective if teachers themselves possess the expertise to use technology in a meaningful way in the classroom. The aim of this study was to assist Egyptian teachers in developing teaching and learning through the application…

Telling the Story of MindRising: Minecraft, Mindfulness and Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Deirdre; Brown, Mark; Críosta, Gar Mac

2016-01-01

This paper describes a unique project known as MindRising Games. It reports how the innovative use of Minecraft™ combined with the principles of mindfulness and meaningful learning contributed to rich digital story telling. MindRising Games was a competition, which was part of the 100-year commemoration of the Easter Rising, designed to celebrate…

Pedagogical Background for Technology Education--Meaningful Learning in Theory and Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Autio, Ossi

2009-01-01

One important theme in technology education is the growing need to develop the type of pedagogies that encourage pupils in authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Often, the teaching strategies of technology education are only a matter of teaching the handling of materials and tools, and the production of mere objects does not consider how…

Comparison of meaningful learning characteristics in simulated nursing practice after traditional versus computer-based simulation method: a qualitative videography study.

PubMed

Poikela, Paula; Ruokamo, Heli; Teräs, Marianne

2015-02-01

Nursing educators must ensure that nursing students acquire the necessary competencies; finding the most purposeful teaching methods and encouraging learning through meaningful learning opportunities is necessary to meet this goal. We investigated student learning in a simulated nursing practice using videography. The purpose of this paper is to examine how two different teaching methods presented students' meaningful learning in a simulated nursing experience. The 6-hour study was divided into three parts: part I, general information; part II, training; and part III, simulated nursing practice. Part II was delivered by two different methods: a computer-based simulation and a lecture. The study was carried out in the simulated nursing practice in two universities of applied sciences, in Northern Finland. The participants in parts II and I were 40 first year nursing students; 12 student volunteers continued to part III. Qualitative analysis method was used. The data were collected using video recordings and analyzed by videography. The students who used a computer-based simulation program were more likely to report meaningful learning themes than those who were first exposed to lecture method. Educators should be encouraged to use computer-based simulation teaching in conjunction with other teaching methods to ensure that nursing students are able to receive the greatest educational benefits. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The journey of primary care practices to meaningful use: a Colorado Beacon Consortium study.

PubMed

Fernald, Douglas H; Wearner, Robyn; Dickinson, W Perry

2013-01-01

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 provides for incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid for clinicians who implement electronic health records (EHRs) and use this technology meaningfully to improve patient care. There are few comprehensive descriptions of how primary care practices achieve the meaningful use of clinical data, including the formal stage 1 meaningful use requirements. Evaluation of the Colorado Beacon Consortium project included iterative qualitative analysis of practice narratives, provider and staff interviews, and separate focus groups with quality improvement (QI) advisors and staff from the regional health information exchange (HIE). Most practices described significant realignment of practice priorities and aims, which often required substantial education and training of physicians and staff. Re-engineering office processes, data collection protocols, EHRs, staff roles, and practice culture comprised the primary effort and commitment to attest to stage 1 meaningful use and subsequent meaningful use of clinical data. While realizing important benefits, practices bore a significant burden in learning the true capabilities of their EHRs with little effective support from vendors. Attestation was an important initial milestone in the process, but practices faced substantial ongoing work to use their data meaningfully for patient care and QI. Key resources were instrumental to these practices: local technical EHR expertise; collaborative learning mechanisms; and regular contact and support from QI advisors. Meeting the stage 1 requirements for incentives under Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use criteria is the first waypoint in a longer journey by primary care practices to the meaningful use of electronic data to continuously improve the care and health of their patients. The intensive re-engineering effort for stage 1 yielded practice changes consistent with larger practice aims and goals. While many of these practices are now poised to use data meaningfully, faster progress will likely come with continued local QI and technical support and planned community-wide learning.

"America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010" or the "America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Reauthorization Act of 2010." House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, Second Session. H.R. 5116

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

US House of Representatives, 2010

2010-01-01

The America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Reauthorization Act of 2010 documented here is divided into the following titles: (1) Office of Science and Technology Policy (Coordination of Federal STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] education;…

Fostering Self-Reflection and Meaningful Learning: Earth Science Professional Development for Middle School Science Teachers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monet, Julie A.; Etkina, Eugenia

2008-10-01

This paper describes the analysis of teachers’ journal reflections during an inquiry-based professional development program. As a part of their learning experience, participants reflected on what they learned and how they learned. Progress of subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge was assessed though surveys and pre- and posttests. We found that teachers have difficulties reflecting on their learning and posing meaningful questions. The teachers who could describe how they reasoned from evidence to understand a concept had the highest learning gains. In contrast those teachers who seldom or never described learning a concept by reasoning from evidence showed the smallest learning gains. This analysis suggests that learning to reflect on one’s learning should be an integral part of teachers’ professional development experiences.

Learning in Authentic Earth and Planetary Contexts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fergusson, J. A.; Oliver, C. A.

2006-12-01

A Virtual Field Trip project has been developed in collaboration with NASA Learning Technologies to allow students, internationally, to accompany scientists on a field trip to the Pilbara region of Western Australia to debate the relevance of ancient structures called stromatolites, to the origins of life on Earth and the search for life on Mars. The project was planned with the aim of exposing high school students to `science in the making', including exposure to the ongoing debate and uncertainties involved in scientific research. The development of the project stemmed from both research-based and anecdotal evidence that current science education programs are not providing secondary students with a good understanding of the processes of science. This study seeks to examine the effectiveness of student use of the tools to increase awareness of the processes of science and to evaluate the effectiveness of the tools in terms of student learning. The literature reports that there is a need for learning activities to be conducted within meaningful contexts. The virtual field trip tools create an environment that simulates key elements in the scientific process. Such an approach allows students to learn by doing, to work like scientists and apply their learning in an authentic context.

Making Fractions Meaningful

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCormick, Kelly K.

2015-01-01

To be able to support meaningful mathematical experiences, preservice elementary school teachers (PSTs) must learn mathematics in deep and meaningful ways (Ma 1999). They need to experience investigating and making sense of the mathematics they will be called on to teach. To expand their own--often limited--views of what it means to teach and…

Developing Meaningfulness at Work through Emotional Intelligence Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thory, Kathryn

2016-01-01

To date, there remains a significant gap in the human resource development (HRD) literature in understanding how training and development contributes to meaningful work. In addition, little is known about how individuals proactively make their work more meaningful. This article shows how emotional intelligence (EI) training promotes learning about…

Low-cost educational robotics applied to physics teaching in Brazil

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Souza, Marcos A. M.; Duarte, José R. R.

2015-07-01

In this paper, we propose some of the strategies and methodologies for teaching high-school physics topics through an educational robotics show. This exhibition was part of a set of actions promoted by a Brazilian government program of incentive for teaching activities, whose primary focus is the training of teachers, the improvement of teaching in public schools, the dissemination of science, and the formation of new scientists and researchers. By means of workshops, banners and the prototyping of robotics, we were able to create a connection between the study areas and their surroundings, making learning meaningful and accessible for the students involved and contributing to their cognitive development.

Creating a balanced scorecard for a hospital system.

PubMed

Pink, G H; McKillop, I; Schraa, E G; Preyra, C; Montgomery, C; Baker, G R

2001-01-01

In 1999, hospitals in Ontario, Canada, collaborated with a university-based research team to develop a report on the relative performance of individual hospitals in Canada's most populated province. The researchers used the balanced-scorecard framework advocated by Kaplan and Norton. Indicators of performance were developed in four areas: clinical utilization and outcomes, patient satisfaction, system integration and change, and financial performance and condition. The process of selecting, calculating, and validating meaningful indicators of financial performance and condition is outlined. Lessons learned along the way are provided. These lessons may prove valuable to other finance researchers and practitioners who are engaged in performance measurement endeavors.

The role of meaning in contextual cueing: evidence from chess expertise.

PubMed

Brockmole, James R; Hambrick, David Z; Windisch, David J; Henderson, John M

2008-01-01

In contextual cueing, the position of a search target is learned over repeated exposures to a visual display. The strength of this effect varies across stimulus types. For example, real-world scene contexts give rise to larger search benefits than contexts composed of letters or shapes. We investigated whether such differences in learning can be at least partially explained by the degree of semantic meaning associated with a context independently of the nature of the visual information available (which also varies across stimulus types). Chess boards served as the learning context as their meaningfulness depends on the observer's knowledge of the game. In Experiment 1, boards depicted actual game play, and search benefits for repeated boards were 4 times greater for experts than for novices. In Experiment 2, search benefits among experts were halved when less meaningful randomly generated boards were used. Thus, stimulus meaningfulness independently contributes to learning context-target associations.

Do semantic contextual cues facilitate transfer learning from video in toddlers?

PubMed Central

Zimmermann, Laura; Moser, Alecia; Grenell, Amanda; Dickerson, Kelly; Yao, Qianwen; Gerhardstein, Peter; Barr, Rachel

2015-01-01

Young children typically demonstrate a transfer deficit, learning less from video than live presentations. Semantically meaningful context has been demonstrated to enhance learning in young children. We examined the effect of a semantically meaningful context on toddlers’ imitation performance. Two- and 2.5-year-olds participated in a puzzle imitation task to examine learning from either a live or televised model. The model demonstrated how to assemble a three-piece puzzle to make a fish or a boat, with the puzzle demonstration occurring against a semantically meaningful background context (ocean) or a yellow background (no context). Participants in the video condition performed significantly worse than participants in the live condition, demonstrating the typical transfer deficit effect. While the context helped improve overall levels of imitation, especially for the boat puzzle, only individual differences in the ability to self-generate a stimulus label were associated with a reduction in the transfer deficit. PMID:26029131

Do semantic contextual cues facilitate transfer learning from video in toddlers?

PubMed

Zimmermann, Laura; Moser, Alecia; Grenell, Amanda; Dickerson, Kelly; Yao, Qianwen; Gerhardstein, Peter; Barr, Rachel

2015-01-01

Young children typically demonstrate a transfer deficit, learning less from video than live presentations. Semantically meaningful context has been demonstrated to enhance learning in young children. We examined the effect of a semantically meaningful context on toddlers' imitation performance. Two- and 2.5-year-olds participated in a puzzle imitation task to examine learning from either a live or televised model. The model demonstrated how to assemble a three-piece puzzle to make a fish or a boat, with the puzzle demonstration occurring against a semantically meaningful background context (ocean) or a yellow background (no context). Participants in the video condition performed significantly worse than participants in the live condition, demonstrating the typical transfer deficit effect. While the context helped improve overall levels of imitation, especially for the boat puzzle, only individual differences in the ability to self-generate a stimulus label were associated with a reduction in the transfer deficit.

Creative teaching method as a learning strategy for student midwives: A qualitative study.

PubMed

Rankin, Jean; Brown, Val

2016-03-01

Traditional ways of teaching in Higher Education are enhanced with adult-based approaches to learning within the curriculum. Adult-based learning enables students to take ownership of their own learning, working in independence using a holistic approach. Introducing creative activities promotes students to think in alternative ways to the traditional learning models. The study aimed to explore student midwives perceptions of a creative teaching method as a learning strategy. A qualitative design was used adopting a phenomenological approach to gain the lived experience of students within this learning culture. Purposive sampling was used to recruit student midwives (n=30). Individual interviews were conducted using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to gain subjective information. Data were transcribed and analyzed into useful and meaningful themes and emerging themes using Colaizzi's framework for analyzing qualitative data in a logical and systematic way. Over 500 meaningful statements were identified from the transcripts. Three key themes strongly emerged from the transcriptions. These included'meaningful learning','inspired to learn and achieve', and 'being connected'. A deep meaningful learning experience was found to be authentic in the context of theory and practice. Students were inspired to learn and achieve and positively highlighted the safe learning environment. The abilities of the facilitators were viewed positively in supporting student learning. This approach strengthened the relationships and social engagement with others in the peer group and the facilitators. On a less positive note, tensions and conflict were noted in group work and indirect negative comments about the approach from the teaching team. Incorporating creative teaching activities is a positive addition to the healthcare curriculum. Creativity is clearly an asset to the range of contemporary learning strategies. In doing so, higher education will continue to keep abreast of the needs of graduating students in a complex and rapidly changing professional environment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structured feedback on students' concept maps: the proverbial path to learning?

PubMed

Joseph, Conran; Conradsson, David; Nilsson Wikmar, Lena; Rowe, Michael

2017-05-25

Good conceptual knowledge is an essential requirement for health professions students, in that they are required to apply concepts learned in the classroom to a variety of different contexts. However, the use of traditional methods of assessment limits the educator's ability to correct students' conceptual knowledge prior to altering the educational context. Concept mapping (CM) is an educational tool for evaluating conceptual knowledge, but little is known about its use in facilitating the development of richer knowledge frameworks. In addition, structured feedback has the potential to develop good conceptual knowledge. The purpose of this study was to use Kinchin's criteria to assess the impact of structured feedback on the graphical complexity of CM's by observing the development of richer knowledge frameworks. Fifty-eight physiotherapy students created CM's targeting the integration of two knowledge domains within a case-based teaching paradigm. Each student received one round of structured feedback that addressed correction, reinforcement, forensic diagnosis, benchmarking, and longitudinal development on their CM's prior to the final submission. The concept maps were categorized according to Kinchin's criteria as either Spoke, Chain or Net representations, and then evaluated against defined traits of meaningful learning. The inter-rater reliability of categorizing CM's was good. Pre-feedback CM's were predominantly Chain structures (57%), with Net structures appearing least often. There was a significant reduction of the basic Spoke- structured CMs (P = 0.002) and a significant increase of Net-structured maps (P < 0.001) at the final evaluation (post-feedback). Changes in structural complexity of CMs appeared to be indicative of broader knowledge frameworks as assessed against the meaningful learning traits. Feedback on CM's seemed to have contributed towards improving conceptual knowledge and correcting naive conceptions of related knowledge. Educators in medical education could therefore consider using CM's to target individual student development.

A case study of analyzing 11th graders’ problem solving ability on heat and temperature topic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yulianawati, D.; Muslim; Hasanah, L.; Samsudin, A.

2018-05-01

Problem solving ability must be owned by students after the process of physics learning so that the concept of physics becomes meaningful. Consequently, the research aims to describe their problem solving ability. Metacognition is contributed to physics learning to the success of students in solving problems. This research has already been implemented to 37 science students (30 women and 7 men) of eleventh grade from one of the secondary schools in Bandung. The research methods utilized the single case study with embedded research design. The instrument is Heat and Temperature Problem Solving Ability Test (HT-PSAT) which consists of twelve questions from three context problems. The result shows that the average value of the test is 8.27 out of the maximum total value of 36. In conclusion, eleventh graders’ problem-solving ability is still under expected. The implication of the findings is able to create learning situations which are probably developing students to embrace better problem solving ability.

Computational Modeling for Language Acquisition: A Tutorial With Syntactic Islands.

PubMed

Pearl, Lisa S; Sprouse, Jon

2015-06-01

Given the growing prominence of computational modeling in the acquisition research community, we present a tutorial on how to use computational modeling to investigate learning strategies that underlie the acquisition process. This is useful for understanding both typical and atypical linguistic development. We provide a general overview of why modeling can be a particularly informative tool and some general considerations when creating a computational acquisition model. We then review a concrete example of a computational acquisition model for complex structural knowledge referred to as syntactic islands. This includes an overview of syntactic islands knowledge, a precise definition of the acquisition task being modeled, the modeling results, and how to meaningfully interpret those results in a way that is relevant for questions about knowledge representation and the learning process. Computational modeling is a powerful tool that can be used to understand linguistic development. The general approach presented here can be used to investigate any acquisition task and any learning strategy, provided both are precisely defined.

The Effect of Mechanical and Meaningful Production of Output on Learning English Relative Clauses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abadikhah, Shirin

2012-01-01

The present study examined the effectiveness of mechanical and meaningful production of output on the learning of English relative clauses by Iranian EFL learners. The study involved two groups of learners (N = 36) who completed a pre-test, three activities and a post-test over an 8-week period. The collaborative dialogue of the participants was…

Using an Intention/Reflection Practice to Focus Students towards Future Professions in a Short-Term International Travel Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fierke, Kerry K.; Lepp, Gardner A.; Bastianelli, Karen; Vogelsang, Lisa; Tornabene, Ladona

2016-01-01

The article describes a student-centered approach to generating meaningful learning outcomes in a short-term study abroad program. A practice named Intention/Reflection (I/R) was used to help students to identify, articulate, and reflect upon learning objectives that were personally meaningful, within the broader framework of the intended outcomes…

Facilitating interpersonal interaction and learning online: linking theory and practice.

PubMed

Sargeant, Joan; Curran, Vernon; Allen, Michael; Jarvis-Selinger, Sandra; Ho, Kendall

2006-01-01

An earlier study of physicians' perceptions of interactive online learning showed that these were shaped both by program design and quality and the quality and quantity of interpersonal interaction. We explore instructor roles in enhancing online learning through interpersonal interaction and the learning theories that inform these. This was a qualitative study using focus groups and interviews. Using purposive sampling, 50 physicians were recruited based on their experience with interactive online CME and face-to-face CME. Qualitative thematic and interpretive analysis was used. Two facilitation roles appeared key: creating a comfortable learning environment and enhancing the educational value of electronic discussions. Comfort developed gradually, and specific interventions like facilitating introductions and sharing experiences in a friendly, informative manner were helpful. As in facilitating effective small-group learning, instructors' thoughtful use of techniques that facilitated constructive interaction based on learner's needs and practice demands contributed to the educational value of interpersonal interactions. Facilitators require enhanced skills to engage learners in meaningful interaction and to overcome the transactional distance of online learning. The use of learning theories, including behavioral, cognitive, social, humanistic, and constructivist, can strengthen the educational design and facilitation of online programs. Preparation for online facilitation should include instruction in the roles and techniques required and the theories that inform them.

Engaging Karen refugee students in science learning through a cross-cultural learning community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harper, Susan G.

2017-02-01

This research explored how Karen (first-generation refugees from Burma) elementary students engaged with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence within the context of a cross-cultural learning community. In this action research, the researcher and a Karen parent served as co-teachers for fourth- and fifth-grade Karen and non-Karen students in a science and culture after-school programme in a public elementary school in the rural southeastern United States. Photovoice provided a critical platform for students to create their own cultural discourses for the learning community. The theoretical framework of critical pedagogy of place provided a way for the learning community to decolonise and re-inhabit the learning spaces with knowledge they co-constructed. Narrative analysis of video transcripts of the after-school programme, ethnographic interviews, and focus group discussions from Photovoice revealed a pattern of emerging agency by Karen students in the scientific practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence and in Karen language lessons. This evidence suggests that science learning embedded within a cross-cultural learning community can empower refugee students to construct their own hybrid cultural knowledge and leverage that knowledge to engage in a meaningful way with the epistemology of science.

Measuring meaningful learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galloway, Kelli R.

The undergraduate chemistry laboratory has been an essential component in chemistry education for over a century. The literature includes reports on investigations of singular aspects laboratory learning and attempts to measure the efficacy of reformed laboratory curriculum as well as faculty goals for laboratory learning which found common goals among instructors for students to learn laboratory skills, techniques, experimental design, and to develop critical thinking skills. These findings are important for improving teaching and learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory, but research is needed to connect the faculty goals to student perceptions. This study was designed to explore students' ideas about learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Novak's Theory of Meaningful Learning was used as a guide for the data collection and analysis choices for this research. Novak's theory states that in order for meaningful learning to occur the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains must be integrated. The psychomotor domain is inherent in the chemistry laboratory, but the extent to which the cognitive and affective domains are integrated is unknown. For meaningful learning to occur in the laboratory, students must actively integrate both the cognitive domain and the affective domains into the "doing" of their laboratory work. The Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI) was designed to measure students' cognitive and affective expectations and experiences within the context of conducting experiments in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Evidence for the validity and reliability of the data generated by the MLLI were collected from multiple quantitative studies: a one semester study at one university, a one semester study at 15 colleges and universities across the United States, and a longitudinal study where the MLLI was administered 6 times during two years of general and organic chemistry laboratory courses. Results from these studies revealed students' narrow cognitive expectations for learning that go largely unmet by their experiences and diverse affective expectations and experiences. Concurrently, a qualitative study was carried out to describe and characterize students' cognitive and affective experiences in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Students were video recorded while performing one of their regular laboratory experiments and then interviewed about their experiences. The students' descriptions of their learning experiences were characterized by their overreliance on following the experimental procedure correctly rather than developing process-oriented problem solving skills. Future research could use the MLLI to intentionally compare different types of laboratory curricula or environments.

Conscious Leadership.

PubMed

Ward, Suzanne F; Haase, Beth

2016-11-01

Health care leaders need to use leadership methodologies that support safe patient care, satisfy employees, and improve the bottom line. Conscious leaders help create desirable personal and professional life experiences for themselves using specific tools that include mindfulness, context, and the observer-self, and they strive to help their employees learn to use these tools as well. In perioperative nursing, conscious leaders create an environment in which nurses are supported in their aim to provide the highest level of patient care and in which transformations are encouraged to take place; this environment ultimately promotes safety, contributes to fulfilling and meaningful work, and enhances a facility's financial viability. This article discusses some of the key concepts behind conscious leadership, how perioperative leaders can reach and maintain expanded consciousness, and how they can best assist their staff members in their own evolution to a more mindful state. Copyright © 2016 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Making Social Studies Meaningful to Elementary Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klein, Susan

1982-01-01

Describes a unit on Ancient Greece designed to make social studies meaningful to fourth and fifth graders. Individual projects and group activities helped students learn about ancient Greek culture. (AM)

The clinical learning environment in nursing education: a concept analysis.

PubMed

Flott, Elizabeth A; Linden, Lois

2016-03-01

The aim of this study was to report an analysis of the clinical learning environment concept. Nursing students are evaluated in clinical learning environments where skills and knowledge are applied to patient care. These environments affect achievement of learning outcomes, and have an impact on preparation for practice and student satisfaction with the nursing profession. Providing clarity of this concept for nursing education will assist in identifying antecedents, attributes and consequences affecting student transition to practice. The clinical learning environment was investigated using Walker and Avant's concept analysis method. A literature search was conducted using WorldCat, MEDLINE and CINAHL databases using the keywords clinical learning environment, clinical environment and clinical education. Articles reviewed were written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals between 1995-2014. All data were analysed for recurring themes and terms to determine possible antecedents, attributes and consequences of this concept. The clinical learning environment contains four attribute characteristics affecting student learning experiences. These include: (1) the physical space; (2) psychosocial and interaction factors; (3) the organizational culture and (4) teaching and learning components. These attributes often determine achievement of learning outcomes and student self-confidence. With better understanding of attributes comprising the clinical learning environment, nursing education programmes and healthcare agencies can collaborate to create meaningful clinical experiences and enhance student preparation for the professional nurse role. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Instruments for measuring meaningful learning in healthcare students: a systematic psychometric review.

PubMed

Cadorin, Lucia; Bagnasco, Annamaria; Tolotti, Angela; Pagnucci, Nicola; Sasso, Loredana

2016-09-01

To identify, evaluate and describe the psychometric properties of instruments that measure learning outcomes in healthcare students. Meaningful learning is an active process that enables a wider and deeper understanding of concepts. It is the result of an interaction between new and prior knowledge and produces a long-standing change in knowledge and skills. In the field of education, validated and reliable instruments for assessing meaningful learning are needed. A psychometric systematic review. MEDLINE CINAHL, SCOPUS, ERIC, Cochrane Library, Psychology & Behavioural Sciences Collection Database from 1990-December 2013. Using pre-determined inclusion criteria, three reviewers independently identified studies for full-text review. Then they extracted data for quality appraisal and graded instrument validity using the Consensus-based Standards for the selection of the health status Measurement INstruments checklist and the Psychometric Grading Framework. Of the 57 studies identified for full-text review, 16 met the inclusion criteria and 13 different instruments were assessed. Following quality assessment, only one instrument was considered of good quality but it measured meaningful learning only in part; the others were either fair or poor. The Psychometric Grading Framework indicated that one instrument was weak, while the others were very weak. No instrument displayed adequate validity. The systematic review produced a synthesis of the psychometric properties of tools that measure learning outcomes in students of healthcare disciplines. Measuring learning outcomes is very important when educating health professionals. The identified tools may constitute a starting point for the development of other assessment tools. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Assessing student understanding of host pathogen interactions using a concept inventory.

PubMed

Marbach-Ad, Gili; Briken, Volker; El-Sayed, Najib M; Frauwirth, Kenneth; Fredericksen, Brenda; Hutcheson, Steven; Gao, Lian-Yong; Joseph, Sam; Lee, Vincent T; McIver, Kevin S; Mosser, David; Quimby, B Booth; Shields, Patricia; Song, Wenxia; Stein, Daniel C; Yuan, Robert T; Smith, Ann C

2009-01-01

As a group of faculty with expertise and research programs in the area of host-pathogen interactions (HPI), we are concentrating on students' learning of HPI concepts. As such we developed a concept inventory to measure level of understanding relative to HPI after the completion of a set of microbiology courses (presently eight courses). Concept inventories have been useful tools for assessing student learning, and our interest was to develop such a tool to measure student learning progression in our microbiology courses. Our teaching goal was to create bridges between our courses which would eliminate excessive overlap in our offerings and support a model where concepts and ideas introduced in one course would become the foundation for concept development in successive courses. We developed our HPI concept inventory in several phases. The final product was an 18-question, multiple-choice concept inventory. In fall 2006 and spring 2007 we administered the 18-question concept inventory in six of our courses. We collected pre- and postcourse surveys from 477 students. We found that students taking pretests in the advanced courses retained the level of understanding gained in the general microbiology prerequisite course. Also, in two of our courses there was significant improvement on the scores from pretest to posttest. As we move forward, we will concentrate on exploring the range of HPI concepts addressed in each course and determine and/or create effective methods for meaningful student learning of HPI aspects of microbiology.

Involvement of inpatient mental health clients in the practical training and assessment of mental health nursing students: Can it benefit clients and students?

PubMed

Debyser, Bart; Grypdonck, Mieke H F; Defloor, Tom; Verhaeghe, Sofie T L

2011-02-01

Even though the central position of the client has been recognized in psychiatric nursing education, the client is seldom formally involved in the feedback provided to students during practical training. This research paper focuses on three questions: (1) What conditions support the gathering of meaningful client feedback to enhance the student's learning process and client's wellbeing? (2) Does the use of the practical model for client feedback lead to positive experiences, and if so, under what conditions? (3) To what extent is a client's feedback on the student's work performance, consistent with feedback from the mentor (nurse from the ward), the teacher and the student? Based on a literature review, participatory observation and contacts with experts, a practical model was developed to elicit client feedback. Using this model in two psychiatric inpatient services, clients were actively and formally involved in providing feedback to four, final year psychiatric nursing students. Clients, nurses, teachers and students were interviewed and data were analysed using a qualitative explorative research approach. Analyses revealed that client feedback becomes meaningful in a safe environment created by the psychiatric nurse. Client feedback generates a learning effect for the student and supports the student's recognition of the value and vulnerability of the psychiatric client. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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.

"Do I need to know this for the exam?" Using popular media, inquiry-based laboratories, and a community of scientific practice to motivate students to learn developmental biology.

PubMed

Madhuri, Marga; Broussard, Christine

2008-01-01

One of the greatest challenges instructors face is getting students to connect with the subject in a manner that encourages them to learn. In this essay, we describe the redesign of our Developmental Biology course to foster a deeper connection between students and the field of developmental biology. In our approach, we created a community of scientific practice focused on the investigation of environmental impacts on embryonic development and informed by popular and scientific media, the students' own questions, and the instructor. Our goals were to engage students in meaningful ways with the material, to develop students' science process skills, and to enhance students' understanding of broad principles of developmental biology. Though significant challenges arose during implementation, assessments indicate using this approach to teach undergraduate developmental biology was successful.

Use of concept mapping in an undergraduate introductory exercise physiology course.

PubMed

Henige, Kim

2012-09-01

Physiology is often considered a challenging course for students. It is up to teachers to structure courses and create learning opportunities that will increase the chance of student success. In an undergraduate exercise physiology course, concept maps are assigned to help students actively process and organize information into manageable and meaningful chunks and to teach them to recognize the patterns and regularities of physiology. Students are first introduced to concept mapping with a commonly relatable nonphysiology concept and are then assigned a series of maps that become more and more complex. Students map the acute response to a drop in blood pressure, the causes of the acute increase in stroke volume during cardiorespiratory exercise, and the factors contributing to an increase in maximal O(2) consumption with cardiorespiratory endurance training. In the process, students draw the integrative nature of physiology, identify causal relationships, and learn about general models and core principles of physiology.

Learning from clinical placement experience: Analysing nursing students' final reflections in a digital storytelling activity.

PubMed

Paliadelis, Penny; Wood, Pamela

2016-09-01

This paper reports on the learning potential of a reflective activity undertaken by final year nursing students, in which they were asked to recount two meaningful events that occurred during their clinical placements over the duration of their 3-year nursing degree program and reflect on how these events contributed to their learning to become beginning level Registered Nurses (RNs). This descriptive qualitative study gathered narratives from 92 students as individual postings in an online forum created within the University's learning management system. An analysis of the students' reflections are the focus of this paper particularly in relation to the value of reflecting on the identified events. Four themes emerged that clearly highlight the way in which these students interpreted and learned from both positive and negative clinical experiences, their strong desire to fit into their new role and their ability to re-imagine how they might respond to clinical events when they become Registered Nurses. The findings of this study may contribute to developing nursing curricula that better prepares final year students for the realities of practice. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Learning to teach science in urban schools by becoming a researcher of one's own beginning practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Furman, Melina; Calabrese Barton, Angela; Muir, Ben

2012-03-01

An urgent goal for science teacher educators is to prepare teachers to teach science in meaningful ways to youth from nondominant backgrounds. This preparation is challenging, for it asks teachers to critically examine how their pedagogical practices might adaptively respond to students and to science. It asks, essentially, for new teachers to become researchers of their own beginning practice. This study explores the story of Ben as he coauthored a transformative action research project in an urban middle school as part of a teacher education program and, later, over his first year of teaching at that same school. We describe how Ben and his partner teacher created innovative spaces for science learning. This offered Ben an opportunity to make some of his deeply engrained pedagogical beliefs come alive within a context of distributed expertise, which provided for him a space of moderate risk where he could afford the chances of failure without undermining how he felt about his own capacity as a teacher. Our study highlights the importance of creating reform opportunities within the context of teacher education programs that may help beginner teachers construct positive images of teaching that they can hold on to in their future practice.

The flipped exam: creating an environment in which students discover for themselves the concepts and principles we want them to learn.

PubMed

Lujan, Heidi L; DiCarlo, Stephen E

2014-12-01

Students are naturally curious and inquisitive with powerful intrinsic motives to probe, learn, and understand their world. Accordingly, class activities must capitalize on this inherently energetic and curious nature so that learning becomes a lifelong activity where students take initiative for learning, are skilled in learning, and want to learn new things. This report describes a student-centered class activity, the "flipped exam," designed to achieve this goal. The flipped exam was a collaborative, group effort, and learning was interactive. It included a significant proportion (∼30-35%) of material not covered in class. This required students to actively search for content and context, dynamically making connections between what they knew and what they learned, grappling with complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, and finally discovering answers to important questions. Accordingly, the need or desire to know was the catalyst for meaningful learning. Student assessment was determined by behavioral noncognitive parameters that were based on the observation of the student and the student's work as well as cognitive parameters (i.e., the student's score on the examination). It is our view that the flipped exam provided a student-centered activity in which students discovered, because of the need to know and opportunities for discussion, the important concepts and principles we wanted them to learn. Copyright © 2014 The American Physiological Society.

Evaluating meaningful learning using concept mapping in dental hygiene education: a pilot study.

PubMed

Canasi, Dina M; Amyot, Cynthia; Tira, Daniel

2014-02-01

Concept mapping, as a teaching strategy, has been shown to promote critical thinking and problem solving in educational settings. Dental clinicians must distinguish between critical and irrelevant characteristics in the delivery of care, thus necessitating reasoning skills to do so. One of the aims of the American Dental Education Association Commission on Change and Innovation (ADEA-CCI) is to identify deficiencies in curriculum which were meant to improve critical thinking and problem solving skills necessary in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to compare 2 teaching strategies, traditional lecture and lecture supported by concept mapping exercises within collaborative working groups, to determine if there is a beneficial effect on meaningful learning. For this pilot study, the study population consisted of students from 2 geographically separated associate level dental hygiene programs in the southeastern U.S. A quasi-experimental control group pre- and post-test design was used. The degree of meaningful learning achieved by both programs was assessed by comparing pre- and post-test results. Both programs experienced a significant degree of meaningful learning from pre- to post-test. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the programs on the post-test. These results were in direct contrast to research in other disciplines on concept mapping and its effect on promoting meaningful learning. Further investigation into the study's outcome was obtained through a follow-up focus group. In spite of careful attention to methodology in the development of this research project, the focus group illuminated methodological failings that potentially impacted the outcome of the study. Recommendations are underscored for future conduct of educational research of this kind.

75 FR 48306 - Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-08-10

... Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science Act, Pub. L. 110-69), which seeks to strengthen education and research related to science and technology (``America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act''). This legislation...

Biotechnologies as a Context for Enhancing Junior High-School Students' Ability to Ask Meaningful Questions about Abstract Biological Processes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olsher, G.; Dreyfus, A.

1999-01-01

Suggests a new approach to teaching about biochemical cellular processes by stimulating student interest in those biochemical processes that allowed for the outcomes of modern biotechnologies. Discusses the development of students' ability to ask meaningful questions about intra-cellular processes, and the resulting meaningful learning of relevant…

Factors influencing effectiveness of exhibit displays on family learning in a public aquarium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jeffery, Kodi Rae

An important goal in science education reform is to create a scientifically literate society. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (1989b) has stated that for people to understand biology, they must first have personal experiences with it. There are severe limitations on the types of firsthand biology experiences available in the classroom. Informal learning institutions, however, are not limited by these constraints. Visitors enjoy a free-choice environment, where they can thoroughly explore things unavailable in most classrooms. Thus, museums are key resources that may help society achieve scientific literacy. This study asked what aspects of the Aquarium of the America's labeling system promote visitor learning. I looked at characteristics of both the text and the displays themselves. By using open-ended interviews rather than formal questionnaires, I allowed visitors to identify information pertinent to them. After observing families viewing the Aquarium's "Living in Water" exhibit, I interviewed them to learn what had made an impact on them. One to two months later, I conducted follow-up interviews with each family member. Although families did not come away with the strong cognitive gains we might desire, they did come away with some strong episodic memories. Visitors tended to describe their interactions with each other and the displays rather than the actual label content---except for cartoon labels. Nevertheless, when visitors found displays that raised questions, they were curious to find answers and more likely to mention them. Families also described more details of interactive displays, particularly those that used various senses and emotions. Such potentially powerful interactives must be carefully tested, or we may create tenacious misconceptions rather than greater understanding. Based on my observations, I developed an Exhibit Interactivity Rubric (EIR) which may be useful in developing meaningful exhibits. Some families created their own analogies relating to a display. Some of these analogies were repeated by several family members during both interviews and seemed to have significant power in creating memories and understandings. By making use of analogies, whether created by exhibit designers or by visitors themselves, we may help visitors increase their retention of significant elements of their visits.

Handling Big Data in Modern Healthcare.

PubMed

Aziz, Hassan A

2016-11-01

The constant growth of medical knowledge and the increases in specialization in clinical practice have created a significant need to share and access patient information with speed and efficiency. However, current technology is centered on processing data, rather than gathering information. To realize the potential of modern technology in improving patient health, merely collecting and storing data are insufficient: one must convert these data into information and knowledge. In this article, I present an overview of 2 recent advances in technology and their assimilation into the practice of medicine, in the attempt to make clinical data meaningful and then to learn from aggregated clinical data. We address the emergence of clinical data warehouses (CDWs) and health information exchanges (HIEs), as features of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. This act, enacted in the United States as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed into law on February 17, 2009, to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. © American Society for Clinical Pathology, 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Aligning institutional priorities: engaging house staff in a quality improvement and safety initiative to fulfill Clinical Learning Environment Review objectives and electronic medical record Meaningful Use requirements.

PubMed

Flanagan, Meghan R; Foster, Carolyn C; Schleyer, Anneliese; Peterson, Gene N; Mandell, Samuel P; Rudd, Kristina E; Joyner, Byron D; Payne, Thomas H

2016-02-01

House staff quality improvement projects are often not aligned with training institution priorities. House staff are the primary users of inpatient problem lists in academic medical centers, and list maintenance has significant patient safety and financial implications. Improvement of the problem list is an important objective for hospitals with electronic health records under the Meaningful Use program. House staff surveys were used to create an electronic problem list manager (PLM) tool enabling efficient problem list updating. Number of new problems added and house staff perceptions of the problem list were compared before and after PLM intervention. The PLM was used by 654 house staff after release. Surveys demonstrated increased problem list updating (P = .002; response rate 47%). Mean new problems added per day increased from 64 pre-PLM to 125 post-PLM (P < .001). This innovative project serves as a model for successful engagement of house staff in institutional quality and safety initiatives with tangible institutional benefits. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

12 CFR 1273.9 - Audit Committee.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... the accurate and meaningful combination of information submitted by the Banks in the Bank System's... prevention or detection of management override or compromise of the internal control system; and (ii... information submitted by the Banks to the OF to be combined to create accurate and meaningful combined...

Conceptualising and creating a global learning health system.

PubMed

Friedman, Charles; Rigby, Michael

2013-04-01

In any country the health sector is important in terms of human wellbeing and large in terms of economics. The health sector might therefore be expected to be a finely tuned enterprise, utilising corporate knowledge in a constant process of critically reviewing and improving its activities and processes. However, this is seldom the case. Health systems and practice are highly variable and lag behind research discovery. This contrasts strongly with commercial bodies, and particularly service industries, where the concept of the learning organisation is strongly seen as the key to optimisation. A learning organisation accesses for analytic purposes operational data, which though captured and recorded for day-to-day transactions at the customer level, become also the basis of understanding changes in both demand and delivery process. In health care, the concept of the learning organisation is well grounded ethically. Anything which can improve health, including understanding of optimal care delivery processes and how to improve longer term outcomes, should be seized upon to drive service improvement - but currently this occurs haphazardly. The limitations of paper-based systems, priority given to digitalization of financial transactions, concerns about electronic data insecurity, and other factors have inhibited progress towards organisational learning at a national scale. But in recent years, new means of capturing, managing, and exchanging data have created new opportunities, while ever increasing pressures on health systems have produced strengthened incentive. In the United States, the current policy and investment impetus to electronic health records and concomitantly their 'meaningful use' create opportunities to build the foundations for data re-use for corporate learning - and thus for societal gain. In Europe and other settings there are islands of innovation, but not yet a coherent culture or impetus to build foundations for a learning health system. This paper considers how to move forward, in the light of the urgent need for smarter health systems where experience becomes the fuel for rapid improvement, and best practices are routinely identified and applied. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Engaging blind and partially sighted stakeholders in transformational change.

PubMed

Pearson, Victoria

2016-09-01

For non-profit organizations in the disability sector, engaging stakeholders with disabilities on matters of strategic planning is both a responsibility and an expectation. As part of our current strategic plan, which calls for organizational and systemic transformation, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) has engaged blind and partially sighted stakeholders alongside other interest groups to build and advocate for a more holistic model of vision healthcare and rehabilitation. This article describes the CNIB's multi-year process, including early-stage consultations, collaborative strategy development, and political advocacy and shares our organization's key success factors and learnings in creating meaningful, mutually beneficial engagement. © 2016 The Canadian College of Health Leaders.

Service-Learning in Our Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

English, Kevin; Moore, Deb

2010-01-01

Many schools use service-learning on their campus to enhance their classroom content. According to Learn and Serve Clearinghouse, "Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen…

The Organization of Informal Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogoff, Barbara; Callanan, Maureen; Gutiérrez, Kris D.; Erickson, Frederick

2016-01-01

Informal learning is often treated as simply an alternative to formal, didactic instruction. This chapter discusses how the organization of informal learning differs across distinct settings but with important commonalities distinguishing informal learning from formal learning: Informal learning is nondidactic, is embedded in meaningful activity,…

Science Students Creating Hybrid Spaces when Engaging in an Expo Investigation Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramnarain, Umesh; de Beer, Josef

2013-02-01

In this paper, we report on the experiences of three 9th-grade South African students (13-14 years) in doing open science investigation projects for a science expo. A particular focus of this study was the manner in which these students merge the world of school science with their social world to create a hybrid space by appropriating knowledge and resources of the school and home. Within this hybrid space they experienced a deeper, more meaningful and authentic engagement in science practical work. This hybrid space redefined the landscape of the science learning experience for these students, as they could derive the twofold benefit of appropriating support when necessary and at the same time maintain their autonomy over the investigation. For South Africa and quite probably other countries; these findings serve as a guideline as to how opportunities can be created for students to do open science investigations, against prevailing school factors such as large classes, a lack of physical resources, the lack of time for practical work and the demands of syllabus coverage.

Find Meaning in Middle School Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pagnano, Karen

2006-01-01

The purpose of this article is to provide readers with several suggestions and ideas for promoting meaning and meaningfulness for middle school students in physical education based on their unique developmental characteristics. To help physical educators create movement experiences that are meaningful for middle school students, the author…

Students' perceptions of Roundhouse diagramming: a middle-school viewpoint

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ward, Robin E.; Wandersee, James H.

2002-02-01

This multiple case study explored the effects of Roundhouse diagram construction and use on meaningful learning of science concepts in a sixth-grade classroom. The investigation examined three issues: (1) the transformation of students' science conceptions as they become more proficient in constructing Roundhouse diagrams; (2) problems students encountered using this technique; and (3) the effect of choices of iconic images on their progress toward meaningfully learning science concepts. A Roundhouse diagram is a graphic representation of a learner's conceptual understanding regarding a predetermined science topic. This method involves recognizing the main ideas within a science lesson, breaking down the information into interrelated segments, and then linking each portion to an iconic image. These students typically gained a greater understanding of science explanations by constructing the diagrams. Student's science scores improved over the 10-week diagramming period and a positive relationship existed between students' choices and drawings of iconic images and the meaningful learning of science topics.

What students are saying about science: Student perspectives of meaningful, effective and ineffective learning experiences in science class

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, Thomas John

Statement of the problem. Research studies have rarely incorporated the subjective experience of students as they are engaged in learning. When the students' position is viewed at all in a research study, it is usually viewed from the perspective of the adult educators' interests and ways of seeing. As a result, the most conspicuously absent feature from the research literature is the first person voice of the student. In regards to science education specifically, few studies have focused on the students' perspective of their experience in science. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe and understand student perspectives of meaningful, effective, and ineffective learning experiences in science class. The following served as guiding questions: (1) What do students describe as meaningful and effective learning experiences in science class? (2) What do students describe as obstacles to their effective learning in science class? Methods. An interpretive research methodology was chosen for this study. The nine participants that took part in the study were grouped as self-directed, teacher-guided, and teacher-dependent learners. A variety of data gathering techniques were used including field notes, participant observations, interviews and focus groups. Throughout the study, inductive analysis was employed as a process for making sense out of the data. More specifically, the constant comparative method was used to categorize the data and facilitate the search for meaningful patterns. The analysis included a thick description of the students' experience of science in the first person voice of the student. The results of this study indicate that teachers play the fundamental role in the establishment of an effective learning environment and that students' consider their improved understanding to be a key to their meaningful learning. In addition, the students' improved understanding requires that teachers are actively involved in their progress and are willing to explain concepts on an ongoing basis. The study concludes by asserting that effective teachers must accommodate the needs of both self-directed and instructor-centered learners. Finally, it is argued that student feedback can be used to improve classroom effectiveness.

Students Engaged in Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ismail, Emad A.; Groccia, James E.

2018-01-01

Engaging students in learning is a basic principle of effective undergraduate education. Outcomes of engaging students include meaningful learning experiences and enhanced skills in all learning domains. This chapter reviews the influence of engaging students in different forms of active learning on cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skill…

Introducing students to patient safety through an online interprofessional course.

PubMed

Blue, Amy V; Charles, Laurine; Howell, David; Koutalos, Yiannis; Mitcham, Maralynne; Nappi, Jean; Zoller, James

2010-01-01

Interprofessional education (IPE) is increasingly called upon to improve health care systems and patient safety. Our institution is engaged in a campus-wide IPE initiative. As a component of this initiative, a required online interprofessional patient-safety-focused course for a large group (300) of first-year medical, dental, and nursing students was developed and implemented. We describe our efforts with developing the course, including the use of constructivist and adult learning theories and IPE competencies to structure students' learning in a meaningful fashion. The course was conducted online to address obstacles of academic calendars and provide flexibility for faculty participation. Students worked in small groups online with a faculty facilitator. Thematic modules were created with associated objectives, online learning materials, and assignments. Students posted completed assignments online and responded to group members' assignments for purposes of group discussion. Students worked in interprofessional groups on a project requiring them to complete a root cause analysis and develop recommendations based on a fictional sentinel event case. Through project work, students applied concepts learned in the course related to improving patient safety and demonstrated interprofessional collaboration skills. Projects were presented during a final in-class session. Student course evaluation results suggest that learning objectives and content goals were achieved. Faculty course evaluation results indicate that the course was perceived to be a worthwhile learning experience for students. We offer the following recommendations to others interested in developing an in-depth interprofessional learning experience for a large group of learners: 1) consider a hybrid format (inclusion of some face-to-face sessions), 2) address IPE and broader curricular needs, 3) create interactive opportunities for shared learning and working together, 4) provide support to faculty facilitators, and 5) recognize your learners' educational level. The course has expanded to include students from additional programs for the current academic year.

Introducing students to patient safety through an online interprofessional course

PubMed Central

Blue, Amy V; Charles, Laurine; Howell, David; Koutalos, Yiannis; Mitcham, Maralynne; Nappi, Jean; Zoller, James

2010-01-01

Interprofessional education (IPE) is increasingly called upon to improve health care systems and patient safety. Our institution is engaged in a campus-wide IPE initiative. As a component of this initiative, a required online interprofessional patient-safety-focused course for a large group (300) of first-year medical, dental, and nursing students was developed and implemented. We describe our efforts with developing the course, including the use of constructivist and adult learning theories and IPE competencies to structure students’ learning in a meaningful fashion. The course was conducted online to address obstacles of academic calendars and provide flexibility for faculty participation. Students worked in small groups online with a faculty facilitator. Thematic modules were created with associated objectives, online learning materials, and assignments. Students posted completed assignments online and responded to group members’ assignments for purposes of group discussion. Students worked in interprofessional groups on a project requiring them to complete a root cause analysis and develop recommendations based on a fictional sentinel event case. Through project work, students applied concepts learned in the course related to improving patient safety and demonstrated interprofessional collaboration skills. Projects were presented during a final in-class session. Student course evaluation results suggest that learning objectives and content goals were achieved. Faculty course evaluation results indicate that the course was perceived to be a worthwhile learning experience for students. We offer the following recommendations to others interested in developing an in-depth interprofessional learning experience for a large group of learners: 1) consider a hybrid format (inclusion of some face-to-face sessions), 2) address IPE and broader curricular needs, 3) create interactive opportunities for shared learning and working together, 4) provide support to faculty facilitators, and 5) recognize your learners’ educational level. The course has expanded to include students from additional programs for the current academic year. PMID:23745069

Integrating Facebook in Upper Secondary Biology Instruction: A Case Study of Students' Situational Interest and Participation in Learning Communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dohn, Niels Bonderup; Dohn, Nina Bonderup

2017-12-01

The sciences are often perceived by students as irrelevant as they do not see the content of science as related to their daily lives. Web 2.0-mediated activities are characterized by user-driven content production, collaboration, and multi-way communication. It has been proposed that employing Web 2.0 in educational activities will promote richer opportunities for making learning personally meaningful, collaborative, and socially relevant. Since Facebook is already in use among youths, it potentially provides a communicative link between educational content and students' lives. The present study was conducted as a case study to provide an inductive, explorative investigation of whether and how the integration of Facebook into upper secondary biology can affect interest in biology and participation in learning communication. The results indicate that the coupling of formal and informal communication practices on Facebook serves to maintain interest and open up new learning possibilities while at the same time creating barriers to communication. These barriers are due to distractions, ethical issues, and a certain depreciation of the activities ensuing from the everydayness of Facebook as a communication platform. In conclusion, use of Facebook as an educational platform is not clearly good or bad.

Turning Content into Conversation: How The GLOBE Program is Growing its Brand Online

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zwerin, R.; Randolph, J. G.; Andersen, T.; Mackaro, J.; Malmberg, J.; Tessendorf, S. A.; Wegner, K.

2012-12-01

Social Media is now a ubiquitous way for individuals, corporations, governments and communities to communicate. However, the same does not hold quite as true for the science community as many science educators, thought leaders and science programs are either reluctant or unable to build and cultivate a meaningful social media strategy. This presentation will show how The GLOBE Program uses social media to disseminate messages, build a meaningful and engaged following and grow a brand on an international scale using a proprietary Inside-Out strategy that leverages social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Blogs to significantly increase influencers on a worldwide scale. In addition, this poster presentation will be interactive, so viewers will be able to touch and feel the social experience. Moreover, GLOBE representatives will be on hand to talk viewers through how they can implement a social media strategy that will allow them to turn their content into meaningful conversation. About The GLOBE Program: GLOBE is a science and education program that connects a network of students, teachers and scientists from around the world to better understand, sustain and improve Earth's environment at local, regional and global scales. By engaging students in hands-on learning of Earth system science, GLOBE is an innovative way for teachers to get students of all ages excited about scientific discovery locally and globally. To date, more than 23 million measurements have been contributed to the GLOBE database, creating meaningful, standardized, global research-quality data sets that can be used in support of student and professional scientific research. Since beginning operations in 1995, over 58,000 trained teachers and 1.5 million students in 112 countries have participated in GLOBE. For more information or to become involved, visit www.globe.gov.

Lower-Secondary Introductory Chemistry Course: A Novel Approach Based on Science-Education Theories, with Emphasis on the Macroscopic Approach, and the Delayed Meaningful Teaching of the Concepts of Molecule and Atom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsaparlis, Georgios; Kolioulis, Dimitrios; Pappa, Eleni

2010-01-01

We present a programme for a novel introductory lower-secondary chemistry course (seventh or eighth grade) that aims at the application of theories of science education, and in particular of conceptual/meaningful learning and of teaching methodology that encourages active and inquiry forms of learning The approach is rigorous with careful use of…

A holistic model for evaluating the impact of individual technology-enhanced learning resources.

PubMed

Pickering, James D; Joynes, Viktoria C T

2016-12-01

The use of technology within education has now crossed the Rubicon; student expectations, the increasing availability of both hardware and software and the push to fully blended learning environments mean that educational institutions cannot afford to turn their backs on technology-enhanced learning (TEL). The ability to meaningfully evaluate the impact of TEL resources nevertheless remains problematic. This paper aims to establish a robust means of evaluating individual resources and meaningfully measure their impact upon learning within the context of the program in which they are used. Based upon the experience of developing and evaluating a range of mobile and desktop based TEL resources, this paper outlines a new four-stage evaluation process, taking into account learner satisfaction, learner gain, and the impact of a resource on both the individual and the institution in which it has been adapted. A new multi-level model of TEL resource evaluation is proposed, which includes a preliminary evaluation of need, learner satisfaction and gain, learner impact and institutional impact. Each of these levels are discussed in detail, and in relation to existing TEL evaluation frameworks. This paper details a holistic, meaningful evaluation model for individual TEL resources within the specific context in which they are used. It is proposed that this model is adopted to ensure that TEL resources are evaluated in a more meaningful and robust manner than is currently undertaken.

Intelligent Discovery for Learning Objects Using Semantic Web Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hsu, I-Ching

2012-01-01

The concept of learning objects has been applied in the e-learning field to promote the accessibility, reusability, and interoperability of learning content. Learning Object Metadata (LOM) was developed to achieve these goals by describing learning objects in order to provide meaningful metadata. Unfortunately, the conventional LOM lacks the…

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…

Promoting Sustainable Living in the Borderless World through Blended Learning Platforms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ng, Khar Thoe; Parahakaran, Suma; Febro, Rhea; Weisheit, Egbert; Lee, Tan Luck

2013-01-01

Student-centred learning approaches like collaborative learning are needed to facilitate meaningful learning among self-motivated lifelong learners within educational institutions through interorganizational Open and Distant Learning (ODL) approaches. The purpose of this study is to develop blended learning platforms to promote sustainable living,…

Blended Learning: A Disruption that Has Found Its Time

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gonzales, Lisa; Vodicka, Devin

2012-01-01

"Blended learning" is learning facilitated by the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning, and applying them in an interactively meaningful learning environment. There are four standard modes of blended learning that have proven to meet student academic needs and provide flexibility with…

Academic learning for specialist nurses: a grounded theory study.

PubMed

Millberg, Lena German; Berg, Linda; Brämberg, Elisabeth Björk; Nordström, Gun; Ohlén, Joakim

2014-11-01

The aim was to explore the major concerns of specialist nurses pertaining to academic learning during their education and initial professional career. Specialist nursing education changed in tandem with the European educational reform in 2007. At the same time, greater demands were made on the healthcare services to provide evidence-based and safe patient-care. These changes have influenced specialist nursing programmes and consequently the profession. Grounded Theory guided the study. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire with open-ended questions distributed at the end of specialist nursing programmes in 2009 and 2010. Five universities were included. Further, individual, pair and group interviews were used to collect data from 12 specialist nurses, 5-14 months after graduation. A major concern for specialist nurses was that academic learning should be "meaningful" for their professional future. The specialist nurses' "meaningful academic learning process" was characterised by an ambivalence of partly believing in and partly being hesitant about the significance of academic learning and partly receiving but also lacking support. Specialist nurses were influenced by factors in two areas: curriculum and healthcare context. They felt that the outcome of contribution to professional confidence was critical in making academic learning meaningful. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Community Science: creating equitable partnerships for the advancement of scientific knowledge for action.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lewis, E. S.; Gehrke, G. E.

2017-12-01

In a historical moment where the legitimacy of science is being questioned, it is essential to make science more accessible to the public. Active participation increases the legitimacy of projects within communities (Sidaway 2009). Creating collaborations in research strengthens not only the work by adding new dimensions, but also the social capital of communities through increased knowledge, connections, and decision making power. In this talk, Lewis will discuss how engagement at different stages of the scientific process is possible, and how researchers can actively develop opportunities that are open and inviting. Genuine co-production in research pushes scientists to work in new ways, and with people from different backgrounds, expertise, and lived experiences. This approach requires a flexible and dynamic balance of learning, sharing, and creating for all parties involved to ensure more meaningful and equitable participation. For example, in community science such as that by Public Lab, the community is at the center of scientific exploration. The research is place-based and is grounded in the desired outcomes of community members. Researchers are able to see themselves as active participants in this work alongside community members. Participating in active listening, developing plans together, and using a shared language built through learning can be helpful tools in all co-production processes. Generating knowledge is powerful. Through genuine collaboration and co-creation, science becomes more relevant. When community members are equitable stakeholders in the scientific process, they are better able to engage and advocate for the changes they want to see in their communities. Through this talk, session attendees will learn about practices that promote equitable participation in science, and hear examples of how the community science process engages people in both the knowledge production, and in the application of science.

Experiences of nursing students and educators during the co-construction of clinical nursing leadership learning activities: A qualitative research and development study.

PubMed

Ha, Laurence; Pepin, Jacinthe

2017-08-01

Student voice posits that students' unique perspectives on teaching and learning can be used in conjunction with those of educators to create meaningful educational activities. The study aimed to describe nursing students' and educators' experiences during the co-construction of educational activities involving clinical nursing leadership. Qualitative research and development model. The study was conducted at a French-Canadian nursing faculty that provides a 3-year undergraduate program. Five undergraduate nursing students, four nursing educators, and the principal investigator formed the co-construction team. Data collected included all documents (written and audio) related to the co-construction process: three 2-hour team meetings, PI's fieldnotes and a focus group discussion that occurred once the co-construction process was completed. Thematic analysis was performed guided by Paillé and Muchielli's (2010) method. Data analysis revealed two interrelated themes: (1) unique, purposeful collaboration and (2) change that makes a difference. A space described as safe, without hierarchy and that included the "right" people helped the team achieve their objective of creating new educational activities on clinical nursing leadership. The two new learning activities developed by the team were perceived as useful for future nursing students. At the individual level, team members appreciated how co-construction helped them understand teaching and learning from new perspectives. A structured, efficient co-construction process contributed to positive changes in the nursing program and participants. Additional research is required to enhance understanding of the factors that facilitate and hinder student-educator collaboration outside the classroom. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mapping as a learning strategy in health professions education: a critical analysis.

PubMed

Pudelko, Beatrice; Young, Meredith; Vincent-Lamarre, Philippe; Charlin, Bernard

2012-12-01

Mapping is a means of representing knowledge in a visual network and is becoming more commonly used as a learning strategy in medical education. The assumption driving the development and use of concept mapping is that it supports and furthers meaningful learning. The goal of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of concept mapping as a learning strategy in health professions education. The authors conducted a critical analysis of recent literature on the use of concept mapping as a learning strategy in the area of health professions education. Among the 65 studies identified, 63% were classified as empirical work, the majority (76%) of which used pre-experimental designs. Only 24% of empirical studies assessed the impact of mapping on meaningful learning. Results of the analysis do not support the hypothesis that mapping per se furthers and supports meaningful learning, memorisation or factual recall. When documented improvements in learning were found, they often occurred when mapping was used in concert with other strategies, such as collaborative learning or instructor modelling, scaffolding and feedback. Current empirical research on mapping as a learning strategy presents methodological shortcomings that limit its internal and external validity. The results of our analysis indicate that mapping strategies that make use of feedback and scaffolding have beneficial effects on learning. Accordingly, we see a need to expand the process of reflection on the characteristics of representational guidance as it is provided by mapping techniques and tools based on field of knowledge, instructional objectives, and the characteristics of learners in health professions education. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012.

Putting education in "educational" apps: lessons from the science of learning.

PubMed

Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Zosh, Jennifer M; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Gray, James H; Robb, Michael B; Kaufman, Jordy

2015-05-01

Children are in the midst of a vast, unplanned experiment, surrounded by digital technologies that were not available but 5 years ago. At the apex of this boom is the introduction of applications ("apps") for tablets and smartphones. However, there is simply not the time, money, or resources available to evaluate each app as it enters the market. Thus, "educational" apps-the number of which, as of January 2015, stood at 80,000 in Apple's App Store (Apple, 2015)-are largely unregulated and untested. This article offers a way to define the potential educational impact of current and future apps. We build upon decades of work on the Science of Learning, which has examined how children learn best. From this work, we abstract a set of principles for two ultimate goals. First, we aim to guide researchers, educators, and designers in evidence-based app development. Second, by creating an evidence-based guide, we hope to set a new standard for evaluating and selecting the most effective existing children's apps. In short, we will show how the design and use of educational apps aligns with known processes of children's learning and development and offer a framework that can be used by parents and designers alike. Apps designed to promote active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive learning-four "pillars" of learning-within the context of a supported learning goal are considered educational. © The Author(s) 2015.

Supporting traditional instructional methods with a constructivist approach to learning: Promoting conceputal change and understanding of stoichiometry using e-learning tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abayan, Kenneth Munoz

Stoichiometry is a fundamental topic in chemistry that measures a quantifiable relationship between atoms, molecules, etc. Stoichiometry is usually taught using expository teaching methods. Students are passively given information, in the hopes they will retain the transmission of information to be able to solve stoichiometry problems masterfully. Cognitive science research has shown that this kind of instructional teaching method is not very effecting in meaningful learning practice. Instead, students must take ownership of their learning. The students need to actively construct their own knowledge by receiving, interpreting, integrating and reorganizing that information into their own mental schemas. In the absence of active learning practices, tools must be created in such a way to be able to scaffold difficult problems by encoding opportunities necessary to make the construction of knowledge memorable, thereby creating a usable knowledge base. Using an online e-learning tool and its potential to create a dynamic and interactive learning environment may facilitate the learning of stoichiometry. The study entailed requests from volunteer students, IRB consent form, a baseline questionnaire, random assignment of treatment, pre- and post-test assessment, and post assessment survey. These activities were given online. A stoichiometry-based assessment was given in a proctored examination at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) campus. The volunteer students who took part in these studies were at least 18 of age and were enrolled in General Chemistry 1441, at the University of Texas at Arlington. Each participant gave their informed consent to use their data in the following study. Students were randomly assigned to one of 4 treatments groups based on teaching methodology, (Dimensional Analysis, Operational Method, Ratios and Proportions) and a control group who just received instruction through lecture only. In this study, an e-learning tool was created to demonstrate several methodologies, on how to solve stoichiometry, which are all supported by chemical education research. Comparisons of student performance based on pre- and post-test assessment, and a stoichiometry-based examination was done to determine if the information provided within the e-learning tool yielded greater learning outcomes compared to the students in the absence of scaffold learning material. The e-learning tool was created to help scaffold the problem solving process necessary to help students (N=394) solve stoichiometry problems. Therein the study investigated possible predictors for success on a stoichiometry based examination, students' conceptual understanding of solving stoichiometry problems, and their explanation of reasoning. It was found that the way the student answered a given stoichiometry question (i.e. whether the student used dimensional analysis, operational method or any other process) was not statistically relevant (p=0.05). More importantly, if the students were able to describe their thought process clearly, these students scored significantly higher on stoichiometry test (mean 84, p<0.05). This finding has major implications in teaching the topic, as lecturers tend to stress and focus on the method rather than the process on how to solve stoichiometry problems.

Meaningful Engagement in Scientific Practices: How Classroom Communities Develop Authentic Epistemologies for Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krist, Christina Rae

Recent reforms in science education, based on decades of learning research, emphasize engaging students in science and engineering practices as the means to develop and refine disciplinary ideas. These reforms advocate an epistemic shift in how school science is done: from students learning about science ideas to students figuring out core science ideas. This shift is challenging to implement: how do we bring the goals and practices of a discipline into classroom communities in meaningful ways that go beyond simply following rote scientific procedures? In this dissertation, I investigate how classroom communities learn to engage meaningfully in scientific practices, characterizing their engagement as a process of epistemic learning. I take a situated perspective that defines learning as shifts in how members engage in communities of practice. I examine students' epistemic learning as a function of their participation in a classroom community of scientific practice along two dimensions: what they do, or the practical epistemic heuristics they use to guide how they build knowledge; and who they are, or how ownership and authorship of ideas is negotiated and affectively marked through interaction. I focus on a cohort of students as they move from 6th to 8 th grade. I analyze three science units, one from each grade level, to look at the epistemic heuristics implicit in student and teacher talk and how the use of those heuristics shifts over time. In addition, I examine one anomalous 8th grade class to look at how students and the teacher position themselves and each other with respect to the ideas in their classroom and how that positioning supports epistemic learning. Taken together, these analyses demonstrate how students' engagement in scientific practices evolves in terms of what they do and who they are in relation to the knowledge and ideas in their classroom over time. I propose a model for epistemic learning that articulates how classroom communities develop practical epistemologies that guide their knowledge building work and how the development of these epistemologies is identity-laden. I find that for engagement in science practices to be meaningful, classroom communities' engagement is motivated by the unknowns in students' knowledge, or what they still need to figure out and explain. In contexts where knowledge is uncertain, practical epistemic heuristics become authentically useful for students' knowledge building work. However, using unknowns to motivate learning can be distressing for students. The anomalous case study suggests that students' meaningful engagement in science knowledge building requires particular affective supports from the teacher that allow students to take on and embrace new identities with respect to ideas in their classroom. Taken together, the model of epistemic learning that I propose suggests that both conceptual and affective supports are necessary to shift science classrooms in ways that engage students in meaningful science knowledge building.

A Meaningful High School Diploma

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siegel, Shepherd

2009-01-01

Creating a meaningful high school diploma will expose students to the full range of adult options which will enable them to shape their high school education in a way that connects to their current interests and stimulates the growth of new ones. Fully connecting all students to these four worlds of knowledge will equip them to build one…

Student and educator experiences of maternal-child simulation-based learning: a systematic review of qualitative evidence.

PubMed

MacKinnon, Karen; Marcellus, Lenora; Rivers, Julie; Gordon, Carol; Ryan, Maureen; Butcher, Diane

2017-11-01

Although maternal-child care is a pillar of primary health care, there is a global shortage of maternal-child health care providers. Nurse educators experience difficulties providing undergraduate students with maternal-child learning experiences for a number of reasons. Simulation has the potential to complement learning in clinical and classroom settings. Although systematic reviews of simulation are available, no systematic reviews of qualitative evidence related to maternal-child simulation-based learning (SBL) for undergraduate nursing students and/or educators have been located. The aim of this systematic review was to identify the appropriateness and meaningfulness of maternal-child simulation-based learning for undergraduate nursing students and nursing educators in educational settings to inform curriculum decision-making. The review questions are: INCLUSION CRITERIA TYPES OF PARTICIPANTS: Pre-registration or pre-licensure or undergraduate nursing or health professional students and educators. Experiences of simulation in an educational setting with a focus relevant to maternal child nursing. Qualitative research and educational evaluation using qualitative methods. North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. A three-step search strategy identified published studies in the English language from 2000 until April 2016. Identified studies that met the inclusion criteria were retrieved and critically appraised using the Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-QARI) by at least two independent reviewers. Overall the methodological quality of the included studies was low. Qualitative findings were extracted by two independent reviewers using JBI-QARI data extraction tools. Findings were aggregated and categorized on the basis of similarity in meaning. Categories were subjected to a meta-synthesis to produce a single comprehensive set of synthesized findings. Twenty-two articles from 19 studies were included in the review. A total of 112 findings were extracted from the included articles. Findings were grouped into 15 categories created on the basis of similarity of meaning. Meta-synthesis of these categories generated three synthesized findings.Synthesized finding 1 Students experienced simulated learning experiences (SLE) as preparation that enhanced their confidence in practice. When simulation was being used for evaluation purposes many students experienced anxiety about the SLE.Synthesized finding 2 Pedagogical practices thought to be appropriate and meaningful included: realistic, relevant and engaging scenarios, a safe non-threatening learning environment, supportive guidance throughout the process, and integration with curriculum.Synthesized finding 3 Barriers and enablers to incorporating SLEs into maternal child education were identified including adequate resources, technological support and faculty development. Students and educators recognized that some things, such as relationship building, could not be simulated. Students felt that simulation prepared them for practice through building their self-confidence related to frequently and infrequently seen maternal-child scenarios. Specific pedagogical elements support the meaningfulness of the simulation for student learning. The presence or absence of resources impacts the capacity of educators to integrate simulation activities throughout curricula.

Europeana and 3D

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pletinckx, D.

2011-09-01

The current 3D hype creates a lot of interest in 3D. People go to 3D movies, but are we ready to use 3D in our homes, in our offices, in our communication? Are we ready to deliver real 3D to a general public and use interactive 3D in a meaningful way to enjoy, learn, communicate? The CARARE project is realising this for the moment in the domain of monuments and archaeology, so that real 3D of archaeological sites and European monuments will be available to the general public by 2012. There are several aspects to this endeavour. First of all is the technical aspect of flawlessly delivering 3D content over all platforms and operating systems, without installing software. We have currently a working solution in PDF, but HTML5 will probably be the future. Secondly, there is still little knowledge on how to create 3D learning objects, 3D tourist information or 3D scholarly communication. We are still in a prototype phase when it comes to integrate 3D objects in physical or virtual museums. Nevertheless, Europeana has a tremendous potential as a multi-facetted virtual museum. Finally, 3D has a large potential to act as a hub of information, linking to related 2D imagery, texts, video, sound. We describe how to create such rich, explorable 3D objects that can be used intuitively by the generic Europeana user and what metadata is needed to support the semantic linking.

Graining Traction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

James, Joan K.; Matthews, Robert W.

2017-01-01

In their classrooms, the authors observed students experiencing meaningful and memorable learning when they were immersed in scientific inquiry involving Bess beetles. Students who learn from active, experiential instruction, find such learning to be exciting and emotionally engaging. As a result, they learn more deeply and effectively. This…

An Interactive System of Computer Generated Graphic Displays for Motivating Meaningful Learning of Matrix Operations and Concepts of Matrix Algebra

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-09-01

community’s search for a workable set of standards for school mathematics . In 1989 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics ( NCTM ) established the...made by the Commission on Standards for School Mathematics to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics ( NCTM ). Of the 40 students who...Abstract This -s-y evaluated students’ responses to a teaching method designed to involve students and teachers of mathematics in a meaningful learning

Public Outreach Guerilla Style: Just Add Science to Existing Events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gelderman, Richard

2016-01-01

We report on a campaign to use the visual appeal of astronomy as a gateway drug to inject public outreach into settings where people aren't expecting an encounter with science. Our inspiration came from the team at guerillascience.org, who have earned a reputation for creating, at sites around the world, "experiences and events that are unexpected, thought-provoking, but, above all, that delight and entertain." Our goal is to insert astronomy into existing festivals of music, culture, and art; county and state fairs; sporting events; and local farmer's markets. With volunteers and near-zero budgets, we have been able to meaningfully engage with audience members who would never willingly attend an event advertised as science related. By purposefully relating astronomy to the non-science aspects of the event that caused the audience members to attend, new learning experiences are created that alter the often negative pre-conceived notions about science that many of them held before our encounter.

Gifts in Health Crisis: The Use of Health Coaching to Create Opportunity for a More Meaningful Life.

PubMed

Nutt, Theresa

2018-02-01

The purpose of this article is to explore health coaching as an effective intervention in times of health crisis for patients, families, and health-care staff. The pause that a health crisis creates in the activities of normal life allows for deeper questions about a person's life to emerge. Health coaching provides a safe space for clients to engage with these life questions while facilitating a connection with their sense of personal empowerment and innate inner wisdom. The result is a more meaningful and resilient life despite the outcome of the health crisis.

Stimulating Deep Learning Using Active Learning Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yew, Tee Meng; Dawood, Fauziah K. P.; a/p S. Narayansany, Kannaki; a/p Palaniappa Manickam, M. Kamala; Jen, Leong Siok; Hoay, Kuan Chin

2016-01-01

When students and teachers behave in ways that reinforce learning as a spectator sport, the result can often be a classroom and overall learning environment that is mostly limited to transmission of information and rote learning rather than deep approaches towards meaningful construction and application of knowledge. A group of college instructors…

Cognitive Pruning and Second Language Acquisition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, H. Douglas

Ausubel distinguishes two kinds of human learning: (1) rote learning, relevant only to a small fraction of human learning, is the mechanistic formation of discrete, isolated traces in cognitive structure, usually through a process of conditioning; (2) meaningful learning, characteristic of most human learning, is a process of "subsuming" material…

Students' Learning Processes during School-Based Learning and Workplace Learning in Vocational Education: A Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaap, Harmen; Baartman, Liesbeth; de Bruijn, Elly

2012-01-01

Learning in vocational schools and workplaces are the two main components of vocational education. Students have to develop professional competences by building meaningful relations between knowledge, skills and attitudes. There are, however, some major concerns about the combination of learning in these two learning environments, since vocational…

An Exploration of Middle School Teachers' Essences of Participation in Service-Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cochran Holmes, Ashlee Elizabeth

2013-01-01

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover the essence of middle school service-learning teachers' experiences with service-learning. Service-learning is "a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility,…

Bridging the Health Data Divide

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Fundamental quality, safety, and cost problems have not been resolved by the increasing digitization of health care. This digitization has progressed alongside the presence of a persistent divide between clinicians, the domain experts, and the technical experts, such as data scientists. The disconnect between clinicians and data scientists translates into a waste of research and health care resources, slow uptake of innovations, and poorer outcomes than are desirable and achievable. The divide can be narrowed by creating a culture of collaboration between these two disciplines, exemplified by events such as datathons. However, in order to more fully and meaningfully bridge the divide, the infrastructure of medical education, publication, and funding processes must evolve to support and enhance a learning health care system. PMID:27998877

Teaching mathematics remotely: changed practices in distance education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lowrie, Tom; Jorgensen, Robyn

2012-09-01

This investigation explored the challenges of creating meaningful mathematics practices for a community engaged in Distance Education (DE). Specifically, the study maps the influence of new technologies on the practices of a learning community where mathematics was taught remotely. The theoretical framework of this study utilised Bourdieu's work on practice to consider the changed nature of the field, in this case, remote education provision, over time. By using Bourdieu's notion of field, we are better able to understand the ways in which practices and discourses shape particular ways of working in rural education provision. The results of the study show that Field 1 was innovative and beyond the non-school world, while Field 2 lagged behind the technological resources of the non-school world.

Big Jobs: Planning for Competence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Nancy P.

2005-01-01

Three- to five-year-olds grow emotionally participating in meaningful and challenging physical, social, and problem-solving activities outdoors in an early childhood program on a farm. Caring for animals, planting, raking, shoveling, and engaging in meaningful indoor activities, under adult supervision, children learn to work collaboratively,…

The Seat of Insect Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dyer, Fred C.

1997-01-01

Describes the role of mushroom bodies--cup-shaped structures perched atop the brain of an insect--in learning. Mushroom bodies may help fruit flies in learning meaningful odors, cockroaches in spatial learning, and honeybees both in locating pollen and nectar and in navigating back to the colony. (PVD)

Building a Learning Organization.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mohr, Nancy; Dichter, Alan

2001-01-01

Faculties must pass through several stages when becoming learning organizations: the honeymoon, conflict, confusion, messy, scary, and mature-group stages. Mature school communities have learned to view power differently, make learning more meaningful for students, and model a just and democratic society. Consensus is the starting point. (MLH)

Business intelligence effort get a boost. The meaningful use framework highlights the value of data warehouses and BI tools.

PubMed

Raths, David

2011-01-01

As patient care organizations nationwide prepare to report on meaningful use quality measures, those with enterprise data warehouses may find they have a head start. The more advanced among them are establishing workgroups to create dashboards to analyze progress and identify gaps that need addressing.

Getting to Teacher Ownership: How Schools Are Creating Meaningful Change. Executive Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saunders, Marisa; Alcantara, Vianna; Cervantes, Laura; Del Razo, Jaime; Lopez, Ruth; Perez, Wendy

2017-01-01

This executive summary presents highlights from a study exploring the concept of teacher ownership and how it can bring about the deep and meaningful changes that schools need and that all students deserve. Based on teacher surveys and interviews in twenty-one schools in Los Angeles that are implementing major reforms, the study suggests that…

Embracing value co-creation in primary care services research: a framework for success.

PubMed

Janamian, Tina; Crossland, Lisa; Jackson, Claire L

2016-04-18

Value co-creation redresses a key criticism of researcher-driven approaches to research - that researchers may lack insight into the end users' needs and values across the research journey. Value co-creation creates, in a step-wise way, value with, and for, multiple stakeholders through regular, ongoing interactions leading to innovation, increased productivity and co-created outcomes of value to all parties - thus creating a "win more-win more" environment. The Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Building Primary Care Quality, Performance and Sustainability has co-created outcomes of value that have included robust and enduring partnerships, research findings that have value to end users (such as the Primary Care Practice Improvement Tool and the best-practice governance framework), an International Implementation Research Network in Primary Care and the International Primary Health Reform Conference. Key lessons learned in applying the strategies of value co-creation have included the recognition that partnership development requires an investment of time and effort to ensure meaningful interactions and enriched end user experiences, that research management systems including governance, leadership and communication also need to be "co-creative", and that openness and understanding is needed to work across different sectors and cultures with flexibility, fairness and transparency being essential to the value co-creation process.

Integrating authentic scientific research in a conservation course–based undergraduate research experience

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sorensen, Amanda E.; Corral, Lucia; Dauer, Jenny M.; Fontaine, Joseph J.

2018-01-01

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been developed to overcome barriers including students in research. However, there are few examples of CUREs that take place in a conservation and natural resource context with students engaging in field research. Here, we highlight the development of a conservation-focused CURE integrated to a research program, research benefits, student self-assessment of learning, and perception of the CURE. With the additional data, researchers were able to refine species distribution models and facilitate management decisions. Most students reported gains in their scientific skills, felt they had engaged in meaningful, real-world research. In student reflections on how this experience helped clarify their professional intentions, many reported being more likely to enroll in graduate programs and seek employment related to science. Also interesting was all students reported being more likely to talk with friends, family, or the public about wildlife conservation issues after participating, indicating that courses like this can have effects beyond the classroom, empowering students to be advocates and translators of science. Field-based, conservation-focused CUREs can create meaningful conservation and natural resource experiences with authentic scientific teaching practices.

Co-creating meaningful structures within long-term psychotherapy group culture.

PubMed

Gayle, Robin G

2009-07-01

Meaningful group structures are co-created within the long-term outpatient psychotherapy group through a hermeneutical interaction between structure and immediate experience of structure by individuals embedded in personal and collective contexts. Co-created meanings expand original group- and self-understandings and further evolve structures that are stable yet do not exist independently of the narratives and affects of the members who interact with them. Group structures do not reduce, expand, or dissolve but change in connection to the experiences and meaning attributions within the group. This intersubjective process mediates the emphasis within group theory on leader responsibility for culture building that risks overpromoting certain psychotherapeutic cultural intentions over others. Three examples of intersubjective hermeneutical interaction within long-term psychotherapy groups lend insight into global, cultural, and societal groups.

Leveraging the Power of Place: A New Commitment to Personalizing Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liebtag, Emily

2018-01-01

Personalized learning offers instruction that matches students' learning preferences and specific interests. Taking innovative approaches to engaging with students' individual contexts and interests through place-based education can be particularly meaningful. Place-based education (PBE) is anytime, anywhere learning that leverages the power of…

A Case Study of Job-Embedded Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hess, Amanda Nichols

2016-01-01

Librarians recognize the importance of professional learning as their roles and responsibilities evolve in the shifting teaching and learning environments of the twenty-first century. However, the literature on meaningful, job-embedded learning opportunities for academic librarians is scant, and opportunities are especially scarce in the fields of…

Do Sophisticated Epistemic Beliefs Predict Meaningful Learning? Findings from a Structural Equation Model of Undergraduate Biology Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Silvia Wen-Yu; Liang, Jyh-Chong; Tsai, Chin-Chung

2016-01-01

This study investigated the relationships among college students' epistemic beliefs in biology (EBB), conceptions of learning biology (COLB), and strategies of learning biology (SLB). EBB includes four dimensions, namely "multiple-source," "uncertainty," "development," and "justification." COLB is further…

Learning Analytics: At the Nexus of Big Data, Digital Innovation, and Social Justice in Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aguilar, Stephen J.

2018-01-01

We are still designing educational experiences for the "average" student, and have room to improve. Learning analytics provides a way forward. This commentary describes how learning analytics-based applications are well positioned to meaningfully personalize the learning experience in diverse ways. In so doing, learning analytics has the…

CC-LR: Providing Interactive, Challenging and Attractive Collaborative Complex Learning Resources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caballé, S.; Mora, N.; Feidakis, M.; Gañán, D.; Conesa, J.; Daradoumis, T.; Prieto, J.

2014-01-01

Many researchers argue that students must be meaningfully engaged in the learning resources for effective learning to occur. However, current online learners still report a problematic lack of attractive and challenging learning resources that engage them in the learning process. This endemic problem is even more evident in online collaborative…

High School Students' Experiences of Learning through Research on the Internet

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ellis, R. A.; Goodyear, P.; Bliuc, A.-M.; Ellis, M.

2011-01-01

One of the challenges that school educators face today is the need to integrate learning technologies into the learning experience in a meaningful and sustainable way. The current research focuses on how students' experience learning through new technologies in high schools across New South Wales, Australia, specifically when they learn by…

iPad Learning Ecosystem: Developing Challenge-Based Learning Using Design Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marin, Catalina; Hargis, Jace; Cavanaugh, Cathy

2013-01-01

In order to maximize college English language students' learning, product development, 21st Century skills and engagement with real world meaningful challenges, a course was designed to integrate Challenge Based Learning (CBL) and iPad mobile learning technology. This article describes the course design, which was grounded in design thinking, and…

The Relationship between Learning Styles and Learning Outcomes for Adults in an Informal Educational Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Larry N.

2013-01-01

With more adults seeking unique and meaningful learning experiences in both recreational and professional arenas, informal learning institutions, such as museums, zoos, and botanical gardens are a natural source. Informal learning opportunities are the business of these institutions; moreover, a goal in education mission statements of many of…

Personalizing Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

watts, margit misangyi

2016-01-01

In this first chapter, the editor explains why she feels this volume's topic is important and timely, and describes some of her own epiphanies regarding what is needed to make learning meaningful for students.

Service Learning in Undergraduate Nursing Education: Strategies to Facilitate Meaningful Reflection.

PubMed

Schmidt, Nola A; Brown, Janet M

2016-01-01

Service learning is recognized as a valuable pedagogy involving experiential learning, reflection, and reciprocal learning. Students develop critical thinking and social awareness by using the crucial activity of reflecting upon their experiential learning with community partners. The purpose of this paper is to demystify the process of reflection by identifying best practices to enhance reflection and offering suggestions for grading. By understanding "the what" and "the how" of reflection, educators can implement service learning experiences designed to include the essential component of reflection. Strategies for facilitating meaningful reflection are described including descriptions of what students should reflect upon and how to initiate reflection through writing, reading, doing, and telling. Grading rubrics are suggested to facilitate evaluation of student reflection. When properly implemented, service learning encourages students to be good citizens of the world. By using best practices associated with reflection, students can be challenged to think critically about the world and how their service can achieve community goals. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

On Meaningful Measurement: Concepts, Technology and Examples.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheung, K. C.

This paper discusses how concepts and procedural skills in problem-solving tasks, as well as affects and emotions, can be subjected to meaningful measurement (MM), based on a multisource model of learning and a constructivist information-processing theory of knowing. MM refers to the quantitative measurement of conceptual and procedural knowledge…

Pedagogical Principles of Learning to Teach Meaningful Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ní Chróinín, Déirdre; Fletcher, Tim; O'Sullivan, Mary

2018-01-01

Background: Concerns that current forms of physical education teacher education (PETE) are not adequately providing teachers with the tools necessary for working with the realities and challenges of teaching physical education in contemporary schools has led some scholars to advocate for an approach that prioritises meaningfulness in physical…

Meaningful Gamification and Students' Motivation: A Strategy for Scaffolding Reading Material

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ling, Lynette Tan Yuen

2018-01-01

Gamification is an innovative pedagogical strategy where digital games are used in an educational setting and as an aid to learning. Recent publications on gamification in the classroom investigate the concept of "meaningful gamification," where, in line with Ryan and Deci's self-determination theory, competency, autonomy, and…

Values: The Natural Result of Meaningful Relationships.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beedy, Jeff; Gordon, John

1997-01-01

The New Hampton School (New Hampshire) uses the holistic Total Human Development Model with both students and faculty to instill principles focused on relationships as central to teaching and learning; respect and responsibility; sense of community; whole person development within the community; compassion and service; and the meaningful,…

Learning Science via Animated Movies: Its Effect on Students' Thinking and Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barak, Miri; Ashkar, Tamar; Dori, Yehudit J.

2011-01-01

Some researchers claim that animations may hinder students' meaningful learning or evoke misunderstandings. In order to examine these assertions, our study investigated the effect of animated movies on students' learning outcomes and motivation to learn. Applying the quantitative methodology, two pre- and post-questionnaires were administered:…

Active Learning by Play Dough Modeling in the Medical Profession

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herur, Anita; Kolagi, Sanjeev; Chinagudi, Surekharani; Manjula, R.; Patil, Shailaja

2011-01-01

Active learning produces meaningful learning, improves attitudes toward learning, and increases knowledge and retention, but is still not fully institutionalized in the undergraduate sciences. A few studies have compared the effectiveness of PowerPoint presentations, student seminars, quizzes, and use of CD-ROMs with blackboard teaching and…

The Power and Utility of Reflective Learning Portfolios in Honors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corley, Christopher R.; Zubizarreta, John

2012-01-01

The explosive growth of learning portfolios in higher education as a compelling tool for enhanced student learning, assessment, and career preparation is a sign of the increasing significance of reflective practice and mindful, systematic documentation in promoting deep, meaningful, transformative learning experiences. The advent of sophisticated…

Sustaining Professional Learning Communities: Case Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hipp, Kristine; Huffman, Jane; Pankake, Anita; Olivier, Dianne

2008-01-01

The purpose is to document the ongoing development of two schools in becoming professional learning communities and the effects of meaningful collaboration on teacher learning. The question that guides this research is: How does a school become a sustainable professional learning community? The theoretical framework is based on the work of Senge,…

Serious game design principles: The impact of game design on learning outcomes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martin, Michael W.

This dissertation examines the research question "How do video game design principles affect learning outcomes in serious games?" This research first develops a theoretical foundation concerning the meaning of the terms "game" and "serious game". This conceptual clarification is broken down into analytic propositions, which state that games have participants, rules, goals and challenges, and synthetic propositions, which state that the games should be intrinsically compelling, provide meaningful choices, and be self encapsulated. Based on these synthetic propositions, three hypotheses were developed. The hypotheses are that games with an enhanced aesthetic presentation, more meaningful choices, or provide player competition will elicit higher learning outcomes than identical games without these factors. These hypotheses were tested via a quantitative experiment involving 172 undergraduate students in the Old Dominion University Chemistry Department. The students were asked to play a chemistry-oriented serious game entitled Element Solitaire©, which was created by the research author. The students were randomly given different treatments of the Element Solitaire© game to play, and the difference between their learning outcomes were compared. The experimental results demonstrated that the aesthetic presentation of a game can have a significant impact upon the learning outcome. The experiment was not able to discern significant effects from the choice or competition conditions, but further examination of the experimental data did reveal some insight into these aspects of serious game design. Choices need to provide the player with options that have a sufficient value that they will be considered and the application of competition within games needs to be judiciously implemented to promote a positive affect for all players. The results of the theoretical foundations and empirical evidence were then combined with additional theoretical research to develop a set of design principles and a proposed serious game development process. These guidelines were researched and examined via the design and development process of several serious game prototypes and the examination of a large body of existing serious games. The end result is a practical procedure that is rooted in theory and quantitative experimentation.

Low Data Drug Discovery with One-Shot Learning.

PubMed

Altae-Tran, Han; Ramsundar, Bharath; Pappu, Aneesh S; Pande, Vijay

2017-04-26

Recent advances in machine learning have made significant contributions to drug discovery. Deep neural networks in particular have been demonstrated to provide significant boosts in predictive power when inferring the properties and activities of small-molecule compounds (Ma, J. et al. J. Chem. Inf. 2015, 55, 263-274). However, the applicability of these techniques has been limited by the requirement for large amounts of training data. In this work, we demonstrate how one-shot learning can be used to significantly lower the amounts of data required to make meaningful predictions in drug discovery applications. We introduce a new architecture, the iterative refinement long short-term memory, that, when combined with graph convolutional neural networks, significantly improves learning of meaningful distance metrics over small-molecules. We open source all models introduced in this work as part of DeepChem, an open-source framework for deep-learning in drug discovery (Ramsundar, B. deepchem.io. https://github.com/deepchem/deepchem, 2016).

Creating Social Connections in Higher Education: Insights from the Campus Canines Program at the University of Pittsburgh

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camaioni, Nicole

2013-01-01

The overall purpose of this study was to capture the relationships made during the Campus Canines Program, an animal-assisted activity program, at the University of Pittsburgh. Meaningful social relationships create greater educational satisfaction. These social relationships are an important piece to creating and sustaining student involvement,…

Analysis of Memory Codes and Cumulative Rehearsal in Observational Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bandura, Albert; And Others

1974-01-01

The present study examined the influence of memory codes varying in meaningfulness and retrievability and cumulative rehearsal on retention of observationally learned responses over increasing temporal intervals. (Editor)

Social Learning Network Analysis Model to Identify Learning Patterns Using Ontology Clustering Techniques and Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Firdausiah Mansur, Andi Besse; Yusof, Norazah

2013-01-01

Clustering on Social Learning Network still not explored widely, especially when the network focuses on e-learning system. Any conventional methods are not really suitable for the e-learning data. SNA requires content analysis, which involves human intervention and need to be carried out manually. Some of the previous clustering techniques need…

An Analysis of the Professional Learning of Science Teachers Using the Metaphor of Learning by Expanding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodnough, Karen; Murphy, Elizabeth

2017-01-01

This study reports on the professional learning of two teachers of science who were learning to engage their grade four students in meaningful, hands-on learning. Teachers' learning took place in the context of a 10-month university-based action research program designed to help improve the practice of science, technology, engineering and…

Understanding Cognitive Presence in an Online and Blended Community of Inquiry: Assessing Outcomes and Processes for Deep Approaches to Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akyol, Zehra; Garrison, D. Randy

2011-01-01

This paper focuses on deep and meaningful learning approaches and outcomes associated with online and blended communities of inquiry. Applying mixed methodology for the research design, the study used transcript analysis, learning outcomes, perceived learning, satisfaction, and interviews to assess learning processes and outcomes. The findings for…

Perceiving Learning at a Glance: A Systematic Literature Review of Learning Dashboard Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwendimann, Beat A.; Rodriguez-Triana, Maria Jesus; Vozniuk, Andrii; Prieto, Luis P.; Boroujeni, Mina Shirvani; Holzer, Adrian; Gillet, Denis; Dillenbourg, Pierre

2017-01-01

This paper presents a systematic literature review of the state-of-the-art of research on learning dashboards in the fields of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. Research on learning dashboards aims to identify what data is meaningful to different stakeholders and how data can be presented to support sense-making processes. Learning…

Document Analyses of Student Use of a Blogging-Mapping Tool to Explore Evidence of Deep and Reflective Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xie, Ying

2008-01-01

Theories about reflective thinking and deep-surface learning abound. In order to arrive at the definition for "reflective thinking toward deep learning," this study establishes that reflective thinking toward deep learning refers to a learner's purposeful and conscious activity of manipulating ideas toward meaningful learning and knowledge…

Teachers as Learning Designers: What Technology Has to Do with Learning. A View from Singapore

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fei, Victor Lim; Hung, David

2016-01-01

This article discusses the controversies and value in the use of technology for learning. It proposes that as a teaching tool, technology also opens up new possibilities for teachers to design meaningful learning experiences for their students. The appropriate use of technology promises to deepen the learning of traditional literacy, numeracy, and…

Local Strategies: Creating and Nurturing Collaborative Communities of Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bauer, Denise; Beaulieu, Elizabeth; Wobbe, Kristin

2017-01-01

Creating meaningful professional development opportunities for general education faculty can be particularly challenging at professionally-focused institutions where teaching liberal arts courses is sometimes viewed merely as a service requirement. Committing to sustained professional development for general education faculty can lead to…

D. Carlos de Bragança, a Pioneer of Experimental Marine Oceanography: Filling the Gap Between Formal and Informal Science Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faria, Cláudia; Pereira, Gonçalo; Chagas, Isabel

2012-06-01

The activities presented in this paper are part of a wider project that investigates the effects of infusing the history of science in science teaching, toward students' learning and attitude. Focused on the work of D. Carlos de Bragança, King of Portugal from 1889 to 1908, and a pioneer oceanographer, the activities are addressed at the secondary Biology curriculum (grade 10, ages 15, 16). The proposed activities include a pre-visit orientation task, two workshops performed in a science museum and a follow-up learning task. In class, students have to analyse original historical excerpts of the king's work, in order to discuss and reflect about the nature of science. In the museum, students actively participate in two workshops: biological classification and specimen drawing. All students considered the project relevant for science learning, stating that it was important not only for knowledge acquisition but also for the understanding of the nature of science. As a final remark we stress the importance of creating activities informed by the history of science as a foundation for improving motivation, sustaining effective science teaching and meaningful science learning, and as a vehicle to promote a closer partnership between schools and science museums.

[Overview of the US policies for health information technology and lessons learned for Israel].

PubMed

Topaz, Maxim; Ash, Nachman

2013-05-01

The heaLthcare system in the United States (U.S.) faces a number of significant changes aimed at improving the quality and availability of medical services and reducing costs. Implementation of health information technologies, especiaLly ELectronic Health Records (EHR), is central to achieving these goals. Several recent Legislative efforts in the U.S. aim at defining standards and promoting wide scale "Meaningful Use" of the novel technologies. In Israel, the majority of heaLthcare providers adopted EHR throughout the Last decade. Unlike the U.S., the process of EHR adoption occurred spontaneously, without governmental control or the definition of standards. In this article, we review the U.S. health information technology policies and standards and suggest potential lessons Learned for Israel. First, we present the three-staged Meaningful Use regulations that require eligible healthcare practitioners to use EHR in their practice. We also describe the standards for EHR certification and national efforts to create interoperable health information technology networks. Finally, we provide a brief overview of the IsraeLi regulation in the field of EHR. Although the adoption of health information technology is wider in Israel, the Lack of technology standards and governmental control has Led to Large technology gaps between providers. The example of the U.S. Legislation urges the adoption of several critical steps to further enhance the quality and efficiency of the Israeli healthcare system, in particular: strengthening health information technology regulation; developing Licensure criteria for health information technology; bridging the digital gap between healthcare organizations; defining quality measures; and improving the accessibility of health information for patients.

What Do Medical Students Perceive as Meaningful in the Psychiatry Clerkship Learning Environment? A Content Analysis of Critical Incident Narratives.

PubMed

Gathright, Molly M; Thrush, Carol; Guise, J Benjamin; Krain, Lewis; Clardy, James

2016-04-01

In order to better understand the professional development of medical students during their psychiatry clerkship, this study identifies common themes and characteristics of students' critical incident narratives which are designed to capture a recount of clerkship experiences they perceived as meaningful. A total of 205 narratives submitted by psychiatry clerkship students in 2010-2011 were subjected to a thematic analysis using a methodological approach and adaptation of categories derived from prior similar research. Descriptive content analysis was also carried out to assess the valence of the narrative content, characters involved, and whether there was evidence that the experience changed students' perspectives in some way. Narratives contained a variety of positive (19%) and negative content (24%) and many contained a hybrid of both (57%). The most common theme (29%) concerned issues of respect and disrespect in patient, clinical, and coworker interactions. In general, the majority (68%) of students' meaningful experience narratives reflected a change in their perspective (e.g., I learned that...). Narratives containing positive and hybrid content were associated with a change in students' perspective (χ(2) = 10.61, df = 2, p < 0.005). Medical students are keenly aware of the learning environment. Positive and hybrid critical incident narratives were associated with a stated change in their beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors due to the experience. Understanding the events that are meaningful to students can also provide rich feedback to medical educators regarding the ways in which students perceive clinical learning environments and how to best foster their professional development.

REM Sleep Enhancement of Probabilistic Classification Learning is Sensitive to Subsequent Interference

PubMed Central

Barsky, Murray M.; Tucker, Matthew A.; Stickgold, Robert

2015-01-01

During wakefulness the brain creates meaningful relationships between disparate stimuli in ways that escape conscious awareness. Processes active during sleep can strengthen these relationships, leading to more adaptive use of those stimuli when encountered during subsequent wake. Performance on the weather prediction task (WPT), a well-studied measure of implicit probabilistic learning, has been shown to improve significantly following a night of sleep, with stronger initial learning predicting more nocturnal REM sleep. We investigated this relationship further, studying the effect on WPT performance of a daytime nap containing REM sleep. We also added an interference condition after the nap/wake period as an additional probe of memory strength. Our results show that a nap significantly boosts WPT performance, and that this improvement is correlated with the amount of REM sleep obtained during the nap. When interference training is introduced following the nap, however, this REM-sleep benefit vanishes. In contrast, following an equal period of wake, performance is both unchanged from training and unaffected by interference training. Thus, while the true probabilistic relationships between WPT stimuli are strengthened by sleep, these changes are selectively susceptible to the destructive effects of retroactive interference, at least in the short term. PMID:25769506

Developing Writing Proficiency for the Lower-Level Foreign Language Student.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeBoer, Valetta Jane

1984-01-01

Learning to communicate is important for today's foreign language student, and it is important to provide meaningful communicative experiences in writing as well as speaking the language. A letter exchange between peers can provide a meaningful and exciting writing experience for lower-level students. While not entirely without problems, arranging…

Exploring Novel Tools for Assessing High School Students' Meaningful Understanding of Organic Reactions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vachliotis, Theodoros; Salta, Katerina; Vasiliou, Petroula; Tzougraki, Chryssa

2011-01-01

Systemic assessment questions (SAQs) are novel assessment tools used in the context of the Systemic Approach to Teaching and Learning (SATL) model. The purpose of this model is to enhance students' meaningful understanding of scientific concepts by use of constructivist concept mapping procedures, which emphasize the development of systems…

Teacher Leadership Enactment in Professional Learning Community Contexts: Towards a Better Understanding of the Phenomenon

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hairon, Salleh; Goh, Jonathan Wee Pin; Chua, Catherine Siew Kheng

2015-01-01

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in education. However, PLCs are dependent on how group members collectively work and learn towards shared goals on improving teaching and learning. This would require leadership to support meaningful and productive interactions within PLC contexts, and hence, the…

Implementing an Active Learning Environment to Influence Students' Motivation in Biochemistry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cicuto, Camila Aparecida Tolentino; Torres, Bayardo Baptista

2016-01-01

The Biochemistry: Biomolecules Structure and Metabolism course's goal is to promote meaningful learning through an active learning environment. Thus, study periods (SP) and discussion groups (DG) are used as a substitute for lecture classes. The goal of this study was to evaluate how this learning environment influences students' motivation (n =…

Medical Students' Evaluation of Physiology Learning Environments in Two Nigerian Medical Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anyaehie, U. S. B.; Nwobodo, E.; Oze, G.; Nwagha, U. I.; Orizu, I.; Okeke, T.; Anyanwu, G. E.

2011-01-01

The expansion of biomedical knowledge and the pursuit of more meaningful learning have led to world-wide evidence-based innovative changes in medical education and curricula. The recent emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and student-centred learning environments are, however, not being implemented in Nigerian medical schools. Traditional…

Examining Teaching Based on Errors in Mathematics Amongst Pupils with Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Magen-Nagar, Noga

2016-01-01

Teaching mathematics while learning from students' mistakes, errors and misconceptions, is most important for meaningful learning. This study was based on intervention programs prepared by preservice teachers. It aimed to examine their knowledge of assessment of errors in mathematics amongst pupils with learning disabilities, and their use as a…

Preparing Advocates: Service-Learning in TESOL for Future Mainstream Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Jessie l.

2013-01-01

Service-learning pedagogy can provide future educators a meaningful introduction to the field of TESOL and the English language learners (ELLs) it serves. This article briefly describes one approach to integrating service-learning into an Introduction to TESOL course and presents research findings on TESOL students' learning outcomes, which…

Using Learning Analytics to Assess Student Learning in Online Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Florence; Ndoye, Abdou

2016-01-01

Learning analytics can be used to enhance student engagement and performance in online courses. Using learning analytics, instructors can collect and analyze data about students and improve the design and delivery of instruction to make it more meaningful for them. In this paper, the authors review different categories of online assessments and…

Economic Education Laboratory: Initiating a Meaningful Economic Learning through Laboratory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noviani, Leny; Soetjipto, Budi Eko; Sabandi, Muhammad

2015-01-01

Laboratory is considered as one of the resources in supporting the learning process. The laboratory can be used as facilities to deepen the concepts, learning methods and enriching students' knowledge and skills. Learning process by utilizing the laboratory facilities can help lecturers and students in grasping the concept easily, constructing the…

Designing Blended Learning Interventions for the 21st Century Student

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eagleton, Saramarie

2017-01-01

The learning requirements of diverse groups of students in higher education challenge educators to design learning interventions that meet the need of 21st century students. A model was developed to assist lecturers, especially those that are new to the profession, to use a blended approach to design meaningful learning interventions for…

Teaching for Meaningful Learning: A Review of Research on Inquiry-Based and Cooperative Learning. Book Excerpt

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barron, Brigid; Darling-Hammond, Linda

2008-01-01

The George Lucas Educational Foundation began in 1991 with an ambitious mission: to demonstrate how innovative learning environments in classrooms, supported by powerful new technologies, could revolutionize learning. As an organization founded by George Lucas, its members believed that the same benefits of technology that were transforming…

Students' Understanding of Genetics Concepts: The Effect of Reasoning Ability and Learning Approaches

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kiliç, Didem; Saglam, Necdet

2014-01-01

Students tend to learn genetics by rote and may not realise the interrelationships in daily life. Because reasoning abilities are necessary to construct relationships between concepts and rote learning impedes the students' sound understanding, it was predicted that having high level of formal reasoning and adopting meaningful learning orientation…

Facilitating Students' Ownership of Learning in Science by Developing Lifelong Learning Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleming, Keith; Panizzon, Debra

2010-01-01

Learning is most effective when the scientific context used in the classroom is a transformed extension of the students' real world and so inspires students' intrinsic motivation, encouraging students to ask meaningful questions and seek their own answers through an inquiry or investigative approach. The Student Owned Learning Model (SOLM)…

Psychological Principles in Materials Selection.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colvin, Cynthia M.

Those psychological principles which might aid the teacher in the selection of instructional materials are examined. Since learning is a process which builds sequentially on past learning, beginning reading materials should include words that have personal relevance for the individual child. Meaningful material is learned more quickly than…

Embodied Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stolz, Steven A.

2015-01-01

This article argues that psychological discourse fails miserably to provide an account of learning that can explain how humans come to understand, particularly understanding that has been grasped meaningfully. Part of the problem with psychological approaches to learning is that they are disconnected from the integral role embodiment plays in how…

Virtual Museum Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Prosser, Dominic; Eddisford, Susan

2004-01-01

This paper examines children's and adults' attitudes to virtual representations of museum objects. Drawing on empirical research data gained from two web-based digital learning environments. The paper explores the characteristics of on-line learning activities that move children from a sense of wonder into meaningful engagement with objects and…

Orchestrating Inquiry Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Littleton, Karen, Ed.; Scanlon, Eileen, Ed.; Sharples, Mike, Ed.

2011-01-01

There is currently a rapidly growing interest in inquiry learning and an emerging consensus among researchers that, particularly when supported by technology, it can be a significant vehicle for developing higher order thinking skills. Inquiry learning methods also offer learners meaningful and productive approaches to the development of their…

Instructional Variables in Meaningful Learning of Computer Programming.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Richard E.

Some 120 undergraduate students participated in experiments to learn how novice computer programers learn to interact with the computer. Two instructional booklets were used: A "rule" booklet consisted of definitions and examples of seven modified FORTRAN statements and appropriate grammar rules; the "model" booklet was…

Design and Evaluation of a Collaborative Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Qiyun

2009-01-01

Collaboration becomes an essential competency in the current knowledge society. In this study, a collaborative learning environment was designed to facilitate students in group collaboration. Instructional support strategies of friendship and meaningful learning tasks were applied to promote collaboration. Scaffolding strategies such as writing…

Predictors of Spoken Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Patrick C. M.; Ettlinger, Marc

2011-01-01

We report two sets of experiments showing that the large individual variability in language learning success in adults can be attributed to neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, cognitive, and perceptual factors. In the first set of experiments, native English-speaking adults learned to incorporate lexically meaningfully pitch patterns in words. We…

Anatomy by whole body dissection: a focus group study of students' learning experience.

PubMed

Burgess, Annette; Ramsey-Stewart, George

2015-01-01

The social construction of knowledge within medical education is essential for learning. Students' interactions within groups and associated learning artifacts can meaningfully impact learning. Situated cognition theory poses that knowledge, thinking, and learning are located in experience. In recent years, there has been a reported decline in time spent on anatomy by whole body dissection (AWBD) within medical programs. However, teaching by surgeons in AWBD provides unique opportunities for students, promoting a deeper engagement in learning. In this study, we apply situated cognition theory as a conceptual framework to explore students' perceptions of their learning experience within the 2014 iteration of an 8-week elective AWBD course. At the end of the course, all students (n=24) were invited to attend one of three focus groups. Framework analysis was used to code and categorize data into themes. In total, 20/24 (83%) students participated in focus groups. Utilizing situated cognition theory as a conceptual framework, we illustrate students' learning experiences within the AWBD course. Students highlighted opportunities to create and reinforce their own knowledge through active participation in authentic dissection tasks; guidance and clinical context provided by surgeons as supervisors; and the provision of an inclusive learning community. Situated cognition theory offers a valuable lens through which to view students' learning experience in the anatomy dissection course. By doing so, the importance of providing clinical relevance to medical teaching is highlighted. Additionally, the value of having surgeons teach AWBD and the experience they share is illustrated. The team learning course design, with varying teaching methods and frequent assessments, prompting student-student and student-teacher interaction, was also beneficial for student learning.

Children's associative learning: automatic and deliberate encoding of meaningful associations.

PubMed

Guttentag, R

1995-01-01

Three experiments were conducted examining 10- and 11-year-old children's deliberate and automatic encoding of meaningful associative relationships on a paired-associate learning task. Subjects in Experiment 1 were presented pairs of related and unrelated words under deliberate memorization and item-specific incidental-learning conditions. Cued-recall performance was superior with related relative to unrelated pairs under both instructional conditions, suggesting that the encoding of an association between items occurred automatically with meaningfully related words. In Experiment 2, it was found that execution of a verbal elaboration strategy required more time with unrelated than with related pairs, suggesting greater ease of elaboration strategy execution with related materials. Experiment 3 monitored strategy use online using a think-aloud procedure. Cued-recall performance was superior with related pairs when subjects used rehearsal. In contrast, elaboration produced equivalent levels of recall with both types of items, but subjects executed the strategy successfully more often with related than with unrelated pairs. These findings are discussed in terms of the role of automatic processes and the effort demands of strategy execution in children's strategy use.

Politics and the Dilemma of Meaningful Access to Education: The Nigerian Story. CREATE Pathways to Access. Research Monograph No. 56

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Obanya, Pai

2011-01-01

This paper makes a case for "good politics for good education", with special reference to Nigeria. It surveys the impact of good and bad politics on the attainment of Meaningful Access to education with special focus on Nigeria's Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme. Good politics is to be likened to what the French call "la…

Compute-to-Learn: Authentic Learning via Development of Interactive Computer Demonstrations within a Peer-Led Studio Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jafari, Mina; Welden, Alicia Rae; Williams, Kyle L.; Winograd, Blair; Mulvihill, Ellen; Hendrickson, Heidi P.; Lenard, Michael; Gottfried, Amy; Geva, Eitan

2017-01-01

In this paper, we report on the implementation of a novel compute-to-learn pedagogy, which is based upon the theories of situated cognition and meaningful learning. The "compute-to-learn" pedagogy is designed to simulate an authentic research experience as part of the undergraduate curriculum, including project development, teamwork,…

Design, Analysis and User Acceptance of Architectural Design Education in Learning System Based on Knowledge Management Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Yun-Wu; Lin, Yu-An; Wen, Ming-Hui; Perng, Yeng-Hong; Hsu, I-Ting

2016-01-01

The major purpose of this study is to develop an architectural design knowledge management learning system with corresponding learning activities to help the students have meaningful learning and improve their design capability in their learning process. Firstly, the system can help the students to obtain and share useful knowledge. Secondly,…

When Collaborative Learning Meets Nature: Collaborative Learning as a Meaningful Learning Tool in the Ecology Inquiry Based Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rozenszayn, Ronit; Assaraf, Orit Ben-Zvi

2011-01-01

This research suggests utilizing collaborative learning among high school students for better performance on ecology inquiry-based projects. A case study of nine 12th grade students who participated in collaborative learning sessions in the open field and in class is examined. The results show that the students concentrated on discussing the…

Meaningful Engagement in Facebook Learning Environments: Merging Social and Academic Lives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Jenny; Lin, Chun-Fu C.; Yu, Wei-Chieh W.; Wu, Emily

2013-01-01

This study compared the effectiveness of different learning environments between interactive Facebook instructional method and non-Facebook instructional method for undergraduate students. Two outcome dimensions were measured: student grades and learning engagement. A pre-test-posttest control group experimental design was used. The experimental…

Assessing Online Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Comeaux, Patricia, Ed.

2004-01-01

Students in traditional as well as online classrooms need more than grades from their instructors--they also need meaningful feedback to help bridge their academic knowledge and skills with their daily lives. With the increasing number of online learning classrooms, the question of how to consistently assess online learning has become increasingly…

Dancing the Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skoning, Stacey

2010-01-01

This article demonstrates how the use of creative movement and dance offers effective instructional strategies to meet the diverse learning needs of students in an inclusive classroom. Every day in one multi-age, fully inclusive classroom, students are meaningfully engaged in learning through movement--they move to learn science, social studies,…

Living and Learning Within a Limited Budget.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Irwin, Martha

Financial problems may be beneficial to certain learning situations because they may provide the teachable moment for educators to gain deeper understandings of alternative curricular practices, such as more extensive use of local resources to provide inexpensive but meaningful learning experiences. Educators must encourage and help students to…

Implementing the virtual reality learning environment: Second Life.

PubMed

Schmidt, Bonnie; Stewart, Stephanie

2009-01-01

Today, faculty members are challenged to find meaningful learning activities that enhance online nursing education. Second Life is an innovative Internet-based strategy that may be used to engage students in active learning. The authors discuss how this technology was implemented into an accelerated online nursing program.

Metacognitive and Multimedia Support of Experiments in Inquiry Learning for Science Teacher Preparation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruckermann, Till; Aschermann, Ellen; Bresges, André; Schlüter, Kirsten

2017-01-01

Promoting preservice science teachers' experimentation competency is required to provide a basis for meaningful learning through experiments in schools. However, preservice teachers show difficulties when experimenting. Previous research revealed that cognitive scaffolding promotes experimentation competency by structuring the learning process,…

Empowering Learners through Blended Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owston, Ron

2018-01-01

Blended learning appears to facilitate learner empowerment more readily than either face-to-face or fully online courses. This contention is supported by a review of literature on the affordances of blended learning that support Thomas and Velthouse's (1990) four conditions of empowerment: choice, meaningfulness, competence, and impact. Blended…

Playing in the "Gutter": Cultivating Creativity in Medical Education and Practice.

PubMed

Liou, Kevin T; Jamorabo, Daniel S; Dollase, Richard H; Dumenco, Luba; Schiffman, Fred J; Baruch, Jay M

2016-03-01

In comics, "gutters" are the empty spaces between panels that readers must navigate to weave disjointed visual sequences into coherent narratives. A gutter, however, is more than a blank space--it represents a creative zone for making connections and for constructing meaning from disparate ideas, values, and experiences. Over the course of medical training, learners encounter various "gutters" created by the disconnected subject blocks and learning experiences within the curriculum, the ambiguity and uncertainty of medical practice, and the conflicts and tensions within clinical encounters. Navigating these gutters requires not only medical knowledge and skills but also creativity, defined as the ability to make connections between disparate fragments to create meaningful, new configurations. To cultivate medical students' creative capacity, the authors developed the Integrated Clinical Arts (ICA) program, a required component of the first-year curriculum at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. ICA workshops are designed to place students in a metaphorical gutter, wherein they can practice making connections between medicine and arts-based disciplines. By playing in the gutter, students have opportunities to broaden their perspectives, gain new insights into both medical practice and themselves, and explore different ways of making meaning. Student feedback on the ICA program highlights an important role for creativity and the arts in medicine: to transform gutters from potential learning barriers into opportunities for discovery, self-reflection, and personal growth.

Temporally contiguous pencast instruction promotes meaningful learning for dental and dental hygiene students in physiology.

PubMed

Roesch, Darren M

2014-01-01

Smartpens allow for the creation of computerized "pencasts" that combine voice narration with handwritten notes and illustrations. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of voluntary participation in extracurricular instruction with a pencast on student learning. Dental and dental hygiene students were given instruction in a complex physiological topic using lecture and static slides. An Internet link to a pencast that covered the complex topic in a more temporally contiguous fashion was also provided for voluntary review. The students were given a multiple-choice exam that consisted of retention and transfer test questions. Sixty-nine percent of the students who did not watch the pencast and 89 percent of the students who watched the pencast answered the retention test question correctly (p=0.08). Fifty-four percent of the students who did not watch the pencast and 90 percent of the students who watched the pencast answered the transfer test question correctly (p=0.005). This finding indicates that students who watched the pencast performed better on a transfer test, a measurement of meaningful learning, than students who received only the narrated instruction with static images. This supports the hypothesis that temporally contiguous instruction promotes more meaningful learning than lecture accompanied only by static slide images.

A student-centered approach for developing active learning: the construction of physical models as a teaching tool in medical physiology.

PubMed

Rezende-Filho, Flávio Moura; da Fonseca, Lucas José Sá; Nunes-Souza, Valéria; Guedes, Glaucevane da Silva; Rabelo, Luiza Antas

2014-09-15

Teaching physiology, a complex and constantly evolving subject, is not a simple task. A considerable body of knowledge about cognitive processes and teaching and learning methods has accumulated over the years, helping teachers to determine the most efficient way to teach, and highlighting student's active participation as a means to improve learning outcomes. In this context, this paper describes and qualitatively analyzes an experience of a student-centered teaching-learning methodology based on the construction of physiological-physical models, focusing on their possible application in the practice of teaching physiology. After having Physiology classes and revising the literature, students, divided in small groups, built physiological-physical models predominantly using low-cost materials, for studying different topics in Physiology. Groups were followed by monitors and guided by teachers during the whole process, finally presenting the results in a Symposium on Integrative Physiology. Along the proposed activities, students were capable of efficiently creating physiological-physical models (118 in total) highly representative of different physiological processes. The implementation of the proposal indicated that students successfully achieved active learning and meaningful learning in Physiology while addressing multiple learning styles. The proposed method has proved to be an attractive, accessible and relatively simple approach to facilitate the physiology teaching-learning process, while facing difficulties imposed by recent requirements, especially those relating to the use of experimental animals and professional training guidelines. Finally, students' active participation in the production of knowledge may result in a holistic education, and possibly, better professional practices.

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

Walker, Heidi, E-mail: heidi.mwalker@yahoo.ca; Sinclair, A. John, E-mail: john.sinclair@ad.umanitoba.ca; Spaling, Harry, E-mail: harry.spaling@kingsu.ca

Meaningful public engagement is a challenging, but promising, feature of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) due to its potential for integrating sustainability principles into policies, plans and programs in developing countries such as Kenya. This research examined two selected SEA case studies to identify the extent of participation, learning outcomes attributable to participation, and if any learning outcomes led to social action for sustainability at the community level. Strengths across the two cases were the inclusion of marginalized populations and consideration of socio-economic concerns. Consistent weaknesses included inadequate notice, document inaccessibility, lack of feedback and communication, and late analysis of alternatives.more » Despite some learning conditions being unfulfilled, examples of instrumental, communicative, and transformative learning were identified through a focus group and semi-structured interviews with community participants and public officials. Some of these learning outcomes led to individual and social actions that contribute to sustainability. -- Highlights: • The strengths and weaknesses of Kenyan SEA public participation processes were identified. • Multiple deficiencies in the SEA process likely frustrate meaningful public engagement. • Participant learning was observed despite process weaknesses. • Participant learning can lead to action for sustainability at the community level.« less

The Asset-Based Context Matrix: A Tool for Assessing Children's Learning Opportunities and Participation in Natural Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Linda L.; Mott, Donald W.; Batman, Deb

2004-01-01

This article provides a description of the "Asset-Based Context Matrix" (ABC Matrix). The ABC Matrix is an assessment tool for designing interventions for children in natural learning environments. The tool is based on research evidence indicating that children's learning is enhanced in contextually meaningful learning environments. The ABC Matrix…

Meaning-Led Learning for Pupils with Severe and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goss, Phil

2006-01-01

This paper proposes that learning and teaching for pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties could be enhanced by a closer focus on emotional factors and on the careful identification of what is meaningful for them. Phil Goss, senior lecturer in counselling and psychotherapy at the University of Central Lancashire draws on…

Fostering Self-Reflection and Meaningful Learning: Earth Science Professional Development for Middle School Science Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Monet, Julie A.; Etkina, Eugenia

2008-01-01

This paper describes the analysis of teachers' journal reflections during an inquiry-based professional development program. As a part of their learning experience, participants reflected on what they learned and how they learned. Progress of subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge was assessed though surveys and pre- and posttests. We…

e-Learning, Online Learning, and Distance Learning Environments: Are They the Same?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Joi L.; Dickson-Deane, Camille; Galyen, Krista

2011-01-01

It is not uncommon that researchers face difficulties when performing meaningful cross-study comparisons for research. Research associated with the distance learning realm can be even more difficult to use as there are different environments with a variety of characteristics. We implemented a mixed-method analysis of research articles to find out…

A Project-Based Learning Approach to Teaching Physics for Pre-Service Elementary School Teacher Education Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldstein, Olzan

2016-01-01

This paper describes the impact of the project-based learning (PBL) approach on learning and teaching physics from the perspective of pre-service elementary school teacher education students and an instructor. This approach promoted meaningful learning (mainly in the scope of projects), higher motivation, and active involvement of students in…

Effect of Phonetic Association on Learning Vocabulary in Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bozavli, Ebubekir

2017-01-01

Word is one of the most important components of a natural language. Speech is meaningful because of the meanings of words. Vocabulary acquired in one's mother tongue is learned consciously in a foreign language in non-native settings. Learning vocabulary in a system based on grammar is generally neglected or learned in conventional ways. This…

Mindset about Intelligence and Meaningful and Mindful Effort: It's Not My Hardest Class Any More!

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiersema, Janice A.; Licklider, Barbara; Thompson, Janette R.; Hendrich, Suzanne; Haynes, Cynthia; Thompson, Katherine

2015-01-01

College students' implicit theories (or mindsets) about intelligence can affect not only their motivations toward learning, but also their cognitive habits and behaviors while learning thus impacting academic achievement. In this paper we describe learning experiences we used with our learning community to 1) introduce students to the concept of…

How School Districts Can Support Deeper Learning: The Need for Performance Alignment. Executive Summary. Deeper Learning Research Series

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Honig, Meredith I.; Rainey, Lydia R.

2015-01-01

School district leaders nationwide aspire to help their schools become vibrant places for learning--where students have meaningful academic opportunities "and" develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the ability to communicate effectively, and other deeper learning capacities that are essential to success in later life.…

Using Blended Learning and Out-of-School Visits: Pedagogies for Effective Science Teaching in the Twenty-First Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coll, Sandhya Devi; Coll, Richard Kevin

2018-01-01

Background: Recent research and curriculum reforms have indicated the need for diversifying teaching approaches by drawing upon student interest and engagement in ways which makes learning science meaningful. Purpose: This study examines the integration of informal/free choice learning which occurred during learning experiences outside school…

Students' Strategies of Measuring Time Using Traditional "Gasing" Game in Third Grade of Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jaelani, Anton; Putri, Ratu Ilma Indra; Hartono, Yusuf

2013-01-01

Understanding of measuring time has difficulty for children because it is intangible. Standard units often used directly by teacher for learning time measurement. Many researches involved games in designing learning material to facilitate fun and meaningful learning for children. For this reason, learning of time measurement that connects with…

An Examination of Online Instructional Practices Based on the Learning Styles of Graduate Education Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tonsing-Meyer, Julie

2013-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the perceptions of online learning based on the learning styles of currently enrolled online graduate education students. Designing courses to provide meaningful experiences based on the learning styles of students, as well as the unique approaches to teaching online is a contemporary…

Applying the Learning Community Model to Graduate Education: Linking Research and Teaching between Core Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Romsdahl, Rebecca J.; Hill, Michael J.

2012-01-01

In graduate education, there is often a great divide between classroom learning and research endeavors. Using learning community (LC) values and strategies, our goal is to build stronger and more meaningful ties between these two aspects of graduate education so that students see them as complimentary learning rather than separate components. This…

Towards Innovative Virtual Learning in Vocational Teacher Education: Narratives as a Form of Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haverila, Matti; Myllyla, Marjatta; Torp, Hanna

2009-01-01

The purpose of the research was to get insights into the ways learning strategies typically used by adult learners can be taken into consideration when designing web-based courses to facilitate learning in teacher education. Teacher students wrote narratives in discussion forums by completing various types of group projects. The relevant…

Students mentoring students in a service-learning clinical supervision experience: an educational case report.

PubMed

Lattanzi, Jill Black; Campbell, Sandra L; Dole, Robin L; Palombaro, Kerstin M

2011-10-01

Service-learning projects present the opportunity to combine academic skill practice and peer mentorship with meaningful community service. Implicit learning outcomes include an enhanced understanding of social responsibility and professional development-concepts difficult to teach in the classroom. The purpose of this educational case report is to describe the development, application, and outcomes of a service-learning project designed to facilitate peer mentorship and the development of social responsibility. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROCESS: Widener University mandated that all programs offer student community service opportunities on Martin Luther King Day. In response, the physical therapy program developed a plan to clean and screen assistive and mobility devices and provide blood pressure screening at designated community sites. APPLICATION OF THE PROCESS: All faculty and all members of the first-year and third-year Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) classes participated. The students and a faculty member traveled to designated community sites in teams. First-year students were able to practice newly acquired skills under the supervision and peer mentorship of third-year students. Outcomes of the service-learning project were assessed through a tally of services rendered, measurement of curricular goal achievement, a survey of the community partners' satisfaction with the event, and consideration of both first-year and third-year DPT student reflection papers. The service-learning project was effective in meeting a community need, enhancing community partner relationships, fostering student understandings of social responsibility, and creating a valuable peer mentorship experience.

"Seeing the Whole Elephant": Changing Mindsets and Empowering Stakeholders to Meaningfully Manage Accountability and Improvement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bush-Mecenas, Susan; Marsh, Julie A.; Montes de Oca, David; Hough, Heather

2018-01-01

School accountability and improvement policy are on the precipice of a paradigm shift. While the multiple-measure dashboard accountability approach holds great promise for promoting more meaningful learning opportunities for all students, our research indicates that this can come with substantial challenges in practice. We reflect upon the lessons…

Meaningful Products: Making the Whole Greater Than the Sum of the Parts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jansen, Barbara A.

2005-01-01

A library media specialist believes students should go beyond the facts and other information they find in sources. They can stretch their intellect and engage them in the learning process. The students can produce more meaningful and significant results by combining information found in sources, their original idea and transferable skills in the…

A Layered Approach to Critical Friendship as a Means to Support Pedagogical Innovation in Pre-Service Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fletcher, Tim; Ní Chróinín, Déirdre; O'Sullivan, Mary

2016-01-01

In this article we describe and interpret how two distinct layers of critical friendship were used to support a pedagogical innovation in pre-service teacher education. The innovation, "Learning about Meaningful Physical Education" (LAMPE), focuses on ways to teach future teachers to foster meaningful experiences for learners in physical…

Doing the Project and Learning the Content: Designing Project-Based Science Curricula for Meaningful Understanding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kanter, David E.

2010-01-01

Project-based science curricula can improve students' usable or meaningful understanding of the science content underlying a project. However, such curricula designed around "performances" wherein students design or make something do not always do this. We researched ways to design performance project-based science curricula (pPBSc) to better…

Using Facebook as an E-Portfolio in Enhancing Pre-Service Teachers' Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kabilan, Muhammad Kamarul

2016-01-01

This study aims to determine if "Facebook," when used as an online teacher portfolio (OTP), could contribute meaningfully to pre-service teachers' professional development (PD) and in what ways the OTP can be meaningful. Pre-service teachers (n = 91) were asked to develop OTP using "Facebook" and engage in learning and…

Providing Students with a Sense of Purpose by Adapting a Professional Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westbroek, Hanna B.; Klaassen, Kees; Bulte, Astrid; Pilot, Albert

2010-01-01

This article reports on a design study aimed at achieving that students experience their learning as meaningful. Two conditions for meaningful activities were identified: (1) students should be motivated to attain a certain goal and (2) they should have rudimentary conceptual and procedural knowledge of how to attain that goal. Together, these…

Teaching and Learning Primary Mathematics in Singapore.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seng, SeokHoon

Noting that current views of mathematical learning and teaching focus on the child as a responsible student who attends to instruction and who constructs what is taught in a personal and meaningful way, this paper examines scaffolding and mediation strategies and describes the learning and teaching of elementary school level mathematics in…

Assessment in Service-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonald, Betty

2012-01-01

Offering meaningful service to the community while engaging in active learning is a pedagogical strategy that has come to be known as service-learning. Both learner and the community are mutual recipients of benefits derived from the process. The fundamental question that remains is, "How do we assess the learner in this non traditional…

Bye, Bye Verbal-Only Method of Learning: Welcome Interactive Multimedia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Faryadi, Qais

2006-01-01

Today, our verbal-only paradigm of teaching is on its way out. Interactive multimedia instructions have enabled learners to go forward smiling. Learners are motivated and encouraged by the evolving interactive multimedia to learn cooperatively and above all to learn meaningfully. Integration of interactive multimedia and technology in our…

Explorations in Statistics: the Bootstrap

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2009-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This fourth installment of Explorations in Statistics explores the bootstrap. The bootstrap gives us an empirical approach to estimate the theoretical variability among possible values of a sample statistic such as the…

Processing the Experience: Strategies To Enhance and Generalize Learning. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luckner, John L.; Nadler, Reldan S.

This book contends that learning is enhanced through active involvement in personally meaningful experiences accompanied by processing for meaning and future use. While some processing takes place automatically, much can be done strategically to enhance and generalize learning. Intended as a resource for experiential educators and therapists, this…

Explorations in Statistics: Power

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2010-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This fifth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" revisits power, a concept fundamental to the test of a null hypothesis. Power is the probability that we reject the null hypothesis when it is false. Four…

Explorations in Statistics: Confidence Intervals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2009-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This third installment of "Explorations in Statistics" investigates confidence intervals. A confidence interval is a range that we expect, with some level of confidence, to include the true value of a population parameter…

The Emotional Turn in Higher Education: A Psychoanalytic Contribution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gilmore, Sarah; Anderson, Valerie

2016-01-01

This article contributes to contemporary debates about the significance of emotions within Higher Education. Using a psychoanalytic lens we analyse the ways in which experiences of anxiety and tension are essential for learning. The anxiety associated with learning can stimulate meaningful and reflexive outcomes but "learning inaction"…

Towards a Social Networks Model for Online Learning & Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chung, Kon Shing Kenneth; Paredes, Walter Christian

2015-01-01

In this study, we develop a theoretical model to investigate the association between social network properties, "content richness" (CR) in academic learning discourse, and performance. CR is the extent to which one contributes content that is meaningful, insightful and constructive to aid learning and by social network properties we…

On the Effectiveness of Robot-Assisted Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Sungjin; Noh, Hyungjong; Lee, Jonghoon; Lee, Kyusong; Lee, Gary Geunbae; Sagong, Seongdae; Kim, Munsang

2011-01-01

This study introduces the educational assistant robots that we developed for foreign language learning and explores the effectiveness of robot-assisted language learning (RALL) which is in its early stages. To achieve this purpose, a course was designed in which students have meaningful interactions with intelligent robots in an immersive…

Restrictive Citizenship: Civic-Oriented Service-Learning Opportunities for All Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mann, Jay A.; Dymond, Stacy K.; Bonati, Michelle L.; Neeper, Lance S.

2015-01-01

Citizenship education that uses service-learning continues to be implemented in a manner that may restrict many students from full, meaningful participation. The authors contend that much of the literature on civic-oriented service-learning unnecessarily positions successful projects at the extremes: (a) political socialization versus civic…

From Telling, to Teaching, towards Learning: A New Approach to Nitrogen Fertility Management of Cereals in Northern Australia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lawrence, David; Cawley, Scott

1999-01-01

An agricultural extension workshop on nitrogen use was evaluated by 75% of Australian farmers participating. Use of action learning and adult learning principles helped make the issues presented meaningful and influenced 67% of the respondents' fertilizer decisions. (SK)

Explorations in Statistics: The Analysis of Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas; Williams, Calvin L.

2015-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This tenth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores the analysis of a potential change in some physiological response. As researchers, we often express absolute change as percent change so we can…

Integrating Telecollaboration for Intercultural Language Acquisition at Secondary Education: Lessons Learned

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jauregi, Kristi

2015-01-01

The TILA project originated from the need to explore whether and how telecollaboration affects language learning processes for communication, intercultural understanding and motivation of youngsters learning foreign languages at secondary schools and to empower teachers to pioneer meaningful pedagogical innovation in the curriculum of foreign…

A Narrative Analysis of a Teacher Educator's Professional Learning Journey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vanassche, Eline; Kelchtermans, Geert

2016-01-01

This article reports on a narrative analysis of one teacher educator's learning journey in a two-year professional development project. Professional development is conceived of as the complex learning processes resulting from the meaningful interactions between the individual teacher educator and his/her working context. Our analysis indicates…

Pre-Service Teachers Identify Connections between Teaching-Learning and Literacy Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Kimy; Robinson, Quintin; Braun-Monegan, Jenelle

2016-01-01

This study explores the transformation of pre-service teachers in their attainment of effective teaching skills. Pre-service teachers learn about the learning-to-read process and implementations of component skills of teaching reading within the practicum. More importantly, pre-service teachers achieve a meaningful understanding of the…

How Service-Learning Can Ignite Thinking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serriere, Stephanie; McGarry, Lori; Fuentes, David; Mitra, Dana

2012-01-01

At its best, service learning involves students making meaningful connections to their own community and feeling empowered by the experience. Unfortunately, in the elementary years, student service-learning is often a one-shot effort in which adults make decisions for children, preventing them from truly having a hand in the project's direction…

Explorations in Statistics: Permutation Methods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2012-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This eighth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores permutation methods, empiric procedures we can use to assess an experimental result--to test a null hypothesis--when we are reluctant to trust statistical…

Brain-Based Education: Its Pedagogical Implications and Research Relevance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laxman, Kumar; Chin, Yap Kueh

2010-01-01

The brain, being the organ of learning, must be understood if classrooms are to be places of meaningful learning. Understanding the brain has the potential to alter the foundation of education, transform traditional classrooms to interactive learning environments and promote better instructional approaches amongst teachers. Brain-based education…

How Does Technology-Enabled Active Learning Affect Undergraduate Students' Understanding of Electromagnetism Concepts?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dori, Yehudit Judy; Belcher, John

2005-01-01

Educational technology supports meaningful learning and enables the presentation of spatial and dynamic images, which portray relationships among complex concepts. The Technology-Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) involves media-rich software for simulation and visualization in freshman…

Supporting the "Collaborative" Part of Wiki-Mediated Collaborative Learning Activities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larusson, Johann Ari

2010-01-01

Prior research has highlighted the educational benefit of enabling students to participate in collaborative learning activities. Developing technology that extends the physical boundaries of the classroom and enables students to engage in meaningful collaborative learning activities outside class time can be of significant value. For any…

Creating value: unifying silos into public health business intelligence.

PubMed

Davidson, Arthur J

2014-01-01

Through September 2014, federal investments in health information technology have been unprecedented, with more than 25 billion dollars in incentive funds distributed to eligible hospitals and providers. Over 85 percent of eligible United States hospitals and 60 percent of eligible providers have used certified electronic health record (EHR) technology and received Meaningful Use incentive funds (HITECH Act1). Certified EHR technology could create new public health (PH) value through novel and rapidly evolving data-use opportunities, never before experienced by PH. The long-standing "silo" approach to funding has fragmented PH programs and departments,2 but the components for integrated business intelligence (i.e., tools and applications to help users make informed decisions) and maximally reuse data are available now. Challenges faced by PH agencies on the road to integration are plentiful, but an emphasis on PH systems and services research (PHSSR) may identify gaps and solutions for the PH community to address. Technology and system approaches to leverage this information explosion to support a transformed health care system and population health are proposed. By optimizing this information opportunity, PH can play a greater role in the learning health system.

Standardizing Interpretive Training to Create a More Meaningful Visitor Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carr, Rob

2016-01-01

Implementing a standardized interpretive training and mentoring program across multiple departments has helped created a shared language that staff and volunteers use to collaborate and evaluate interpretive programs and products. This has led to more efficient and effective training and measurable improvements in the quality of the visitor's…

An evaluation of meaningful learning in a high school chemistry course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bross, April J.

This study utilized an action research methodology to examine students' understandings of science knowledge, and meaningful learning using the SLD (Science Lecture Demonstration) and laboratory instructional method in a high school chemistry classroom. This method was a modification of the Science Lecture Demonstration Method as developed by Majerich and Schmuckler (2004, in press), the modification due to the addition of a laboratory component. The participants in this study represented a convenience sample which included one class of twenty-two, middle to high socio-economic status students (Mean family income over $75,000/year in 2005 U.S. dollars) in an honors chemistry course at a public high school in the state of New Jersey. These participants included nine girls and thirteen boys. The results of this study indicated what the students' understandings of science knowledge were, how the understandings differed among students, and to what extent those understandings were indicative of meaningful learning. These results were obtained by careful analysis of student generated concept maps, narratives from demonstration quizzes, laboratory reports, and test questions, as well as a teacher/researcher reflection upon the classroom experience. A simple taxonomy for analyzing students' understandings of science knowledge was developed, based upon the work of Majerich (2004). Findings indicated that the students' understanding of science knowledge, as well as the extent of meaningful learning that occurs in the chemistry classroom may be influenced by the roles of: explicit directions, pre-existing knowledge from elementary and middle school science classes, using examples vs. non-examples, macroscopic vs. microscopic views of nature, time for reflection, and everyday vs. scientific language. Results obtained from high school student responses confirmed Novak's observation of elementary students' lack of differentiation between the terms vapor and gas (Novak, 1998).

Low Data Drug Discovery with One-Shot Learning

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Recent advances in machine learning have made significant contributions to drug discovery. Deep neural networks in particular have been demonstrated to provide significant boosts in predictive power when inferring the properties and activities of small-molecule compounds (Ma, J. et al. J. Chem. Inf. Model.2015, 55, 263–27425635324). However, the applicability of these techniques has been limited by the requirement for large amounts of training data. In this work, we demonstrate how one-shot learning can be used to significantly lower the amounts of data required to make meaningful predictions in drug discovery applications. We introduce a new architecture, the iterative refinement long short-term memory, that, when combined with graph convolutional neural networks, significantly improves learning of meaningful distance metrics over small-molecules. We open source all models introduced in this work as part of DeepChem, an open-source framework for deep-learning in drug discovery (Ramsundar, B. deepchem.io. https://github.com/deepchem/deepchem, 2016). PMID:28470045

Dental Students' Study Habits in Flipped/Blended Classrooms and Their Association with Active Learning Practices.

PubMed

Gadbury-Amyot, Cynthia C; Redford, Gloria J; Bohaty, Brenda S

2017-12-01

In recognition of the importance for dental education programs to take a student-centered approach in which students are encouraged to take responsibility for their learning, a pediatric dentistry course redesign aimed at promoting greater active and self-directed learning was implemented at one U.S. dental school. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the students' self-reported study habits and active learning practices necessary for meaningful learning in the flipped/blended classroom. A convenience sample of two classes of second-year dental students in spring 2014 (SP14, n=106) and spring 2015 (SP15, n=106) was invited to participate in the study. Of the SP14 students, 84 participated, for a response rate of 79%; of the SP15 students, 94 participated, for a response rate of 87%. Students' self-reported responses to questions about study strategies with the prerecorded lecture materials and assigned reading materials were examined. Non-parametric analyses resulted in a cohort effect, so data are reported by class. In the SP15 class, 72% reported watching all/more than half of the prerecorded lectures versus 62% of the SP14 class, with a majority watching more than one lecture per week. In the SP15 cohort, 68% used active learning strategies when watching the lectures versus 58.3% of the SP14 cohort. The time of day preferred by the majority of both cohorts for interacting with course materials was 7-11 pm. Both SP14 and SP15 students reported being unlikely to read assigned materials prior to coming to class. Overall, the course redesign appeared to engage students in self-directed active learning. However, the degree to which active learning practices were taking place to achieve meaningful learning was questionable given students' self-reported study strategies. More work is needed to examine strategies for promoting study practices that will lead to meaningful learning.

The comparative effect of individually-generated vs. collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on science concept learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kwon, So Young

Using a quasi-experimental design, the researcher investigated the comparative effects of individually-generated and collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on middle school science concept learning. Qualitative data were analyzed to explain quantitative findings. One hundred sixty-one students (74 boys and 87 girls) in eight, seventh grade science classes at a middle school in Southeast Texas completed the entire study. Using prior science performance scores to assure equivalence of student achievement across groups, the researcher assigned the teacher's classes to one of the three experimental groups. The independent variable, group, consisted of three levels: 40 students in a control group, 59 students trained to individually generate concept maps on computers, and 62 students trained to collaboratively generate concept maps on computers. The dependent variables were science concept learning as demonstrated by comprehension test scores, and quality of concept maps created by students in experimental groups as demonstrated by rubric scores. Students in the experimental groups received concept mapping training and used their newly acquired concept mapping skills to individually or collaboratively construct computer-based concept maps during study time. The control group, the individually-generated concept mapping group, and the collaboratively-generated concept mapping group had equivalent learning experiences for 50 minutes during five days, excepting that students in a control group worked independently without concept mapping activities, students in the individual group worked individually to construct concept maps, and students in the collaborative group worked collaboratively to construct concept maps during their study time. Both collaboratively and individually generated computer-based concept mapping had a positive effect on seventh grade middle school science concept learning but neither strategy was more effective than the other. However, the students who collaboratively generated concept maps created significantly higher quality concept maps than those who individually generated concept maps. The researcher concluded that the concept mapping software, Inspiration(TM), fostered construction of students' concept maps individually or collaboratively for science learning and helped students capture their evolving creative ideas and organize them for meaningful learning. Students in both the individual and the collaborative concept mapping groups had positive attitudes toward concept mapping using Inspiration(TM) software.

Nursing students' assessment of the learning environment in different clinical settings.

PubMed

Bisholt, Birgitta; Ohlsson, Ulla; Engström, Agneta Kullén; Johansson, Annelie Sundler; Gustafsson, Margareta

2014-05-01

Nursing students perform their clinical practice in different types of clinical settings. The clinical learning environment is important for students to be able to achieve desired learning outcomes. Knowledge is lacking about the learning environment in different clinical settings. The aim was to compare the learning environment in different clinical settings from the perspective of the nursing students. A cross-sectional study with comparative design was conducted. Data was collected from 185 nursing students at three universities by means of a questionnaire involving the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES + T) evaluation scale. An open-ended question was added in order to ascertain reasons for dissatisfaction with the clinical placement. The nursing students' satisfaction with the placement did not differ between clinical settings. However, those with clinical placement in hospital departments agreed more strongly that sufficient meaningful learning situations occurred and that learning situations were multi-dimensional. Some students reported that the character of the clinical setting made it difficult to achieve the learning objectives. In the planning of the clinical placement, attention must be paid to whether the setting offers the student a meaningful learning situation where the appropriate learning outcome may be achieved. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

"Applying Anatomy to Something I Care About": Authentic Inquiry Learning and Student Experiences of an Inquiry Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anstey, Lauren M.

2017-01-01

Despite advances to move anatomy education away from its didactic history, there is a continued need for students to contextualize their studies to make learning more meaningful. This article investigates authentic learning in the context of an inquiry-based approach to learning human gross anatomy. Utilizing a case-study design with three groups…

Encouraging Higher-Order Thinking in General Chemistry by Scaffolding Student Learning Using Marzano's Taxonomy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toledo, Santiago; Dubas, Justin M.

2016-01-01

An emphasis on higher-order thinking within the curriculum has been a subject of interest in the chemical and STEM literature due to its ability to promote meaningful, transferable learning in students. The systematic use of learning taxonomies could be a practical way to scaffold student learning in order to achieve this goal. This work proposes…

Teachers' Roles in Designing Meaningful Tasks for Mediating Language Learning through the Use of ICT: A Reflection on Authentic Learning for Young ELLs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roessingh, Hetty

2014-01-01

Task based learning (TBL) continues to evolve as information and communication technology (ICT) inspired tools and teaching approaches afford the possibilities of transforming students' learning experiences by heightening their motivation and sense of autonomy, and in turn, their vocabulary development. To capture this synergy, teachers will need…

Building and Leading a Learning Culture among Teachers: A Case Study of a Shanghai Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haiyan, Qian; Walker, Allan; Xiaowei, Yang

2017-01-01

A positive teacher learning culture is important to effect meaningful changes in schools. Literature has established that successful school leaders can build and nurture learning cultures among teachers. However, less is known about how school leaders can shape the culture and make learning conditions happen at the schools in the Chinese education…

An "Adventure" of MBA Students in Europe: How Volcanic Ash Produced an Incidental Learning Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vazquez, Ana Claudia Souza; Ruas, Roberto Lima; Cervo, Clarissa S.; Hutz, Claudio Simon

2013-01-01

Because the volcanic ash that affected air travel in Western Europe in 2010 was considered as one of the most meaningful learning experiences by a group of MBA students, this article aims to outline the main aspects of an incidental learning situation, rarely described on management education literature. Incidental learning is an unsystematic…

Mediated Learning Experience and Concept Maps: A Pedagogical Tool for Achieving Meaningful Learning in Medical Physiology Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gonzalez, Hilda Leonor; Palencia, Alberto Pardo; Umana, Luis Alfredo; Galindo, Leonor; Villafrade M., Luz Adriana

2008-01-01

Even though comprehension of human physiology is crucial in the clinical setting, students frequently learn part of this subject using rote memory and then are unable to transfer knowledge to other contexts or to solve clinical problems. This study evaluated the impact of articulating the concept map strategy with the mediated learning experience…

Investigating the Roles of Perceived Playfulness, Resistance to Change and Self-Management of Learning in Mobile English Learning Outcome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Rui-Ting; Jang, Syh-Jong; Machtmes, Krisanna; Deggs, David

2012-01-01

Although there is a growing interest in mobile learning, there are limited studies that focus on student knowledge acquisition. As applications and usages of mobile technology have become more and more accepted, it is important and meaningful that researchers and practitioners of mobile learning understand the potential factors that could…

Inquiring into the Dilemmas of Implementing Action Learning. Innovative Session 6. [Concurrent Innovative Session at AHRD Annual Conference, 2000.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yorks, Lyle; Dilworth, Robert L.; Marquardt, Michael J.; Marsick, Victoria; O'Neil, Judy

Action learning is receiving increasing attention from human resource development (HRD) practitioners and the HRD management literature. Action learning has been characterized as follows: (1) working in small groups to take action on meaningful problems while seeking to learn from having taken the specified action lies at the foundation of action…

Impact of social media as an instructional component on content knowledge, attitudes, and public engagement related to global climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Greenberg, Sallie E.

Social media (SM) are considered important avenues to reach citizens and engage them in social change. Given the widespread use of SM and their potential to enhance communication, they could also have significant influence when used as an educational tool. Educators are exploring whether classroom SM use has instructional benefits, such as enhancing interactivity and engagement. It is critical to understand the potential of SM for creating meaningful learning environments and public engagement pathways. Much work remains to understand the use of SM in this context and how to use them effectively. This study draws on active learning theory to examine the impact of SM as an instructional component with community college students learning to make connections among science, social responsibility, and global understanding in an environmental biology course (the Course). Using global climate change as a theme, the Course included a Facebook instructional component. A pretest--posttest, nonrandomized comparison group design was used to measure the impact of Facebook as an integrated component of the Course. The treatment and comparison groups were determined to be comparable based on demographics, access and ownership of digital devices, and SM use despite non-random assignment. No statistically significant differences were found between groups on these factors. The intervention consisted of semester-long required use of Facebook for the treatment group. The impact of the SM intervention was measured in three areas: (a) content knowledge, (b) attitudes toward climate change, and (c) public engagement actions and intentions to act. At the conclusion of the Course, no discernable difference was measured in content knowledge gains between the two groups. However, students who used Facebook experienced statistically significant differences in attitude, becoming increasingly concerned about global climate change. The comparison group demonstrated statistically significant differences in attitudes shifting toward more disengaged. Students who used Facebook showed considerably greater tendency toward action and expressed more intention to act than those who did not. Treatment group participants self-reported in interviews that the learning environment was enhanced in four areas: (a) convenience and logistics, (b) community and communication, (c) engaging learning environment, and (d) alternative participation pathways. Comments classified under the theme convenience and logistics provided insight into how the instructor and participants used Facebook in the intervention, such as to post maps and discuss assignment details. Comments categorized under the theme community and communication were those that made explicit who used Facebook and the impact of the intervention on communication and classroom community in areas such as creating dialog, carrying the discussion beyond the classroom, and having access to the instructor. Responses categorized under the theme engaging learning environment provided specific details about how Facebook use affected participants' engagement in the learning environment, such as their contribution to the course content and increased interaction with the course content. Comments within the alternative participation pathways theme showed ways in which Facebook use facilitated the other three themes, including removing barriers for shy students, providing additional time for issues that arose during class discussions, and through passive participation by reading the posts of classmates. This empirical study demonstrated that the use of Facebook in an educational setting had an impact on student attitudes and engagement actions. Additionally, Facebook use enhanced the learning environment in meaningful ways showing that SM, when used intentionally, benefits active learning environments and provides an opportunity to enhance a sense of public engagement among college students.

Insights on Inspirational Education for "High-Risk" Youth Informed by Participatory Action Research (PAR) on Youth Engagement: Short Communication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iwasaki, Yoshitaka; Hopper, Tristan; Whelan, Patricia

2017-01-01

This short communication provides our insights into how or in what ways educators can more effectively support aspiration of at-risk/high-risk youth toward meaningful education. These are informed by the key learnings from our ongoing youth engagement research. Those insights emphasize the importance of "meaningful engagement of youth"…

Significant Networks and Meaningful Conversations Observed in the First-Round Applicants for the Teachers' Academy at a Research-Intensive University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pyörälä, Eeva; Hirsto, Laura; Toom, Auli; Myyry, Liisa; Lindblom-Ylänne, Sari

2015-01-01

The University of Helsinki established a Teachers' Academy to reward excellence in teaching. This study focuses on teachers' significant networks and their meaningful conversations about teaching and learning before the establishment of the Teachers' Academy. The research data consisted of answers to open-ended questions, and were examined using…

Toward Meaningful Learning: Reconnecting Faith and Civic Action in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laboe, Mark; Nass, Karl

2012-01-01

The authors explore ways that faith and a commitment to social justice can be integrated into learning in higher education today. They also seek to highlight six foundational insights emerging from the proceedings of the National Faith, Justice, and Civic Learning (NFJCL) conference related to the importance of effectively reintegrating the…

The Transformation of Learning: Advances in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Oers, Bert, Ed.; Wardekker, Wim, Ed.; Elbers, Ed, Ed.; van der Veer, Rene, Ed.

2010-01-01

Learning is a changing phenomenon, depending on the advances in theory and research. This book presents a relatively new approach to learning, based on meaningful human activities in cultural practices and in collaboration with others. It draws extensively from the ideas of Lev Vygotsky and his recent followers. The book presents ideas that…

Home-Learning Practices in Kenya: Views of Parents and Education Officers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nyatuka, Benard Omenge

2016-01-01

In order for children to acquire meaningful education, families are advised to participate in learning activities at home. Such activities range from monitoring homework, problem-solving to reading with children during leisure time. But home-learning was claimed to receive little attention from key stakeholders among primary schools in Kenya's…

Polling on a Budget: Implementing Telephone Surveys in Introductory and Advanced American Politics Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williamson, Jonathan

2011-01-01

Research suggests that student learning is enhanced when students are engaged through active learning strategies. In studying public opinion and polling, challenges include the provision of meaningful active learning environments when resources are limited. In this article, I discuss the design and implementation of telephone surveys as a teaching…

Impact of Computer Animations in Cognitive Learning: Differentiation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Altiparmak, Kemal

2014-01-01

In mathematic courses, construction of some concepts by the students in a meaningful way may be complicated. In such circumstances, to embody the concepts application of the required technologies may reinforce learning process. Onset of learning process over daily life events of the student's environment may lure their attention and may…

Learning in a Physics Classroom Community: Physics Learning Identity Construct Development, Measurement and Validation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Sissi L.

2012-01-01

At the university level, introductory science courses usually have high student to teacher ratios which increases the challenge to meaningfully connect with students. Various curricula have been developed in physics education to actively engage students in learning through social interactions with peers and instructors in class. This learning…

Visual Representations in Mathematics Teaching: An Experiment with Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Debrenti, Edith

2015-01-01

General problem-solving skills are of central importance in school mathematics achievement. Word problems play an important role not just in mathematical education, but in general education as well. Meaningful learning and understanding are basic aspects of all kinds of learning and it is even more important in the case of learning mathematics. In…

Beyond Book Learning: Cultivating the Pedagogy of Experience through Field Trips.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jakubowski, Lisa Marie

2003-01-01

A pedagogy of experience can be cultivated by using a critically responsive approach based on experience, critical thinking, reflection, and action. A service-learning field trip to Cuba illustrates how experiential learning can bring classroom and community together in a way that invites students to engage in meaningful, active forms of learning…

Developing an Assessment of Learning Process: The Importance of Pre-Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sheran, Michelle; Sarbaum, Jeffrey

2012-01-01

Colleges and universities are increasingly being held accountable for assessing and reporting student learning. Recently there has been increased focus on using assessment to improve learning over time. In this paper we present a simple, step-by-step assessment process that will deliver meaningful results to achieve these ends. We emphasize the…

Think "E" for Engagement: Use Technology Tools to Design Personalized Professional E-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farris, Shari

2015-01-01

As faculty chair of early childhood education at Vanguard University of Southern California, the author was challenged each day by questions: How to provide high-impact online professional learning to adult continuing education students? What barriers exist for adult learners seeking meaningful professional learning? How does practice as a…

Breaking the Discrepancy Code: A Meta-Analysis of the Specific Learning Disability Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bachmeier, Randy J.

2009-01-01

Previous "selective" meta-analyses of the literature relating to the IQ-achievement discrepancy model of specific learning disability identification have concluded that "underachieving" and "low-achieving" poor readers do not differ in any educationally meaningful way. Underachievers are those poor readers who qualify as learning disabled using an…

Explorations in Statistics: The Analysis of Ratios and Normalized Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Curran-Everett, Douglas

2013-01-01

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This ninth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores the analysis of ratios and normalized--or standardized--data. As researchers, we compute a ratio--a numerator divided by a denominator--to compute a…

Student/Worker/Carer: The Intersecting Priorities of Arts Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maher, JaneMaree; Mitchell, Jennifer; Brown, Kate

2009-01-01

This article reports on a focus group study of student experience and learning in a large humanities and social science faculty in Australia. The study explored student study/work/life issues, and student learning experiences. The article reports specifically on a discussion about combining meaningful learning in university classrooms with other…

Community-Based Learning. Adding Value to Programs Involving Service Agencies and Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cumming, Jim

Community-based learning (CBL) is a structured approach to learning and teaching that connects meaningful community experience with intellectual development, personal growth, and active citizenship. Enthusiasm for CBL is emerging in Australia and elsewhere because it is seen as the following: strategy for whole-school reform, especially in…

A State Policymaker's Guide to Expanding Learning Time

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Education Commission of the States (NJ3), 2011

2011-01-01

Several decades of research have suggested a meaningful relationship between time and learning, where the amount of time students spend engaged in learning is strongly associated with their level of achievement. Among schools that have expanded the day and/or year, researchers have found that such a strategy can be quite effective, especially with…

A Scale Development Study for the Teachers on Out of School Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balkan-Kiyici, Fatime; Yavuz Topaloglu, Melike

2016-01-01

When teachers organize planned and systematical out-of-school learning activities, students can understand the abstract and complex terms and topics better and therefore meaningful and deeper learning can occur. Within this context this study aims to develop a valid and reliable scale to determine the attitudes, behaviors, efficiency and…

What Teachers Need to Know about Augmented Reality Enhanced Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wasko, Christopher

2013-01-01

Augmented reality (AR) enhanced learning environments have been designed to teach a variety of subjects by having learners act like professionals in the field as opposed to students in a classroom. The environments, grounded in constructivist and situated learning theories, place students in a meaningful, non-classroom environment and force them…

Making Learning Meaningful: Facilitating Interest Development and Transfer in At-Risk College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heddy, Benjamin C.; Sinatra, Gale M.; Seli, Helena; Taasoobshirazi, Gita; Mukhopadhyay, Ananya

2017-01-01

The Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) model has shown to be a useful tool to generate learning and engagement in science. We investigated the effectiveness of TTES for facilitating transformative experience (TE), learning, the development of topic interest and transfer of course concepts to other courses employing a…

Building Pre-Service Teaching Efficacy: A Comparison of Instructional Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cohen, Rona; Zach, Sima

2013-01-01

Background: Cooperative Learning (CL) is an inclusive name for various models of teaching/learning methods, all of which emphasize the fundamental of meaningful collaboration among learners during their learning activities. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine whether the CL teaching model contributed to the teaching efficacy and…

Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years. Supporting Early Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duffy, Bernadette

2006-01-01

Learning through the arts has the potential to stimulate open ended activity that encourages discovery, exploration, experimentation and invention, thus contributing to children's development in all areas of learning and helping to make the curriculum meaningful to them. In this book, the author draws on her extensive experience of promoting young…

Video Episodes and Action Cameras in the Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory: Eliciting Student Perceptions of Meaningful Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galloway, Kelli R.; Bretz, Stacey Lowery

2016-01-01

A series of quantitative studies investigated undergraduate students' perceptions of their cognitive and affective learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. To explore these quantitative findings, a qualitative research protocol was developed to characterize student learning in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Students (N = 13)…

Two Related Approaches to Teacher Professional Learning in the Asia Pacific Region

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Allan

2007-01-01

This paper examines the similarities and differences between two successful programmes of teacher professional learning. Firstly, Lesson Study developed in Japan over 40 years ago. It examines practice either through direct observation or through classroom artefacts and case studies. It assumes that teacher learning will be more meaningful and…

College Makes New Connections with Service-Learning Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ashburn, Elyse

2009-01-01

The service learning movement has gained new energy with the election of President Obama, who has made increasing service a central plank of his higher-education agenda. But across the board, colleges and universities struggle with service learning's twin goals of providing meaningful help to the community and academic rigor to students. The…

At the Limit: Introducing Energy with Human Senses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stinken, Lisa; Heusler, Stefan; Carmesin, Hans-Otto

2016-12-01

Energy belongs to the core ideas of the physics curriculum. But at the same time, energy is one of the most complex topics in science education since it occurs in multiple ways, such as motion, sound, light, and thermal energy. It can neither be destroyed nor created, but only converted. Due to the variety of relevant scales and abstractness of the term energy, the question arises how to introduce energy at the introductory physics level. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the concept of energy can become meaningful in the context of the human senses. Three simple experiments to investigate the minimal amount of energy that is required to generate a sensory perception are presented. In this way students can learn that even different sensory perceptions can be compared by using energy as the unifying concept.

The Enduring Communities Project of Japanese American Experiences in New Mexico during World War II and Beyond: A Teacher's Journey in Creating Meaningful Curriculum for the Secondary Social Studies Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ball, Diane Leslie

2010-01-01

In 2006, the Japanese American National Museum funded a three year curriculum development project entitled "Enduring Communities: Japanese Americans in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah." As a member of the team of teachers from New Mexico, I used this experience to study my process of developing meaningful content and…

Instructional Experiences of Graduate Assistants Implementing Explicit and Reflective Introductory Biology Laboratories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bautista, Nazan Uludag; Schussler, Elisabeth E.; Rybczynski, Stephen M.

2014-05-01

Science education reform documents identify nature of science (NOS) as a critical component of scientific literacy and call for universities, colleges, and K-12 schools to explicitly integrate NOS learning into science curricula. In response to these calls, this study investigated the classroom practices of nine graduate assistants (GAs) who taught expository and inquiry laboratories that implemented an explicit and reflective (ER) pedagogy to teach NOS. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the experiences that enabled or inhibited GA implementation of an ER strategy in a college setting. The findings revealed that achieving quality implementation in this setting was very difficult. Factors such as GAs' ability to foster meaningful classroom discussions, laboratory logistics (e.g. lack of time and supplies), and the value undergraduates and GAs saw in learning about NOS were identified by GAs and observed by the researchers as barriers to the technique maximizing its potential. Thus, for meaningful infusion of NOS into science curricula, pedagogical support for GAs to manage meaningful classroom discussions in support of NOS or other complex topics is recommended for an ER approach to NOS learning to be successful in college settings.

NITARP: An Example of Effective Data-Based Research in the Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orr, Laura; Rowe, Jamie L.; Lineberger, Howard; Duranko, Gary; Gorjian, Varoujan

2018-01-01

The use of data in the classroom is a core component of both project based learning and STEM based education. Authentic student driven research using real-world data is a primary focus of both teaching strategies. To make the educational outcome effective and long lasting, the type and quality of data used in the lessons is important. The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Project (NITARP) program encapsulates this in very meaningful ways by providing both teachers and students the opportunity to ask deep meaningful questions, collaborate with peers, and arrive at meaningful conclusions. Teachers trained in the use of scientific archives and the application of those archives for authentic research is critical for this type of learning to be successful.In this study we use the NITARP program as an example of effective STEM project based learning using archived scientific data. We explore the components of the program that are most effective, the effects on teacher competency and ease of use with students, and use in the classroom. For each area we also explore alternate sources of teacher support, data archives, and techniques for implementation in classrooms for various topics and skill levels.

Meaningful use: a roadmap for the advancement of health information exchange

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Frankel and colleagues have compared Israel and the U.S.’s experiences with health information exchange (HIE). They highlight the importance of institutional factors in fostering HIE development, notably the influence of local structures, experience and incentives. Historically, information infrastructure in the U.S. has been limited due to lack of standards, fragmented institutions and competition. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 authorized billions of dollars for the adoption and “Meaningful Use” of electronic health records. HITECH programs and Meaningful Use incentives target the advancement of HIE through 1) building blocks, 2) local support and 3) payment incentives. Meaningful Use requirements create a roadmap to broader electronic exchange of health information among providers and with patients. Ultimately, successful HIE in the U.S. will depend on whether Meaningful Use can address institutional needs within local markets. This is a commentary on http://www.ijhpr.org/content/2/1/722 PMID:23880399

Discussions in the home about sex: different recollections by parents and children.

PubMed

King, B M; Lorusso, J

1997-01-01

University students and their parents were asked whether they had ever had a meaningful discussion about sex. More than half of the students answered No, yet in 60% of these cases, one or both parents said that there had been meaningful discussions. Students and their parents most frequently disagreed about the topics of sexually transmitted diseases, sexual intercourse, reproduction, birth control, homosexuality, and sexual abuse. Mothers were more likely than fathers to have had discussions that daughters considered to be meaningful, and as likely as fathers in the case of sons. Parents who indicated that they had had meaningful discussions about sex with their parents while growing up were much more likely than other parents to have had discussions that their own children recognized as meaningful. Nevertheless, the results demonstrate that many parents greatly underestimate the extent of factual information that their children wish to learn about sexuality.

Engaging Young People as a Community Development Strategy in the Wisconsin Northwoods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andresen, William; Dallapiazza, Margaret; Calvert, Matthew

2013-01-01

This chapter focuses on two remote rural communities that engaged young people in meaningful community development efforts to build social capital. One community connected youth to the assets of the community and created opportunities for young adults to strengthen social networks. The other created partnerships and networks to build…

Amplifying Youth Voices in the Developing World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fotenos, Saori; Rohatgi, Deepti

2007-01-01

In the past few years, an explosion of user-generated content has flooded the Internet. The dramatic drop in the cost of digital video equipment and the increased accessibility of the Internet create a unique opportunity to allow youth to create meaningful content. Today youth around the world can leverage technological tools to give voice to…

Helping Your Students with Homework: A Guide for Teachers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paulu, Nancy; Darby, Linda B., Ed.

This guide for elementary and secondary teachers discusses 18 tips for creating meaningful homework assignments that students will complete. Following introductory sections that explore hurdles to homework, the guide details the following tips: (1) lay out expectations early in the school year; (2) create assignments with a purpose; (3) make sure…

A Sales Representative Is Made: An Innovative Sales Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levin, Michael A.; Peterson, Lori T.

2016-01-01

Job openings for nonscientific business-to-business sales professionals will increase over the next 10 years. A small private university in the Midwest has developed an innovative sales course to help create professionals who are ready to fill this need. This article addresses the challenges of creating a meaningful, hands-on, experiential course…

Learning From Physics Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shavelson, Richard J.

1973-01-01

Extends P. E. Jonson's studies of physics learning by analyzing, on the basis of a 12-student control group, 24 high-school students' word associations, aptitude scores, and achievement results during instruction. Indicated a positive relationship between problem-solving ability and meaningful concept formation. (CC)

Concept mapping for virtual rehabilitation and training of the blind.

PubMed

Sanchez, Jaime; Flores, Hector

2010-04-01

Concept mapping is a technique that allows for the strengthening of the learning process, based on graphic representations of the learner's mental schemes. However, due to its graphic nature, it cannot be utilized by learners with visual disabilities. In response to this limitation we implemented a study that involves the design of AudiodMC, an audio-based, virtual environment for concept mapping designed for use by blind users and aimed at virtual training and rehabilitation. We analyzed the stages involved in the design of AudiodMC from a user-centered design perspective, considering user involvement and usability testing. These include an observation stage to learn how blind learners construct conceptual maps using concrete materials, a design stage to design of a software tool that aids blind users in creating concept maps, and a cognitive evaluation stage using AudiodMC. We also present the results of a study implemented in order to determine the impact of the use of this software on the development of essential skills for concept mapping (association, classification, categorization, sorting and summarizing). The results point to a high level of user acceptance, having identified key sound characteristics that help blind learners to learn concept codification and selection skills. The use of AudiodMC also allowed for the effective development of the skills under review in our research, thus facilitating meaningful learning.

Leveraging Scratch4SL and Second Life to motivate high school students' participation in introductory programming courses: findings from a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pellas, Nikolaos; Peroutseas, Efstratios

2017-01-01

Students in secondary education strive hard enough to understand basic programming concepts. With all that is known regarding the benefits of programming, little is the published evidence showing how high school students can learn basic programming concepts following innovative instructional formats correctly with the respect to gain/enhance their computational thinking skills. This distinction has caused lack of their motivation and interest in Computer Science courses. This case study presents the opinions of twenty-eight (n = 28) high school students who participated voluntarily in a 3D-game-like environment created in Second Life. This environment was combined with the 2D programming environment of Scratch4SL for the implementation of programming concepts (i.e. sequence and concurrent programming commands) in a blended instructional format. An instructional framework based on Papert's theory of Constructionism to assist students how to coordinate or manage better the learning material in collaborative practice-based learning activities is also proposed. By conducting a mixed-method research, before and after finishing several learning tasks, students' participation in focus group (qualitative data) and their motivation based on their experiences (quantitative data) are measured. Findings indicated that an instructional design framework based on Constructionism for acquiring or empowering students' social, cognitive, higher order and computational thinking skills is meaningful. Educational implications and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

CosmoQuest: Engaging Students in Authentic Research through Science Fairs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lebofsky, Larry A.; Canizo, Thea; Buxner, Sanlyn; Schmitt, Bill; Runco, Susan; Graff, Paige; CosmoQuest Team

2016-10-01

CosmoQuest is embarking on a five-year effort to increase student participation in science fairs through nation-wide training of teachers, science educators, and scientists. The program focuses on helping teachers attain the needed content knowledge and skills to support creation of meaningful science fair research projects. . This includes supporting teachers' understanding of how to engage students in age-appropriate projects as young science and engineering professionals. If successful, students will create their own understanding of STEM content through research. This occurs when students are guided into learning where they become involved at a level that makes it possible for them to independently ask questions and investigate answers by seeking patterns, testing, building conceptual models, and/or designing technology.To support this kind of engagement, we are curating and creating resources to support students of all ages and abilities. Students at different age levels generally have very different developmental reasoning abilities, and engagement and learning are increased when students use age-appropriate reasoning abilities. For instance primary students are effective in observing, communicating, and comparing. As they get older they develop abilities in sequencing and finding relationships. At middle school they add inferring and finally in high school the acquired skills for applying ideas from many disciplines to create more complex understanding.Through a comprehensive program of curriculum development, educator professional development, and building strategic partnerships, we will increase the number and quality of space science related science fair projects in the United States. CosmoQuest is funded through individual donations, through NASA Cooperative Agreement NNX16AC68A, and through additional grants and contracts that are listed on the About page of our website, cosmoquest.org.

Machine Learning Classification of Heterogeneous Fields to Estimate Physical Responses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McKenna, S. A.; Akhriev, A.; Alzate, C.; Zhuk, S.

2017-12-01

The promise of machine learning to enhance physics-based simulation is examined here using the transient pressure response to a pumping well in a heterogeneous aquifer. 10,000 random fields of log10 hydraulic conductivity (K) are created and conditioned on a single K measurement at the pumping well. Each K-field is used as input to a forward simulation of drawdown (pressure decline). The differential equations governing groundwater flow to the well serve as a non-linear transform of the input K-field to an output drawdown field. The results are stored and the data set is split into training and testing sets for classification. A Euclidean distance measure between any two fields is calculated and the resulting distances between all pairs of fields define a similarity matrix. Similarity matrices are calculated for both input K-fields and the resulting drawdown fields at the end of the simulation. The similarity matrices are then used as input to spectral clustering to determine groupings of similar input and output fields. Additionally, the similarity matrix is used as input to multi-dimensional scaling to visualize the clustering of fields in lower dimensional spaces. We examine the ability to cluster both input K-fields and output drawdown fields separately with the goal of identifying K-fields that create similar drawdowns and, conversely, given a set of simulated drawdown fields, identify meaningful clusters of input K-fields. Feature extraction based on statistical parametric mapping provides insight into what features of the fields drive the classification results. The final goal is to successfully classify input K-fields into the correct output class, and also, given an output drawdown field, be able to infer the correct class of input field that created it.

Sampling algorithms for validation of supervised learning models for Ising-like systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Portman, Nataliya; Tamblyn, Isaac

2017-12-01

In this paper, we build and explore supervised learning models of ferromagnetic system behavior, using Monte-Carlo sampling of the spin configuration space generated by the 2D Ising model. Given the enormous size of the space of all possible Ising model realizations, the question arises as to how to choose a reasonable number of samples that will form physically meaningful and non-intersecting training and testing datasets. Here, we propose a sampling technique called ;ID-MH; that uses the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm creating Markov process across energy levels within the predefined configuration subspace. We show that application of this method retains phase transitions in both training and testing datasets and serves the purpose of validation of a machine learning algorithm. For larger lattice dimensions, ID-MH is not feasible as it requires knowledge of the complete configuration space. As such, we develop a new ;block-ID; sampling strategy: it decomposes the given structure into square blocks with lattice dimension N ≤ 5 and uses ID-MH sampling of candidate blocks. Further comparison of the performance of commonly used machine learning methods such as random forests, decision trees, k nearest neighbors and artificial neural networks shows that the PCA-based Decision Tree regressor is the most accurate predictor of magnetizations of the Ising model. For energies, however, the accuracy of prediction is not satisfactory, highlighting the need to consider more algorithmically complex methods (e.g., deep learning).

Cognitive Load and Learning Effects of Having Students Organize Pictures and Words in Multimedia Environments: The Role of Student Interactivity and Feedback

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moreno, Roxana; Valdez, Alfred

2005-01-01

The cognitive load and learning effects of dual-code and interactivity--two multimedia methods intended to promote meaningful learning--were examined. In Experiment 1, college students learned about the causal chain of events leading to the process of lightning formation with a set of words and corresponding pictures (Group WP), pictures (Group…

Concept mapping to promote meaningful learning, help relate theory to practice and improve learning self-efficacy in Asian mental health nursing students: A mixed-methods pilot study.

PubMed

Bressington, Daniel T; Wong, Wai-Kit; Lam, Kar Kei Claire; Chien, Wai Tong

2018-01-01

Student nurses are provided with a great deal of knowledge within university, but they can find it difficult to relate theory to nursing practice. This study aimed to test the appropriateness and feasibility of assessing Novak's concept mapping as an educational strategy to strengthen the theory-practice link, encourage meaningful learning and enhance learning self-efficacy in nursing students. This pilot study utilised a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design. The study was conducted in a University school of Nursing in Hong Kong. A total of 40 third-year pre-registration Asian mental health nursing students completed the study; 12 in the concept mapping (CM) group and 28 in the usual teaching methods (UTM) group. The impact of concept mapping was evaluated thorough analysis of quantitative changes in students' learning self-efficacy, analysis of the structure and contents of the concept maps (CM group), a quantitative measure of students' opinions about their reflective learning activities and content analysis of qualitative data from reflective written accounts (CM group). There were no significant differences in self-reported learning self-efficacy between the two groups (p=0.38). The concept mapping helped students identify their current level of understanding, but the increased awareness may cause an initial drop in learning self-efficacy. The results highlight that most CM students were able to demonstrate meaningful learning and perceived that concept mapping was a useful reflective learning strategy to help them to link theory and practice. The results provide preliminary evidence that the concept mapping approach can be useful to help mental health nursing students visualise their learning progress and encourage the integration of theoretical knowledge with clinical knowledge. Combining concept mapping data with quantitative measures and qualitative reflective journal data appears to be a useful way of assessing and understanding the effectiveness of concept mapping. Future studies should utilise a larger sample size and consider using the approach as a targeted intervention immediately before and during clinical learning placements. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

"Applying anatomy to something I care about": Authentic inquiry learning and student experiences of an inquiry project.

PubMed

Anstey, Lauren M

2017-11-01

Despite advances to move anatomy education away from its didactic history, there is a continued need for students to contextualize their studies to make learning more meaningful. This article investigates authentic learning in the context of an inquiry-based approach to learning human gross anatomy. Utilizing a case-study design with three groups of students (n = 18) and their facilitators (n = 3), methods of classroom observations, interviews, and artifact collection were utilized to investigate students' experiences of learning through an inquiry project. Qualitative data analysis through open and selective coding produced common meaningful themes of group and student experiences. Overall results demonstrate how the project served as a unique learning experience where learners engaged in the opportunity to make sense of anatomy in context of their interests and wider interdisciplinary considerations through collaborative, group-based investigation. Results were further considered in context of theoretical frameworks of inquiry-based and authentic learning. Results from this study demonstrate how students can engage anatomical understandings to inquire and apply disciplinary considerations to their personal lives and the world around them. Anat Sci Educ 10: 538-548. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.

Expanding Astronomy Education Innovations to the International Community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slater, Stephanie J.; Slater, Timothy F.; Tatge, Coty; Guffey, Sarah Katie

2015-08-01

In the course of learning astronomy, it is generally accepted that successful science learning experiences should result in learners developing a meaningful understanding of the nature of science as inquiry where: (i) students are engaged in questions; (ii) students are designing plans to pursue data; and (iii) students are generating and defending conclusions based on evidence they have collected. In support of these goals, we have systematically field-test three separate instructional tools that are ready to be field-tested beyond the United States. The first of these is called LECTURE-TUTORIALS. These are self-contained, classroom-ready, collaborative group activities. The materials are designed specifically to be easily integrated into the lecture course and directly address the needs of busy faculty for effective, student-centered, classroom-ready materials that do not require a drastic course revision for implementation. Students are asked to reason about difficult concepts, while working in pairs, and to discuss their ideas openly. The second of these is a series of computer-mediated, inquiry learning experiences based upon an inquiry-oriented teaching approach framed by the notions of BACKWARDS-FADED SCAFFOLDING as an overarching theme for instruction that leverage online science data. BFS is a strategy where the conventional and rigidly linear scientific method is turned on its head and students are first taught how to create conclusions based on evidence, then how experimental design creates evidence, and only at the end introduces students to - what we believe is the most challenging part of inquiry - inventing scientifically appropriate questions. Third, contemporary ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS, including the TOAST and EGGS surveys, for astronomy & geology have been developed to help teachers measure the success of their implementation. Evaluation results consistently suggest that these tools help teachers better engage students in self-directed scientific discourse and increase their knowledge.