This article addresses the issue of educating engineering students with the knowledge and skills of Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM). In particular, three carefully designed tutorials--cutting tool offsetting, tool-path generation for freeform surfaces, and the integration of advanced machine tools (e.g., hexapod-based machine…

To reduce medication errors, medical educators must nurture the early development of rational and safe prescribing. Teaching pharmacology is challenging because it requires knowledge integration across disciplines, including physiology and pathology. Traditionally, pharmacology has been taught using lecture-based learning, which conveys consistent…

This article describes the implementation and outcomes of incorporating creative digital assignments that utilize emergent social technologies in six college courses across the curriculum during the Spring 2015 term. These projects were supported by a digital learning center providing a website of short video and text tutorials, assignment…

Nearly all physics instructors recognize the instructional value of force diagrams, and this journal has published several collections of exercises to improve student skill in this area. Yet some instructors worry that too few students perceive the conceptual and problem-solving utility of force diagrams, and over recent years a rich variety of…

A new module for Level 1 students called "Science Investigations" provides an introduction to practical work, in an on-line environment. Most of the activities in the module require observational or experimental work done at home, with only the field work being "virtual". The aim is to encourage practical and group work in an…

The large number of experimentally determined molecular structures has led to the development of a new semiotic system in the life sciences, with increasing use of accurate molecular representations. To determine how this change impacts students' learning, we incorporated image tests into our introductory cell biology course. Groups of students…

This study investigated outcomes (achievement, attitude, and retention) of college algebra students who had access to an online tutoring resource using a pre-posttest control group design. Students in the experimental groups were provided access to an online tutoring service unlike the students in the control group. Both groups had access to other…

Most faculty will agree that students must learn to write well (Emerson, MacKay, MacKay, & Funnell, 2006), and in the sciences, a variety of approaches have been taken. In the College of Physical and Engineering Science at the University of Guelph, we have developed a way of embedding research, writing, and analytical skills into an…

Explanations are essential in the teaching process. Tracers are one possibility to provide students with explanations in an intelligent tutoring system. Their development can be divided into four steps: (a) the definition of the trace model; (b) the extraction of the information from this model; (c) the analysis and abstraction of the extracted…

In this article, the author introduces a series of practical strategies to support the development of an innovative and technology-rich curriculum. The author begins with the importance of understanding what possibilities for innovation exist given the relationship between curriculum, equity issues, and education reform. The author then discusses…

We studied students performing a complex learning task, that of solving multipart physics problems with interactive tutoring on the web. We extracted the rate of completion and fraction completed as a function of time on task by retrospectively analyzing the log of student-tutor interactions. There was a spontaneous division of students into three…

Describes using computer assisted instruction in a peer tutoring program. Assesses the program's effects on both tutors and tutees. Finds the tutoring program a positive preventive intervention for high risk students. (ABB)

This article reviews the use of computer-based technology in teaching reading to students with disabilities. Research from the last 10 years is examined using the metaphors of Tutor, Tool, and Agent as categories of instructional purpose. Most of the substantive data supporting computer use concerns drill and practice and tutorial assisted…

Considers questions posed by students during e-mail tutorials to elicit information from guest lecturers and the use of that information by students in their essays. Findings indicate: tutees tend to pose questions to elicit information or clarification rather than to elicit opinions of the guest lecturer; and two-thirds of tutees' essays cited…

This article highlights a project on information literacy that began in the fall semester of 2003 at the University of Redlands. The faculty in the School of Education needed an information literacy component for their teacher credential program. The Manager of Instructional Technology believed that a tutorial of this type would work well in the…