This study explored the impact of professional development workshops for online course design on faculty's pedagogical practices in online, face-to-face (f2f), and blended instructional modes. It specifically focused on trainings offered by the Quality Matters (QM) organization on a rubric for assessing quality in online course development. A…

This study examined the impact of adding game elements on students' performances in an online learning setting. Two intact online graduate level course sections were chosen for this study. Each course sections had 18 students. The results of the study showed that there were significant differences in the time students spent in their courses and…

We redesigned the undergraduate introductory biology course by writing a new textbook ("Integrating Concepts in Biology" ["ICB"]) that follows first principles of learning. Our approach emphasizes primary data interpretation and the utility of mathematics in biology, while de-emphasizing memorization. This redesign divides biology into five big…

This qualitative case study examines the initial implementation of a problem-based version of an undergraduate course in materials science for the purpose of identifying areas of improvement to the curriculum prior to a planned second implementation. The course was designed around problems that students work in small teams to solve under the…

Summarizes results of a University of Nebraska study on effects of different teaching methods on student performance in a computer literacy course for business administration students. Merits and weaknesses of the large class approach--the more successful method--are discussed, and academic achievement as a function of gender is analyzed. (MBR)