As research-based, self-paced electronic learning tools become increasingly available, a critical issue educators encounter is implementing strategies to ensure that all students engage with them as intended. Here, we first discuss the effectiveness of electronic learning tutorials as self-paced learning tools in large enrollment brick and mortar…

Single photon experiments involving a Mach-Zehnder interferometer can illustrate the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, e.g., the wave-particle duality of a single photon, single photon interference, and the probabilistic nature of quantum measurement involving single photons. These experiments explicitly make the connection between the…

Field courses are essential for subjects like Earth Sciences, Geography and Ecology. In these topics, GIS is used to manage and analyse spatial data, and offers quantitative methods that are beneficial for fieldwork. This paper presents changes made to a first-year Earth Sciences field course in the French Alps, where new GIS methods were…

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools to facilitate second language acquisition and develop English as a second language (ESL) teaching skills and cultural awareness. The paper describes a collaborative online project between students from China and the USA, who communicated using the…

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence…

This study focused on the civic education course at Universitas Terbuka (UT). Its purpose was to design a new approach for the online tutorial for the course by analyzing the literature related to online and distance education and investigating participant feedback on the current offering of the course and tutorial, which is a compulsory course in…

We apply a "tutorial design process", which has proven to be successful for a number of physics topics, to design curricular materials or "tutorials" aimed at improving student understanding of important concepts in a university-level introductory materials science and engineering course. The process involves the identification…

In this research study the authors analyzed the effectiveness of content-area education students tutoring adolescents and documented changes in the attitudes of the education students over time. Tutors tested the reading comprehension of both the students they tutored (treatment group) and students they did not (comparison group). The authors used…

This article explores the experiences of students with mobility disabilities in Cypriot higher education institutions. In order to obtain relevant information, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Cypriot students with different forms of mobility disabilities, who attended different Cypriot higher education institutions and a…

Peer tutoring at the postsecondary level has been studied extensively, particularly over the last twenty years. Peer tutoring programs are common across institutional type and size in the United States (Boylan, Bonham, Bliss, & Saxon, 1995; Maxwell, 2001) given students' preferences for tutors who share age and status similarity (Cohen, 1986;…

Evaluated the effectiveness in a community college of the Professional Development Program, in which (n=80) mostly minority precalculus students attend workshops utilizing small study groups, faculty leadership, challenging mathematical materials, and peer support networks. No overall effect on student performance was found. Includes postinterview…

This paper examines Oxford University students' conceptions of the role of the tutorial in their learning. An analysis of interviews with 28 students constituted four qualitatively different conceptions of the "Oxford Tutorial". These ranged from the tutorial involving the tutor explaining to the student what the student did not know, to the…

Discusses interviews of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' conducted to assess their reactions to a tutorial project for improving cognitive performance in content courses through the use of talk and writing as learning tools. The study concludes that ESL learners should be given opportunities to use their own language resources to…

This paper reports on a research study that draws on the perceptions of students, tutors, field centre coordinators and central management to evaluate the support services provided to students in the National Teachers' Institute's distance teacher training programme. Within a conceptual framework that built upon models of teaching and learning…

Graphing calculators have been used in the mathematics classroom for speed, to leap hurdles, to make connections among representations, and to permit realism through the use of authentic data. In this study, a graphing calculator tutorial provided on the Casio FX1.0 and FX2.0 PLUS models was found to serve a fifth purpose, improving manipulative…