Design activities are gaining interest as rich contexts for learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. STEM teachers may find this challenging however, as designing requires support that they are not used to providing. In a subject like chemistry, teachers would have to balance creativity and responsibility for the…

Policy writing assessments are increasingly used as an alternative or supplementary method of assessment within the teaching of politics and policy. Such assessments, often referred to as 'policy briefs' or 'briefing memos', are often used to develop writing skills and to encourage active learning of policy-related topics among students. While…

This three-article dissertation explores Learning by Evaluating (LbE), an educational approach that enhances student learning through the process of assessing and providing feedback on peer work. Leveraging principles of comparative judgement, students evaluate pairs of exemplars side-by-side to determine which is better and provide a rational for…

This teaching case addresses the design of a database that fulfills the complex requirements found at the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan, an actual entity. With the goal of challenging students to think analytically and to apply information systems concepts and tools to real world situations, the case study was appropriately structured to…

Teaching a hands- and minds-on course, in which feedback is essential in order to learn, is difficult, especially in times of COVID-19 where student progression cannot be monitored directly. During the lockdown period, the workshops of an undergraduate Design Engineering course had to be transferred to the home situation, which required a redesign…

In this study, teachers are giving an opportunity to design and develop their own educational games. The following three questions guide the research: (1) What are the characteristics of teacher designed and developed games? (2) What theories do teachers use when they make games for educational purposes? (3) What are the design considerations when…

Background/Context: Studio-based courses--the primary approach in design education--have been viewed as effective environments for learning. This study uses an ecological approach to explore how the studio environment creates opportunities for social interaction through immersive studies of studio learning. Purpose/Objective/Research…

Digital technology is reshaping the way higher education subjects are taught, including design. Various design disciplines use studio teaching as a pedagogy to educate students for professions in art and design. Studio teaching bases a high premium on face-to-face interactions which guide learning through dialogue and feedback on individual work.…

Background: Studio-based courses - the primary approach in design education--have been viewed as effective environments for learning. However, few studies have utilized an ecological lens to explore how the studio environment creates opportunities for social interaction through immersive studies of studio learning. Purpose: We engaged in an…

This paper reports on a pilot study using the "Café," the collaborative application for education as an online learning environment within the Facebook framework, for first-year tertiary design students. The "Café," a new e-learning application, has been designed based on five principles of user interface design--visibility,…

Accessibility is a hot topic in online education these days. Despite the increased focus on accessibility, most discussions of creating "accessible" online courses and elearning simply focus on adding alternative text to images and captions to video. In this article, we argue that online educators and workplace learning professionals…

An integrated technical writing and design course has been developed at Rowan University. This course was developed using aspects of project-based learning and recent discussions about design education, as well as pedagogical approaches from the write-to-learn and the writing in the disciplines (WID) movements. The result is a course where the…