This paper reports on a study about how the mathematics textbook was perceived and used by the teacher in the context of a calculus part of a basic mathematics course for first-year engineering students. The focus was on the teacher's choices and the use of definitions, examples and exercises in a sequence of lectures introducing the derivative…

First-year engineering students often complain about their mathematics courses as the significance of the difficult and abstract calculus to their field of study remains unclear. We report on the project "MathePraxis", a feasibility study which was designed as a means to give first-year students some impression about the use of…

Internationally there is concern about levels of student absenteeism. Research underpinning this article consisted of a survey of academic staff and 25 interviews with first year students in a well regarded "new" university in Britain. The article explores the issue of poor attendance and why a significant number of students seem to have…

Teaching the VSEPR (valence shell electron-pair repulsion) model can be a tedious process. Traditionally, Lewis structures are drawn and the number of "electron clouds" (groups) around the central atom are counted and related to the standard VSEPR table of possible geometries. A simpler method to deduce the VSEPR structure without first drawing…

The present research analyzes instructional strategies used to integrate the learning of content and English as a foreign language in a bilingual physics class at a university in Shanghai, China. It examines how the instructor handles meaning and form of new English science vocabulary in concept-focused physics lectures and the strategies he used…

At the University of Helsinki, special effort has been put to help beginning math students to get started with their studies. This involves new ways of teaching a lecture course and new ways of giving peer support to the students. The results have been promising: the number of students passing certain important courses has been at least doubled…

This article examines the language-related challenges that first-year students face when adjusting to the demands of English-medium higher education in Hong Kong. The article is based on the findings of a longitudinal study which tracked the university careers of 28 students from a range of backgrounds via in-depth, semi-structured interviews…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 18th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2021), held virtually, due to an exceptional situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, from October 13-15, 2021, and organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society…

Lecture is the approach traditionally used to teach music theory courses. Although efficient in the delivery of large amounts of information in a short period of time, lecture lacks the effectiveness of an active learning approach. "Theory Survivor" is a unique cooperative-learning method based on the Student Teams-Achievement Divisions technique…

Formal use of cooperative learning techniques proved effective in improving student performance and retention in a freshman level statistics course. Lectures interspersed with group activities proved effective in increasing conceptual understanding and overall class performance. (11 references) (Author)

A study investigated to what extent, if any, the modularization and individualization of composition instruction benefited students with severe skill deficiencies. Gain in writing skills--as measured by pretest/posttest differences--was compared with regard to two groups of students: those taught by a traditional lecture-discussion method of…

A study of 82 Canadian college freshmen investigated working memory, verbal ability, and prior knowledge as predictors of quality of students' lecture notes, lecture summaries, and content recall. Students with higher working memory benefitted more from listening to the lecture than from listening and taking notes. Quality of summaries predicted…

Presents a study that addresses the importance of instructional metacognitive knowledge of university freshman through the use of a survey covering: (1) instruction in general; (2) instruction in two different environments; and (3) specific delivery systems and concrete interventions. Finds that instructional experiences affect the student's…

An analysis and discussion are presented of observations of 27 different first lecture situations at the University of New South Wales at the beginning of 1978. The analysis was intended to provide teachers with a range of data about what occurred during first lectures in schools other than their own, and to highlight the potential impact of the…

This study compared the effectiveness of the traditional library lecture and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in scheduled credit classes in library skills. Subjects were 18 college freshman attending branch campuses who were academically underprepared for college level study and who also lacked basic library skills. Eleven students were taught…