Research on teacher educators' professional learning has gained increasing interest within science education. Curriculum materials have been suggested as a means of supporting "teacher" learning for several decades but have not yet been examined as a potential tool for supporting the learning of "teacher educators." In this…

Our purpose in this paper is to shed light on the intricacies of designing and enacting curricular innovations aiming to enhance students' interest in science and their understandings of STEM careers. We present the design and describe the implementation of a set of STEM career-oriented curriculum materials referred to as career-based scenarios. A…

Undergraduate students majoring in Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia need to take an English-for-Specific-Purposes (ESP) course each year of the B.A. program. The material for all four courses was developed in-house by a group of instructors at those colleges. A review of the course material, particularly reading texts, showed many inadequacies. It…

This paper reviews 12 research-based principles for how to design computer-based multimedia instructional materials to promote academic learning, starting with the multimedia principle (yielding a median effect size of d = 1.67 based on five experimental comparisons), which holds that people learn better from computer-based instruction containing…

Many learners who have not chosen to identify as having physical, sensory, and learning disabilities still may struggle to learn in the online learning environment due to diverse abilities and backgrounds, differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and other factors that affect perception, learning ability, and engagement. Given the apparent…

Instructional Technologies and Material Design (ITMD) lesson is a tool that enables Mathematics teacher candidates to design materials for contributing to lasting learning of their students, and use them most effectively. This lesson helps students to activate their creative thinking skills, increase their courage and self-confidence, find…

Pinyin is a sound-annotating system for Chinese characters using Roman letters. Teaching and learning Pinyin has been an important educational practice in Mainland China for native Chinese children, and it is also typically taught to beginning learners of Chinese as a foreign/second language in tertiary-level classrooms. However, whether it should…

The current developments in second language (L2) pedagogy and the introduction of twenty-first century education compel scholars, educators, and leading education agencies in the Asia Pacific region to revisit their respective curriculum and framework for designing and preparing their English language teaching materials. However, after surveying…

A curriculum-linked professional development approach designed to support middle level science teachers' understandings about tectonics and geospatial pedagogical content knowledge was developed. This approach takes into account limited face-to-face professional development time and instead provides pedagogical support within the design of a…

A systematic approach to the training of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) is required to meet the challenges posed by growing numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. At University College Dublin, educational developers and academic staff across six schools collaborated on the design and phased implementation of context-specific GTA…

Idioms, because of their cultural and figurative aspects, cannot be readily comprehended and used appropriately; hence, they need to be taught explicitly by means of instructional materials in language classrooms. Knowledge of idioms constitutes an important component of learners' communicative competence (Bachman, 1990) since idioms as part of…

In recent years, researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have become increasingly interested in the implications of sociolinguistic research for L2 learning. Among the many questions that arise are whether the development of sociolinguistic competence should be an instructional goal as early as the beginning level, and what…

Reports on the lab's activities as a center for the development of university language lab courses and for research into contemporary oral colloquial French, a part of the applied linguistics research area, and a center for the development of a language lab grammar for Zurich German. (RM)

A model framework for course materials construction is presented as an aid to Coast Guard course writers and coordinators, curriculum developers, and instructors who must modify a course or draft a new one. The model assumes that the instructor or other designated person has: (1) completed a task analysis which identifies the competencies, skills…

A three-phase procedure for developing instructional units, which when used with professional development can enhance teachers' understanding and implementation of Canada's National Core French Study multidimensional curriculum, is described. The procedure includes reflection, production, and piloting phases. (Author/MSE)