Objectives: Inguinal canal anatomy and hernia repair is difficult for medical students and surgical residents to comprehend. Methods: Using low-cost material, a 3-dimensional inexpensive model of the inguinal canal was created to allow students to learn anatomical details and landmarks and to perform their own simulated hernia repair. In order to…

Electronically supported learning has increasingly been introduced and accepted into the academic community over recent decades, and a variety of new digital learning tools have been developed to serve students both for distance education and on-campus blended learning. To serve our distance education nursing students, we recently developed unique…

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…

Provides an overview of this special issue that addresses the possibilities and implications of electronic publishing and information dissemination as key components of effective education. Highlights include the theory and framework of electronic publishing; differences between electronic text and print; development of new educational materials;…

Describes research that examined the role of online examples in a minimal manual on learning to use an interface construction toolkit called InterCONS. Highlights include the minimalist approach to designing user resources; user performance; the use of online examples versus printed examples; and user reactions. (Contains 18 references.) (LRW)

In an effort to enlarge the debate on the use of worksheets within Scotland's schools, two teachers who use this approach extensively were invited to present their views, and other educators were invited to react to them. The first part of this report includes a discussion of teachers' views on learning, their perceptions on language development,…

This study explored how, and what type of, procedural instructions influence a trade-off between planning and performance. There is a trade-off if longer planning time shortens performance time, improves performance efficiency, and improves accuracy. The relative effectiveness of nine combinations of illustrated and written instructions for an…

This discussion of the educational potential of audiotape and videotape cassettes in distance teaching considers each medium individually, with examples of how the Open University has tried to exploit them in its teaching, and comments on some major differences between the two media and their implication for education. Characteristics of…

This review of the research on the effectiveness of an instructional systems approach at both the micro- and macro-levels discusses progress made in the last decade in developing a knowledge base for the systematic design, development, and delivery of instruction. A 35-item bibliography is provided. (MER)

The purpose of this study was to develop, implement, and evaluate an audiotape and accompanying handouts on hemodynamics as a supplemental teaching aid in the Health Science Learning Center of New York City Technical College. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant difference between the mean examination grade on hemodynamics of…

Instructional materials designed to increase creative thinking abilities and language achievement were used in nine training conditions with children in grades 4, 5, and 6. Results indicated that treatment conditions were most effective at the 4th grade level, where at least one treatment was effective for all variables. At the 5th grade, two…

Describes a CD-ROM version of a basic course in exercise physiology that was developed in the United Kingdom to overcome problems of staff time, expense, ethical considerations, and large student numbers. Compares it to a traditional course and concludes that adding more active learning approaches to the CD-ROM would enhance student learning. (LRW)

This investigation of the effect of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) on the performance of elementary students in the area of language arts skills compared the performance of students receiving CAI with that of students receiving only regular classroom instruction. Two software programs were created for use in the study. Word Breaker, designed…

Discusses ways in which some of the principles for producing effective written text can be applied to the production of instructional audiotapes. Two experiments with university students are described that tested re-recorded audiotapes to evaluate the effectiveness of adding text design principles, and further research needs are suggested. (45…

Describes a study of nursing students in a Canadian junior college that was conducted to test the effectiveness of presenting descriptive and instructive captions on illustrations in instructional materials. Comprehension and recall of the illustrations' content are examined, and treatments for the experimental and control groups are described.…