Effective teaching requires the use of techniques and strategies to counter student passivity and enhance engagement. Research demonstrates that drawing improves memory retention, increases motivation to learn, provides an opportunity to learn what makes an image an effective communication tool, allows demonstration of conceptual understanding,…

The educational benefit of the traditional didactic lecture to learners in Higher Education is hotly debated. Given increasing student numbers, existing technical set ups and many logistical concerns, lectures remain the norm in many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). In this personal view piece, we discuss the benefits, opportunities, and…

My thesis work is focused on conceptual and epistemic learning and characterizing the environments in which this learning takes place. Earlier studies conducted by the Stowe group explored how instructional practices, instructional emphasis, and assessment emphasis relate to student outcomes in general and organic chemistry courses. Student…

"Form is 'what', Design is 'how'" (Kahn, 1960). Learning about the formal universe and the wide range of possibilities it offers should be one of the purposes of the early subjects in architectural studies. This article aims to explain the contents of a first course of architectural design and demonstrate how, using a methodology based…

At Stellenbosch University, South Africa, basic histology is taught to a combination class of almost 400 first-year medical, physiotherapy, and dietetic students. Many students often find the amount of work in basic histology lectures overwhelming and consequently loose interest. The aim was to determine if a draw-along mapping activity would…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate prospective biology teachers' conceptions of teaching biology and identify how these conceptions revealed their strategies for helping their future students' learning of biology. The study utilized drawings, narratives and interviews to investigate the nature of the prospective biology…

As the result of a qualitative investigation into spatial ability, a teaching technique called mentored sketching was found to be effective for teaching visualization skills to freshman engineering students. This contribution describes the technique, how it evolved, and comments made by students as to its effectiveness. While mentored sketching…

The 7th International Conference on Education Data Mining held on July 4th-7th, 2014, at the Institute of Education, London, UK is the leading international forum for high-quality research that mines large data sets in order to answer educational research questions that shed light on the learning process. These data sets may come from the traces…