The ability to solve physics problems that require multiple concepts from across the physics curriculum--"synthesis" problems--is often a goal of physics instruction. Three experiments were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of two instructional methods employing worked examples on student performance with synthesis problems; these…

The purpose of this research was to determine how information synthesis skills can be taught effectively, and to discover how the level of synthesis in student writing can be effectively measured. The intervention was an information synthesis lesson that broke down the synthesis process into sequenced tasks. Researchers created a rubric which they…

Concept mapping was developed as a method of displaying and organizing hierarchical knowledge structures. Using the new, multidimensional presentation software Prezi, we have developed a new teaching technique designed to engage higher-level skills in the cognitive domain. This tool, synthesis mapping, is a natural evolution of concept mapping,…

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable aspect of language ability in order for second and foreign language (L2/FL) learners to understand and be understood in their interactions with both native and nonnative speakers of the target language. Without a proper understanding of the pragmatic rules in the target language, learners may run the risk…

Our Introduction to Research Methods course is a first-year majors course built around the idea of helping students learn to work like chemists, write like chemists, and think like chemists. We have developed this course as a hybrid hands-on/ lecture experience built around instrumentation use and report preparation. We take the product from one…

This is a summary of 300 plus studies from Marzano Research Laboratory (MRL) on instructional strategies. This report synthesizes a series of action research projects conducted between the fall of 2004 and the spring of 2009. The data used for analysis can be found in MRL's Action Research Meta-Analysis Database. Appended are: (1) Instructions for…

In the process of fitting a quantitative synthesis model, the assumption of homogeneous effect size variation is assessed via omnibus test statistics. Graphical representations of data on techniques for teaching composition skills are used to help determine the extent to which sample estimates deviate from modeled population estimates. (TJH)