This paper presents a model for teaching large classes that facilitates a "small class feel" to counteract the distance, anonymity, and formality that often characterize large lecture-style courses in higher education. One author (E. P.) has been teaching a 300-student general education critical thinking course for ten years, and the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the challenges international students face during their higher education in the USA. This research study was conducted at a private university in the Eastern region of the USA from October 2012 through May 2013 (Fall and Spring semesters) with undergraduate and graduate international students.…

This study developed a set of Role-playing game (RPG), which was used to explore whether significant differences exist in academic performance and learning attitudes between RPG-based assessment and traditional lectures. This study also investigated the satisfaction of students toward the RPG scenario. Research participants included 100 second…

Twenty years ago, a major curriculum revision at a large, comprehensive university in the Western United States led to the implementation of an integrated lecture/laboratory (studio) experience for our engineering students taking general chemistry. Based on these twenty years of experience, construction of four purpose-built studio classrooms to…

Students and faculty have disparate opinions on how complete lecture materials should be to optimize learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of lecture handout completeness and content area on Doctor of Physical Therapy student recall/retention in foundation level courses. These findings suggest there may not be a best…

In this paper, the authors find empirical support for the effectiveness of the flipped classroom model. Using a quasi-experimental method, the authors compared students enrolled in flipped courses to their counterparts in more traditional lecture-based ones. A survey instrument was constructed to study how these two different groups of students…

At a research University near the east coast, researchers restructured a College Algebra course by formatting the course into two large lectures a week, an active recitation size laboratory class once a week, and an extra day devoted to active group work called Supplemental Practice (SP). SP was added as an extra day of class where the SP leader…

Both lecture delivery and Facebook use are ubiquitous aspects of higher education from staff and student points-of-view, respectively. An attempt was made to integrate the two by setting up a Facebook group and delivering contemporary news stories in preparation for in-lecture discussion in a large-scale (1,200 students across 5 sections)…

Lecturing has been criticized for fostering a passive learning environment, emphasizing a one-way flow of information, and not adequately engaging students. In contrast, active-learning approaches, such as team-based learning (TBL), prioritize student interaction and engagement and create multidirectional flows of information. This paper presents…

To support the possibility of taking an online engineering degree programme, Narvik University College has chosen to facilitate a streaming service of all lectures conducted by the college. At the Bodø college campus, in the academic year of 2012/2013, these online lectures were used as a central component in a didactic innovation project. The aim…

Research indicates that student engagement with lectures, and participation in discussion and debate, greatly improve their learning and experience of University. The nature of some lectures means they can lack opportunities for interaction and active learning. For this reason it can be difficult for some students, especially students new to…

Student nurses, globally, appear to struggle with medication calculations. In order to improve these skills among student nurses, the authors developed The Medication Game--an online computer game that aims to provide simple mathematical and medical calculation drills, and help students practise standard medical units and expressions. The aim of…

A number of factors can influence learning from lectures such as students' prior knowledge, their motivation, the instructional design, the lecturer and so forth. Instructional aid techniques such as preparing class notes, giving quizzes (either planned or spot quizzes) and the like can be used to maximize learning. This study uses two…

With the proliferation of new affordable recording technologies, many universities have begun offering students recordings of live lectures as a part of the course resources. We conducted a survey to investigate why some students choose to attend lectures in person rather than simply watching the recordings online, and how students view the two…

The main objective of this study was to investigate the higher secondary biology instruction in Pakistan in light of constructivism. The present study is concerned with, the examination of higher secondary biology instruction, taking into account constructivism as a learning theory, that can be largely examined without considering broader…