This article introduces the assessment and deployment contexts of the Networking Performance Skill System (NetPASS) project and the articles in this section that report on findings from this endeavor. First, the educational context of the Cisco Networking Academy Program is described. Second, the basic outline of Evidence Centered Design is…

In this essay, the authors provide an overview of Universal Instructional Design (UID) as an approach for addressing the learning needs of all students enrolled in institutions of higher education. They argue that the concept of universality as it is applied to instruction is an approach that will benefit not only students with disabilities, but…

This article focuses on a form of instructional design that is deemed fitting for reform mathematics education. Reform mathematics education requires instruction that helps students in developing their current ways of reasoning into more sophisticated ways of mathematical reasoning. This implies that there has to be ample room for teachers to…

Distance education utilizing online courses has emerged as an area of program development for many teacher education programs. Online course learning management systems, such as Blackboard.com, have made putting a course online a relatively simple task; however, in many cases, the online course is little more than a correspondence course with a…

An important goal of physical education is to instill positive attitudes toward physical activity that result in a healthy and active lifestyle (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004). Boredom or frustration will cause students to lose interest in the activity unless it is modified to meet the individual's needs. For this…

By the time children reach middle school, they already have a well-established relationship with the media. Ignoring the significance of media in the lives of adolescents creates a gap between their in-school and out-of-school worlds. Middle school curricula needs to be relevant to students. Therefore, educators should make time to address the…

There exists a natural connection between civic engagement and the public speaking class. Too often, however, this connection remains indirect at best and lost in a sea of uninspired topic selections and convenient source cites at worst. This assignment offers one way to help public speaking students increase their civic awareness and imagination…

This article presents an activity that makes use of a questionnaire similar to a Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) which elicit students' responses about their previous speaking experiences, their own definitions of anxiety and its causes, and their plans for future careers. This activity is aimed at helping students overcome…

This study explores distance instructors' perceptions and attitudes related to applying key elements of instructional design in preparing to teach at a distance. Although one role of a distance instructor is to design instruction, it is not known if and how he or she knows, understands, and applies instructional design elements when he or she…

Traditionally, Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) has focused on instructional methods to decrease extraneous cognitive load so that available cognitive resources can be fully devoted to learning. This article strengthens the cognitive base of CLT by linking cognitive processes to the processes used by biological evolution. The article discusses recent…

For this study, we examined the cogency, comprehensiveness, and viability of team-based problem solutions of a Web-based hypermedia case designed to promote student understanding of the practice of instructional design. Participants were 14 students enrolled in a graduate course on advanced instructional design. The case was presented to students…

Skepticism about online instruction often erroneously blames the electronic medium for shortcomings in instructional design or technique. This essay discusses the performance expectations for fully online group problem-solving via threaded discussion boards. Four years of administering this assignment in a basic oral communication course yield…

This study engages the question of where successful emerging (pretenure) scholars are most likely to publish their research. Spurred on by findings of a survey of leaders in the field of educational technology instructional design and technology (ETIDT) to determine the advisability of a rank-ordered list of journals for the purposes of decision…

Visits to science museums can provide a complement to the science learning carried out in schools. However, science museums are informal learning environments where teachers usually have very little control over the ideas being implicated or the experiments that the students carry out. It is necessary to design educational materials for the visit…

There has been considerable emphasis on the availability and reuse of learning content in recent years. Since 2000, the ADL initiative has refined the recommendations contained in the SCORM documents through progressive stages represented in the SCORM 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 documents. Fundamental to SCORM is the notion of the Shareable Content…