In the field of design and engineering education, the fast and expansive evolution of information and communication technologies is steadily converting traditional learning approaches into more advanced ones. Facilitated by Broadband (high bandwidth) personal computers, distance learning has developed into web-hosted electronic learning. The…

Digital learner portfolios are of growing importance in higher education as the sector seeks new teaching-learning-assessment methods which promote students' autonomy as managers of their own virtual learning environment. The purpose of this study was to analyse descriptively the undergraduate students' perceptions, attitudes and behaviour when…

As online courses are offered as an alternative to traditional instruction in higher education, there are considerable debates about online teaching and learning. Some believe that online education shows promise as an innovative and creative pedagogical method; 67% of colleges and universities agree that online education is the single significant…

At Michigan State University the two medical schools, College of Human Medicine (CHM; M.D. degree) and College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM; D.O. degree), have offered the same science courses to first year students for many years. Science departments report to both colleges, and the same faculty can effectively teach the content required in the…

The 2008 Sloan Blended Workshop evaluation track provided participants with ideas, methods, and resources with which to design and evaluate their courses, programs, and blended initiatives. The many questions that arose from participants at the Workshop provided the motivation to document our University's evaluation experiences at course, program…

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study conducted to investigate how the attributes of 3-D technology such as avatars, 3-D space, and comic style bubble dialogue boxes affect participants' social, cognitive, and teaching presences in a blended problem-based learning environment. The community of inquiry model was adopted…

This paper reports on one aspect of a larger case study that explores the nature of motivation to learn in an online distance environment. The study adopts self-determination theory (SDT) as a theoretical framework and focuses particularly on the underlying concepts of autonomy and competence. These are used to investigate ways in which certain…

Discussion boards as tools in blended "English language" learning programs have unique characteristics when compared to other synchronous and asynchronous communication tools that are different. Therefore, it is important to investigate the way they operate, their role within a given program and the students', teachers' and tutors'…

This study investigates users' perception and acceptance of mixed reality (MR) technology. Acceptance of new information technologies has been important research area since 1990s. It is important to understand the reasons why people accept information technologies, as this can help to improve design, evaluation and prediction how users will…

Blended learning is increasingly introduced in classrooms worldwide. Nonetheless, studies are not unanimous as to its impact on student performance and its benefits to enhancing the learning experience. In this article, it is argued that a focused approach, taking into account the particular requirements of the course and the students'…

This study investigates designing and implementing a speaking course in which face-to-face instruction informed by the principles of Task-Based Learning is blended with the use of technology, the video, for the first-year student teachers of English in Turkish higher education. The study consisted of three hours of task-based classroom…

Developing and delivering curricula that are integrated and that use blended learning techniques requires a highly orchestrated design. While institutions have demonstrated the ability to design complex curricula on an ad-hoc basis, these projects are generally successful at a great human and capital cost. Model-driven design provides a…

A blended in-service arrangement was designed to support Russian science teachers from rural schools in the integration of technology. Blended learning combines multiple delivery modes that are designed to complement each other and promote learning and application-based behavior. The blended in-service arrangement consisted of two main components:…

This paper presents a methodology of discovering social action patterns in collaborative learning activities for use in improving activity design, and in particular for restructuring existing designs involving face-to-face social actions to enhance their social dynamics and thus better ensure the achievement of a specified aim. An activity in this…

As it happens in other fields of engineering, blended learning is widely used to teach process control topics. In this paper, the inclusion of a reactive element--a Fuzzy Logic based controller--is proposed for a blended learning approach in an introductory control engineering course. This controller has been designed in order to regulate the…