This study analyzes the impact of an integrated sensory model within a thermal equilibrium visualization. We hypothesized that this intervention would not only help students revise their disruptive experientially supported ideas about why objects feel hot or cold, but also increase their understanding of thermal equilibrium. The analysis…

Emergency management training programs have been developed mostly for trainees from high-risk environments such as aviation or the chemical industry. This article describes a training program for staff members from low-risk environments such as hospitals or hotels, where the awareness of potential dangers is usually low and emergency plans are…

Possessing high intellectual ability is no guarantee of academic success. In fact, the relevant literature often reports problems of delays in academic progress, as well as hyperactivity and attention problems in students of high ability. It is therefore relevant to design programs which help toward attainment of academic success. In this paper we…

As often as language teachers lecture about the importance of continual practice to adolescent learners, the dullness of homework exercises designed primarily to be educational has difficulty competing with popular media designed solely to be entertaining. Recently, numerous attempts have been made to develop "edutainment" titles that seek to…

Diffusion and osmosis are central concepts in biology, both at the cellular and organ levels. They are presented several times throughout most introductory biology textbooks (e.g., Freeman, 2002), yet both processes are often difficult for students to understand (Odom, 1995; Zuckerman, 1994; Sanger "et al.", 2001; and results herein). Students…

Enzyme kinetics is a difficult subject for students to learn and for tutors to teach. During the practicals included in the biochemical courses at the Faculty of Chemistry of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, we found that the students acquire good training in the calculations to obtain kinetic parameters such as K[subscript m], V[subscript…

This fourth edition of the New Media Consortium's (NMC) annual "Horizon Report" describes the continuing work of the Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education. Drawing on ongoing…

There is little debate among researchers, policymakers, and educational stakeholders that reading achievement among African American students is an important issue (Strickland, 1994). While several scholars have contributed greatly to the research literature on matters pertaining to African American students and reading, additional research is…

Audio-visual advances in virtual reality (VR) technology have given rise to innovative new ways to teach and learn. However, so far teaching and learning processes have been technologically driven as opposed to pedagogically led. This paper identifies the development of a pedagogical model and its application for teaching, studying and learning…

This study sought to address the lack of experimental research examining the influence of contextual factors on African American students' learning. A total of 162 low-income African American and White fourth graders were randomly assigned to ethnically homogeneous, communally structured groups of three to work on a motion acceleration task using…

This paper describes the forms of knowledge used by players of fantasy sports, games where players create ideal sports teams and compete to accumulate points based on professional athletes' statistical performances. Messages from a discussion forum associated with a popular fantasy basketball game were analyzed to understand how players described…

Many researchers and instructional designers increasingly recognise the benefits of utilising three dimensional virtual reality (VR) technology in instruction. In general, there are two types of VR system, the immersive system and the non-immersive system. This article focuses on the latter system that merely uses the conventional personal…

The Global University System (GUS) is a world wide initiative to create an advanced telecommunications infrastructure for access to educational resources across national and cultural boundaries in the search for global peace. GUS aims to create a world wide consortium of universities to provide the underdeveloped world with access to 21st century…

Higher education and in particular Colleges of Education are viewed as falling behind in the use of technology for teaching and learning (Lederman & Niess, 2000). With today's student population identified as digital natives and the evening news discussing the potential of virtual worlds as new learning environments, an examination of the…

This research paper presents an analysis of the computer simulation, SimCity, used for an urban city planning class. The data were gathered by actual use of the simulation and an electronic mail network was employed to secure impressions from users of the simulation. SimCity (developed by Maxis) provides the player with rules of human factors,…