This study explores the effects of the use of Second Life (SL) as a learning environment on a course's dialogue. An experimental design within groups was used with thirty-seven graduate students for three weeks. Half of them followed the course activities in the official Learning Management System (LMS) of the program, Blackboard Vista, and the…

In this article we look at the links between early years pedagogy and the use of digital game-based learning. Early years education is a distinctive phase of the education system in many countries, generally covering the age range from 3-6 or 7 years. In the United Kingdom, it tends to bridge preschool and the first two years in primary school.…

From 2004-2007, the University of Memphis carried out the NSF-funded Tri-P-LETS (Three P Learning Environment for Teachers and Students) project to improve local high-school computer science curricula. The project reached a total of 58 classrooms in eleven high schools emphasizing problem solving skills, programming concepts as opposed to syntax,…

For the past few years, virtual environments (VEs) have gained broad attention from both scholarly and practitioner communities. However, in spite of intense and widespread efforts, most VE-related research has focused on the technical aspects of applications, and the necessary theoretical framework to assess the quality of interfaces and designs…

This article reports MyCaseSpace, a Web-based program used to present clinical cases to students in health-related professions to test their critical thinking skills. The creator of MyCaseSpace, David Segal, an assistant professor in the College of Health and Public Affairs at the University of Central Florida, has created various characters to…

Virtual worlds enable students to learn through seeing, knowing, and doing within visually rich and mentally engaging spaces. Rather than reading about events, students become part of the events through the adoption of a pre-set persona. Along with visual feedback that guides the players' activities and the development of visual skills, visual…

In this study, prospective science teachers' misconceptions about the seasons and the phases of the Moon were determined, and then the effects of 3D computer modelling on their conceptual changes were investigated. The topics were covered in two classes with a total of 76 students using a predict-observe-explain strategy supported by 3D computer…

Optimization of a chromatographic separation within the time constraints of a laboratory session is practically impossible. However, by employing a HPLC simulator, experiments can be designed that allow students to develop an appreciation of the complexities involved in optimization procedures. In the present exercise, a HPLC simulator from "JCE…

Research indicates that people more easily understand abstractions when they are preceded by concrete representations (Lawson 2002). This article describes how educators can use science representations to help students form lasting understandings of abstract concepts. A spectrum illustrating some commonly used representation types and their level…

Relational thinking plays a central role in human cognition. However, it is not known how children and adults acquire relational concepts and come to represent them in a form that is useful for the purposes of relational thinking (i.e., as structures that can be dynamically bound to arguments). The authors present a theory of how a psychologically…

This paper describes a computational exercise at undergraduate level that demonstrates the employment of Monte Carlo simulation to study the conformational statistics of flexible polymer chains, and to predict solution properties. Three simple chain models, including excluded volume interactions, have been implemented in a public-domain computer…

The interactive nature of computer simulation allows students to develop a deeper understanding of the laws of charged particle optics. Here, the use of commercially available optical design programs is described as a tool to aid in solving charged particle optics problems. We describe simple and practical demonstrations of basic electrostatic…

"Second Life" is a popular example of an immersive, three-dimensional, virtual world. Inhabitants of "Second Life" often describe their experiences in-world as having great social presence. Certainly there is a good deal of potential for education and training to occur in multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), if designed properly, especially…

The conflict monitoring model of M. M. Botvinick, T. S. Braver, D. M. Barch, C. S. Carter, and J. D. Cohen (2001) triggered several research programs investigating various aspects of cognitive control. One problematic aspect of the Botvinick et al. model is that there is no clear account of how the cognitive system knows where to intervene when…

The comprehension of interdependent complex systems, which is part of state and national standards, is an enormous challenge for learners. In traditional physiology teaching materials, which structure the human body into decoupled subsystems (e.g., respiratory and cardiovascular) isolated in separate chapters, there is a ubiquitous absence of…