Large lecture courses are an efficient way to convey material to many students but have potential limitations, most notably the tendency for them to promote passive learning opportunities rather than active pedagogies. The curriculum at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, like many veterinary schools, contains many large…

With the advent of new technologies, assessment research has adopted technology-based methods to investigate test validity. This study investigated the neurocognitive processes involved in an academic listening comprehension test, using a biometric technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Sixteen right-handed university…

This case study of large-class teaching at a UK university focuses on the place of large-scale lectures in academics' approaches to teaching, their "use" by students in their studies, and their relationship to institutional quality assurance policies. The case is a second-year module comprised of 180 students, and it includes two-hour…

Evidence regarding the benefits of an instructor's deictic gestures in video lectures on adults' learning may not necessarily be reflective of their effect on children's learning. Furthermore, there is a lack evidence regarding how deictic gestures specifically affect learners' learning process. Based in cognitive load theory, with consideration…

General chemistry is a foundational course that most STEM students are required to take at some point in their academic careers, as such, thousands of students find themselves in a chemistry classroom every year. Students come into the classroom not only from different academic backgrounds but also from a variety of social and emotional…

First-generation students, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, have low persistence rates. Research shows that one of the barriers to their low persistence is a need for a student-centered pedagogical approach. Research has shown that if an instructor incorporates a pause technique during a standard lecture,…

Much effort has been put into the design of video lectures, but little attention has been paid to the social environment in which learning takes place. The present study addressed this gap by assigning Chinese undergraduate and graduate students who had passed the College English Test-4 to learn easy or difficult English vocabulary words in three…

Learning engagement and career-relevant skills are both important elements in learning. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research related to learning engagement in massive open online courses (MOOCs) from MOOC instructors' point of view. Research is also needed on MOOC instructors' strategies to provide career-relevant content to the learners. In…

In an online asynchronous vector calculus course, we observed exam answers solved with a formula from online homework instead of the formula from lecture. Our exploratory study investigated (1) why students learned from homework instead of lecture for this topic and (2) their epistemological frames (e-frames) for lecture and homework. Per (1),…

Analogies are useful tools instructors can use to help make challenging concepts less abstract by drawing connections to familiar contexts. In this paper we provide an overview of the various analogies published in the education literature that are situated in the context of enzyme kinetics, including narrative-based analogies (analogies intended…

The connection between education and a country's economic and social development is unquestionable, and science and technology-related careers are of particular importance. Given the lack of vocations in these degrees, a number of mechanisms have been used to attract students, including science and technology conferences in secondary schools.…

Online learning has gained increasing attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers face social exigencies to design ways of knowledge dissemination in online instruction. We posit that understanding how knowledge can be represented in successful online academic genres can inform teachers on how they can design students' online learning…

A review of related research found the use of recorded lecture videos (RLVs) in undergraduate mathematics to be negatively correlated with academic performance. To investigate this correlation, an initial study found students' regular RLV use to be linked to surface approaches to learning. The present study continued this investigation and was…

Microlearning, in which lecture recordings are segmented into parts, saw renewed focus as a means of maintaining student engagement amid the challenging conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many institutions shifted to remote provision with segmented lecture recordings, there is a lack of consensus about the length that these segments should…

Contribution: This work sheds light on how classmate behaviors influence gender gaps in verbal participation in lecture-based engineering classes. It is found that after a woman participates in class, there is a temporarily increased likelihood a woman will participate again afterward. Background: Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM…