We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the second law of thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduate thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students…

This study aimed to investigate the impact of the flipped classroom on the promotion of students' creative thinking. Students were recruited from the Faculty of Education at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia during the first semester of 2014. A multiple method research design was used to address the research questions. First, a two-group…

The aim of this study was to develop and validate Science Homework Scale (SHS) which assesses middle-school (grades 6-8) students' perceptions of teachers' homework practices and homework self-regulation in science. Students' perceptions of teachers' homework practices included homework quality and feedback on homework while students' homework…

This study aims to determine the effect on the achievement, motivation and self-sufficiency of students of the flipped classroom approach adapted to Keller's ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) motivation model and applied to a physics course. The study involved 66 students divided into two classes of a physics course. The…

The "Effective Classroom Interactions" (ECI) online courses were designed to provide an engaging, effective and scalable approach to enhancing early childhood teachers' use of classroom practices that impact children's school readiness. The created courses included several versions aimed at testing whether or not certain design aspects…

Difficulties in general education mathematics courses may be attributed to many factors, primarily low proficiency in symbol manipulation, a perception that mathematics is an area which eludes mastery, a lack of engagement and effective practice. Educational technology can be a powerful aid in overcoming these factors. This work describes the…

Students at open-enrollment institutions enter college with a wide range of academic preparedness and are often required to take developmental classes to increase their academic skills to be successful in higher education. Further, few students possess self-regulated learning skills to aid in their learning. Researchers posited that academically…

A natural outcome of change in technology, new approaches towards teaching and learning have emerged and the applicability of the flipped classroom method, a new educational strategy, in the field of education has started to be discussed. It was aimed with the study to examine the effect of using flipped classroom method in academic achievements…

In the 2013-2014 school year, we implemented the "flipped classroom" as part of an initiative to drive active learning, student engagement and enhanced learning in our school. The flipped courses consisted of freshman through senior engineering classes in introductory programming, statics/mechanics, mechanical design, bio-thermodynamics,…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a longitudinal examination of the relationship between sustained after-school participation and a district's Early Warning Index associated with school dropout in a large urban school district. The study included 64,351 students participating between 2000-2001 and the 2011-2012 school years. Data were…

Khan Academy (KA) is a free web-based intelligent tutor, which has been featured in countless media outlets for its potential to change mathematics instruction. The founder and executive director, Salman Khan, recommends that KA be used to personalize instruction, freeing up class time for engaging high yield activities like student discourse and…

E-Learning brings access to a powerful but often overlooked teaching tool: random number generation. Using random number generation, a practically infinite number of quantitative problem-solution sets can be created. In addition, within the e-learning context, in the spirit of the mastery of learning, it is possible to assign online quantitative…

The aim of this study is to describe and explore how instant messaging (IM) can be used to support informal math coaching. We have studied two projects where university students use IM to coach K-12 students in mathematics. The coaches were interviewed with a focus on how informal coaching works by examining coaching challenges, how coaching can…

The authors examine the use of technology to support students in their learning of practical accounting software applications while taking a traditional on-campus class. Specifically, they look at how Jing and Skype are used to facilitate successful completion of a series of simulations using Netsuite (NetSuite, Inc., San Mateo, CA) accounting…

Social presence (represented by salience of instructor and fellow students) in an online teaching environment has been shown to influence perceptions of course activity and self-estimates of learning. An experiment is described here in which teacher presence is manipulated via personalized messages from the teaching assistant throughout the…