Attainment of functional English literacy skills by all students has been a focus of Australian national policy since the 1989 Hobart Declaration (MCEETYA, 1989). This focus underpins current educational accountability policy enacted through the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The Adelaide and Melbourne Declarations…

Because the transition to a knowledge-based economy requires an educated workforce, colleges and universities have made retention of students--particularly those who are academically underprepared--an institutional priority. College completion leads to economic and social advancement for students and is also critical to the nation's economic and…

This study examined achievement when podcasts were used in place of lecture in the core technology course required for all students seeking teacher licensure at a large research-intensive university in the Southeastern United States. Further, it examined the listening preferences of the podcast group and the barriers to podcast use. The results…

This formative evaluation within a graduate initial teacher education program sought to identify student teachers' perceptions of lecturer practice and its influence on their developing practice. Data collected from course and teaching evaluations and focus group interviews suggested that microstructural course elements--lectures, tutorials, and…

A challenge for todays instructional leaders is identifying the most effective method of educating English Language Learners (ELLs) who participate in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. The primary purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness of three programs used for ESL students in twelve elementary schools in a Urban…

A growing number of television programs direct their viewers to access an Internet website for further information on a presented topic. The explicit link between television programs and companion Internet websites, both of which communicate information through multiple modes, can be considered a form of intertextuality. Do college students…

College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. Jose A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked"--by which he means, "sans" machines. More than any thing else, Mr. Bowen wants…

In 2007, Hamilton College, Colgate University, and St. Lawrence University received a grant from the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) Instructional Innovation Fund to take stock of the ways in which multimodal assignments were being used on campuses and to look in particular at the ways in which such assignments…

Worldwide growth in use of mobile phones has fostered the emergence of mobile learning. Mobile technologies are used both in classrooms to support instruction (safe) and as tools that significantly change instructional activities, learner roles, and learning location (disruptive). Learners become less consumers of information and more…

With the proliferation of computer networks and the increased use of Internet-based applications, many forms of social interactions now take place in an on-line context through "Computer-Mediated Communication" (CMC). Many universities are now reaping the benefits of using CMC applications to collect data on student evaluations of…

The wiki is an excellent tool for student collaboration and teacher assessment. Students' comfort with online social networking makes the wiki a perfect forum for students to coauthor works and to respond to each other's writing. In this article, the author discusses how to use a wiki to promote discussion and aid students with writing. He tested…

Prompted by a previous study investigating the effects of pacing on the academic testing performance of college students with AD/HD, we further explored our preliminary findings, which suggested that a computerized testing environment enhanced the testing performance of college students with AD/HD. We compared the effects of a computerized vs.…

Historically, responses to the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) were required to be collected by self-administered paper or online questionnaire to be eligible for official analysis. CEQ responses collected by telephone were excluded from the final analysis file to minimise the potential for bias due to mode effects: systematic variation in…

This paper argues that Educational Effectiveness Research (EER) should establish closer links with research on teacher professional development. A dynamic integrated approach (DIA) to teacher professional development is proposed. The methods and results of a study comparing the impact of the DIA and the Holistic Approach (HA) to teacher…

This section will reflect on two different classroom designs from my own teaching experience: one that required students to bring laptops and one that required only paper and pen. Because traditional classrooms were likely designed without taking technology into consideration, teachers should be aware of what the design of the classroom says about…