Teaching is a moral and educational enterprise. Therefore, teachers are expected to explain and justify the instructional methods and designs they use in their teaching to demonstrate how they meet the moral and educational ends of the teaching enterprise. To justify the use of particular instructional methods and designs goes beyond giving a…

Substantial disagreement exists in the literature regarding which educational technology results in the highest cognitive gain for learners. In an attempt to resolve this dispute, we conducted a meta-analysis to decipher which teaching method, games and interactive simulations or traditional, truly dominates and under what circumstances. It was…

Most studies on feedback compare elaborated feedback types presenting knowledge on the correct response (KCR) immediately together with further information to simple feedback types providing knowledge of result (KR) or KCR. This study uses bug-related tutoring feedback (BRT-feedback) offering strategic information for error correction, but no…

Collaborative Learning in group settings currently occurs across a substantial portion of the UK Higher Education curriculum. This style of learning has many roots including: Enterprise in Higher Education, Action Learning and Action Research, Problem Based Learning, and Practice Based Learning. As such our focus on Collaborative Learning…

This article describes a recent collaborative project (PASS-IT) which investigated the use of online assessment in secondary education in Scotland. The aim of PASS-IT was to explore the potential of formative and summative assessment in secondary education, and to build on previous research into the applicability and validity of online…

ProbLab is a probability-and-statistics unit developed at the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University. Students analyze the combinatorial space of the 9-block, a 3-by-3 grid of squares, in which each square can be either green or blue. All 512 possible 9-blocks are constructed and assembled in a "bar…

Computer-based training is increasingly favored by food companies for training workers due to convenience, self-pacing ability, and ease of use. The objectives of this study were to determine if personal hygiene training, offered through a computer-based method, is as effective as a face-to-face method in knowledge acquisition and improved…

A system for "anchored discussion" is compared with a system for traditional forum discussion (Blackboard), and their collaborative and communicative affordances for the collaborative processing of academic texts are investigated. Results show that discussion in the system for anchored discussion is more directed at processing the meaning of texts…

Future CSCL technologies are described by the community as flexible, tailorable, negotiable, and appropriate for various collaborative settings, conditions and contexts. This paper describes the key design issues of a generic synchronous collaborative learning environment, called Omega+. In this approach, model-based genericity is applied to the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the design of a context-aware service for synchronous support in web-based educational systems. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed service supports synchronous interaction among tutors and students, based on their current context, thus increasing the communication channels, the reasoning and…

This study was designed to examine the effects of the competency (low vs. high) and interaction type (proactive vs. responsive) of pedagogical agents as learning companions (PALs) on learning, self-efficacy, and attitudes. Participants were 72 undergraduates in an introductory computer-literacy course who were randomly assigned to one of four…

In undergraduate mathematics courses, pre-service elementary school teachers are often faced with the task of re-learning some of the concepts they themselves struggled with in their own schooling. This often involves different cognitive processes and psychological issues than initial learning: pre-service teachers have had many more opportunities…

These three essays focus on the creation and sustenance of learning communities among students and instructors at the college and university level. The essays are: (1) "Creating and Sustaining Learning Communities" (Carolyn Dudgeon), which emphasizes a seamless educational continuum for lifelong learners in a collaborative, caring…

This handbook provides information on 31 software programs designed to instruct students with attention disorders in individual and group settings. The most successful applications of instructional software are identified, and six broad categories of instructional software are discussed. Twenty-one strategies for teaching students with attention…

This report describes a project that used the computer-assisted instruction in conjunction with a textbook in a 3-year beginning German language class at a British university. Students received 6 hours per week of German language instruction: 2 hours with a human instructor, 3 hours of self-study in the language laboratory, and 1 hour of…