When computer scientists discuss the computational complexity of, for example, finding the shortest path from building A to building B in some town or city, their starting point typically is a formal description of the problem at hand, e.g., a graph with weights on every edge where buildings correspond to vertices, routes between buildings to…

This study suggests that conceptualization is the primary activity of arcade-style gameplay. Arcade-style game play is primarily a function of presenting concepts to players and continually requiring them to react with finer responses. The degree to which a concept is malleable determines how large its range is in gameplay. In other words, the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the instructional effectiveness of animated signals among learners with high and low prior knowledge. Each of the two treatments was presented with animated instruction either with signals or without signals on the content of how an airplane achieves lift. Subjects were eighty-seven undergraduate…

Dealing with uncertainty is a critical part of human decision-making and confidence reflects one's belief about the relative likelihood that various outcomes occur when making decision under uncertainty. Unfortunately, confidence often deviates from the actual quality of the decision, leading to under- or over-confidence. Calibration, the…

The applications of item response theory (IRT) models assume local item independence and that examinees are independent of each other. When a representative sample for psychometric analysis is selected using a cluster sampling method in a testlet-based assessment, both local item dependence and local person dependence are likely to be induced.…

The challenge faced by senior facility leaders is not how to execute a single project, but rather, how to successfully execute a large program consisting of hundreds of projects. Senior facilities officers at universities, school districts, hospitals, airports, and other organizations with extensive facility inventories, typically manage project…

Inquiry has been advocated as an effective pedagogical strategy for promoting deep conceptual understanding and more sophisticated scientific thinking by numerous bodies associated with chemistry (and science) education. To allow inquiry to achieve these goals, the teacher must manage the amount of cognitive load experienced by students while they…

This pedagogical article is intended to explain the similarities and differences between the parameterizations of two multilevel measurement model (MMM) frameworks. The conventional two-level MMM that includes item indicators and models item scores (Level 1) clustered within examinees (Level 2) and the two-level cross-classified MMM (in which item…

The Common Core State Standards emphasize the value of teaching students to engage with complex text. But what exactly makes a text complex, and how can teachers help students develop their ability to learn from such texts? The authors of this article discuss five factors that determine text complexity: vocabulary, sentence structure, coherence,…

Largely due to technological advances, methods for analyzing readability have increased significantly in recent years. While past researchers designed hundreds of formulas to estimate the difficulty of texts for readers, controversy has surrounded their use for decades, with criticism stemming largely from their application in creating new texts…

Challenging texts can be made accessible to students by increasing the level of instructional scaffolding. This article describes evidence-based models of shared reading that support reading development across the elementary years. Shared Reading Experience (Holdaway, 1982), Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (Stahl & Heubach, 2005),…

With recent interest in communities of practice, learning communities, and critical inquiry theory, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) developed, implemented, and studied the relationship of community and the cohort model. This paper shares information about successes and opportunities for improvement. Cohort-based learners across a…

This study examined the effectiveness of a dynamically adaptive TutorIT tutorial for graduate students' learning of basic statistical skills and their attitudes toward this tutorial. Fifteen in-service teachers interacted with the tutorial. As hypothesized, all who completed the tutorial demonstrated mastery. However, the class differed…

SUNY-wide, the online horse has left the gate. Meanwhile, campuses contend with traditional means for evaluating teaching effectiveness that do not match up against the latest standards for online instruction. Following a discussion of some of the core considerations that individual campuses need to address in responding to Open SUNY, the author…

In this article we discuss the findings of our research on students' understanding of vector concepts in problems without physical context. First, we develop a complete taxonomy of the most frequent errors made by university students when learning vector concepts. This study is based on the results of several test administrations of open-ended…