Bigger classes are the reality for more and more teachers across the country. In the 2010-11 school year, 57 percent of districts increased their class sizes, and 65 percent anticipate doing so in 2011-12, according to a December 2010 survey by the American Association of School Administrators. So how do teachers cope? Experts and veteran teachers…

This book is the first comprehensive account of developments in open and distance non-formal education in developing countries for over more than 20 years. It includes many instructive and inspiring examples of how international agencies such as UNESCO, FAO, WHO, UNICEF, USAID and the Commonwealth of Learning and national providers are using…

Canada's important areas of expertise in open educational resources (OER) are beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in OER initiatives and open higher education in general in Canada, providing insights into what is happening nationally…

This work describes the design and evaluation of a proposal to use Classroom Response Systems (CRS), intended to promote participative classes of Mathematics at University. The proposal is based on Problem Based Learnig (PBL) and uses Robert's six hypotheses for mathematical teaching-learning. The results show that PBL is a relevant strategy to…

Using critical discourse analysis, the authors examine a broad range of texts to make sense of the rise of the MOOC movement and implications for faculty work. Drawing on Braverman's labor process theory and critiques of neoliberalism, the authors highlight the role of xMOOCs in particular, focusing on challenges to faculty labor. They organize…

This paper examines, using regression modelling, whether a statistically significant relationship exists between the time spent by a student using the course website and the student's assessment performance for a large third year university business forecasting course. We utilise the online tracking system in Blackboard, a web-based software…

Innovative thinking skills are among the top characteristics that employers look for when hiring engineers. Universities are therefore charged with investigating and providing the type of learning environments that will foster the development of innovative thinking especially in large classes. This involves considering multiple factors such as the…

This study was designed to experimentally examine how supplemental vocabulary instruction provided in either whole-group or small-group settings influences low-income preschoolers' word knowledge and conceptualdevelopment. Using a within-subject design, 108 preschool children from 12 Head Start classrooms participated in an 8-week intervention,…

Government budget constraints had forced the Emergency Dispatch Center (EDC) at a military installation to work with less than the normal number of staff. A Program Proposal was developed previously that had determined that a learning gap existed in the researcher's work environment at a military installation. To counter this gap, Learning Tasks…

This study reports an investigation on the effects of directed vocabulary and whole class instruction on improving students' vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. Fifty-eight seventh grade students participated in the study, and a pre-test/post-test experimental design was employed. The results did not indicate any statistically…

Promoting active learning among students may result in greater learning and more positive attitudes in university-level large lecture classes. One way of promoting active learning in large lecture classes is via the use of a think-pair-share instructional strategy, which combines student participation in class discussions via clicker technology…

This article presents a rationale for using active involvement techniques, describes large- and small-group methods based on their documented effectiveness and applicability to K-12 classrooms, and illustrates their use. These approaches include ways of engaging students in large groups (e.g., unison responses, response cards, dry-erase boards,…

This study compared instructional methods used and levels of student engagement in treatment (n = 4) and comparison (n = 4) classrooms of 40 or more students for two weeks in Thailand. Observations were conducted in all classrooms pre- and post-intervention. The treatment group received the intervention: a workshop focused on strategies to engage…

Primary literature is essential for scientific communication and is commonly utilized in undergraduate biology education. Despite this, there is often little time spent "training" our students how to critically analyze a paper. To address this, we introduced a primary literature module in multiple upper-division laboratory courses. In…

Studies considering whole-class use of computer simulations are limited, despite the increasing interest in this mode of use. The current study explored how a collection of computer simulations was integrated into both whole-class and small-group instructional settings during a high school chemistry unit on atomic structure. Participants included…