Facilitate Student Learning Research Articles

Prop Demonstrations in Biology Lectures Facilitate Student Learning and Performance

Science students can benefit from visual aids. In biology lectures, visual aids are usually limited to tables, figures, and PowerPoint presentations. In this IRB-approved study, we examined the effectiveness of the use of five prop demonstrations, three of which are at the intersection of biology and chemistry, in three community college biology courses. We hypothesized that students’ performance on test questions is enhanced by the use of prop demonstrations. Consistent with our hypothesis, we showed that students learn more effectively and perform better on questions that relate to demonstrations than on questions related to lessons that do not have a demonstration component.

Initiating small group learning in a Caribbean medical school.

Initiating small group learning in a Caribbean medical school.

Engagement with a teaching career – how a group of Finnish university teachers experience teacher identity and professional growth

The aim of this qualitative study was to identify teachers’ ways of experiencing their identity and development challenges as teachers in the social and professional context of university. Identity and development as a teacher were examined based on interviews and drawings of career paths collected from a group of university teachers representing diverse scientific fields at one research-intensive university in Finland. Based on the findings, a typology of teacher identities and classification of development themes were constructed, illustrating the experiences and drawing on the themes found in the data and comparing them to Huberman’s teachers’ career cycle as well as Åkerlind’s views on university teachers’ changes. The findings showed that those who have reached a goal-reflective and stabilised teacher identity recognise development challenges, especially in the areas of self-development and facilitation of student learning, while those who have a constructive-conflicting or unsolved teacher identity struggle with the many pressures of teaching practice and reaching teacher comfort. The learning trajectories of the studied university teachers were varied and lasted considerably longer than suggested by teachers’ career cycle views.

Supporting physiology learning: the development of interactive concept-based video clips

the accommodation of diverse student learning approaches and maintenance of good academic outcomes are often difficult to achieve in university courses, particularly where large classes are concerned. These issues become even more significant when dealing with first-year students in science courses

Exploring PE teachers’ ‘gut feelings’

Research shows that teachers’ grading is influenced by non-achievement factors in addition to official criteria, such as knowledge and skills. Some grading criteria are internalised by the teacher, who is sometimes unable to verbalise the criteria used and refers to what is called a ‘gut feeling’. Therefore, transparency, validity and reliability are problematic. The aim of this study was to explore which criteria physical education teachers consider important when grading. Such an exploration makes it possible to discuss how the verbalised criteria and the value they are given by the teachers can be understood. Four Year 9 teachers at different Swedish compulsory schools were interviewed using Kelly’s Repertory Grid technique. Among the verbalised criteria, four themes were identified: motivation, knowledge and skills, self-confidence and interaction with others. The teachers sometimes had difficulties predicting which criteria had relevance to the grades given, and the criteria considered important by the teachers were not always reflected in the grade. The verbalised criteria revealed teachers using grades to encourage such student behaviours that helped them to handle the classroom situation and to facilitate students learning. To become cognisant of and develop their grading, methods to verbalise their individual grading criteria were needed, and Kelly’s Repertory Grid technique is one possible option. The results provide discussion points about reasons for the way teachers are grading.

Essential Characteristics of Quality Clinical Education Experiences: Standards to Facilitate Student Learning

Background and Purpose.Clinical education experiences (CEEs) provide physical therapist (PT) students with opportunities to be immersed in clinical practice to develop professional skills and behaviors under the supervision of a clinical instructor (CI). Essential characteristics and qualities of CI

APPLICATION OF COMPUTER IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

There is really no doubt that Computer Education and utilization are very essential not only in educational institutions but in all aspects of modern societies. This paper discusses the usage of computer in Nigerian Colleges of Education which includes checking the in and out of library materials, keeping staff confidential records as well as keeping students examination results more accurately. The paper also highlights the benefits of computer usage in Nigerian Colleges of Education such as facilitating students learning and providing opportunities for students especially those specializing in Computer Education to become system analysts, computer operators, business centre managers, software engineers and hardware engineers in their future undertaking. However, the limitation with computer usage in Nigerian Colleges of Education is that students find it difficult to understand lessons in Computer Education because they lack the basic knowledge of computer. Also, students may have the tendency to write assignments by simply downloading relevant or irrelevant information from the net. As a result of these limitations, the writer recommends that the federal and state Ministries of Education should employ well-trained personnel that can manage the computer sets provided to the colleges effectively. Also, staff in Colleges of Education should be encouraged to utilize the computer in carrying out some of their responsibilities.

Tutor performance in a problem-based Hospitality Management curriculum

Tutors are of crucial importance for student learning in problem-based learning (PBL). They facilitate the development of students' self-directed and collaborative learning skills, and support students during their learning processes. The tutor's ability to understand students' learning needs and to further student learning is a prerequisite for successful facilitation of student learning. It is generally assumed that a short introduction to problem-based learning will suffice for qualified teachers to fulfil their role as a tutor. However, the necessary competencies and responsibilities of a tutor differ greatly from the role of a teacher in a conventional, lecture-based educational system. Participant observations of tutors in PBL sessions show a great variety of interpretations of the tutor role. Beginning tutors in particular feel the burden of uncertainty due to lack of experience in tutoring PBL groups. Therefore, we designed a training course for beginning tutors that focuses on the development of tutor competencies aiming at the facilitation of constructive, self-directed, contextual, and collaborative learning in PBL groups. In this study, students evaluated tutor performance in PBL groups and we compared the performance of beginning and experienced tutors.

Classroom Response Systems Facilitate Student Accountability, Readiness, and Learning

In three experiments using crossover designs, we investigated the effects of Classroom Response Systems (CRS) when presenting multiple-choice questions in real classrooms. In Experiment 1, students either used CRS for bonus points or simply saw the questions. There were no differences on a unit exam. In Experiment 2, students were told prior to a unit that they would either use CRS for course credit or no credit. Students using CRS for credit performed better on pre-lecture questions and a unit exam. In Experiment 3, students used CRS to answer pre-lecture questions for course credit or no credit. Students using CRS for credit again performed better on a unit exam. CRS appear to enhance learning when they encourage student accountability and increase readiness for lectures.

Racism and Sexism in Cyberspace: Engaging Stereotypes of Asian American Women and Men to Facilitate Student Learning and Development

Racism and Sexism in Cyberspace: Engaging Stereotypes of Asian American Women and Men to Facilitate Student Learning and Development

Automatic Organization of Programming Resources by Neural Computing

There are numerous of programming resources on the Internet, such as programming problems on online judge systems and program codes that solve these problems. Although these resources are valuable for students to practice programming, they are not effectively organized to facilitate students learning. Students and teachers may both hope that all these programming resources are organized as a tutoring sequence. For this purpose, an approach which is based on neural computing is proposed here to organize the programming resources automatically into a tutoring sequence. 2456 source codes were mined in our experiment, resulting in 97 mainstream solutions to 105 programming problems, respectively. These mainstream solutions were sorted by their complexities to form a tutoring sequence which organizes the problems together with their program codes from easy to difficult.

IELTS as an indicator of written proficiency levels: A study of student teachers at the National Institute of Education, Singapore

A quantitative study that examined the communicative proficiency of graduating secondary student teachers at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore was commissioned in April 2009. While the main study covers a much wider scope, this paper discusses and presents the data of the writing component of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). This study considers the writing proficiency levels of graduating teachers as measured by their IELTS writing scores. Specifically, the paper addresses the following research questions:•What is the English language written proficiency level of graduating teachers as measured by their IELTS writing scores?•What can the scores tell us about baseline levels of a pre-service teacher education programme that prepares teachers to use English as the medium of instruction?Teachers are facilitators of student learning and co-creators of productive classroom environments in which students can develop the skills they will need to function in the global workplace. To gain a more accurate language profile of student teachers, student teachers from the 1-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) pre-service teacher preparation programme were invited to participate in the study.The IELTS exam consists of 4 components: listening, speaking, reading and writing and the students in this study scored lowest on the writing section. Measures are recommended to further develop this important skill. This study emphasizes the need to improve communication skills of pre-service teachers to be effective in their professional environment and to serve as good role models in schools.

Role of Academic Staff College in the Professional Development of Teachers

The programme of action of the National Policy on Education (1986) categorically mentioned a comprehensive programme for professional development of teachers through Academic Staff Colleges (ASCs). Consequently, in 1987 the University Grants Commission (UGC) sanctioned the setting-up of 48 ASCs with certain addition; at present, the number of ASCs has risen to 51. The main objective of the Academic Development Scheme is to enable academic staff to become effective facilitators of student learning through becoming effective managers of the conditions that affect learning. Besides orientation and refresher courses, the ASC organises seminars for Principals/Heads of the University Departments and short-term programmes such as seminar, workshops, symposia, etc.

Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization

This is a review of evidence for contextualization, defined here as an instructional approach connecting foundational skills and college-level content. Two forms of contextualization are identified, contextualized and integrated instruction. Despite methodological limitations, the available studies suggest that contextualization has the potential to accelerate the progress of academically underprepared college students.

Facilitating Student Learning, the Assessment of Learning, and Curricular Improvement Through a Graduate Social Work Integrative Seminar

Social work programs undertake to educate competent professionals and to promote critical thinking among students who are expected to become lifelong learners. In addition, programs are called on to develop reliable and valid measures for assessing student learning outcomes and to use assessment results to reflect upon and strengthen curriculum. This study explores the use of a graduate integrative seminar to accomplish these goals. The authors describe the learning and assessment processes of the seminar. The authors used a mixed-method research design to analyze data from students over a 3-year period regarding the effectiveness of the seminar as well as from graduate faculty regarding student achievement of curricular objectives. Results indicate that formative assessment processes promote student learning in a manner that mobilizes students to strive for excellence, and that an embedded measure of learning outcomes in the form of a final integrative project may serve as a rigorous assessment tool.

Teachers’ conceptions and their approaches to teaching in virtual reality and simulation‐based learning environments

This research article focuses on virtual reality (VR) and simulation‐based training, with a special focus on the pedagogical use of the Virtual Centre of Wellness Campus known as ENVI (Rovaniemi, Finland). In order to clearly understand how teachers perceive teaching and learning in such environments, this research examines the concepts of teaching and learning, pedagogical models and methods as well as the educational tools used by ENVI teachers (n = 8). Data were collected through thematic interviews and analysed using the content analysis method. This interview study indicates that teachers saw ENVI’s use in education as indisputably beneficial, because it has brought authenticity to teaching and provided students with experiential learning opportunities. ENVI has also made possible the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge. Teachers had widely accepted their role as facilitators of student learning but held widely varied conceptions of learning. Teachers’ underlying conceptions become evident in their student‐centred approach to teaching and in their utilisation of problem‐based learning. However, their use of pedagogical models was not consistent or well defined which has been the case in previous research. Although teachers still need education and support to use a variety of pedagogical models, the results of this study suggest that teachers are moving in the direction of adopting student‐centred approaches. So far, this research has offered a starting point for developing a pedagogical model for VR and simulation‐based learning environments. As well, it offers useful insights regarding teaching, especially for healthcare teachers, teacher educators, instructor trainers, designers and researchers.

Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Facilitate Student Learning: A Collaboration between Universities

Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Facilitate Student Learning: A Collaboration between Universities

Facilitating Student Learning: Engagement in Novel Learning Opportunities

Many novel learning approaches in recent years have involved innovative technologies; however, other creative approaches can also be used to facilitate the learning of new or difficult concepts. In this article we explain how novelty and fun can be introduced into the learning experience without the need for advanced technologies. The novel activity described in this manuscript is grounded in the theory of instructional design and represents a form of experiential learning where knowledge acquisition results from peer interaction and feedback in an entertaining and low risk environment. Most importantly, student learning outcomes were enhanced by the introduction of this creative strategy.

Book Club Elective to Facilitate Student Learning of the Patient Experience With Chronic Disease

To evaluate the impact of a book club experience on pharmacy students' learning about chronic illness. Students read autobiographies/biographies regarding the patient experience of chronic illness. Similar to a traditional book club, small group discussions were held based on questions submitted by students. Other activities included written reflections, a final paper, and an oral presentation. A retrospective pretest and posttest were administered at the end of the course. Students indicated improvement in the key aspects of the course with significant differences (p < 0.01) between retrospective pretest and posttest scores for all course objectives assessed. Students also indicated that the course contributed to their development as pharmacists, motivated them to learn about new topics, and helped them reconsider their attitudes. A book club elective course was successful in helping students understand the patient experience.

Learning through Teaching: Challenges and Opportunities in Facilitating Student Learning in Food Science and Nutrition by Using the Interteaching Approach

ABSTRACT: Interteaching is a new pedagogical strategy for classroom instruction that demonstrates great effective student learning outcomes in the field of psychology. It is a 20 to 30 min student‐to‐student discussion addressing the main points in a specified body of reading materials. Interteaching includes elements such as reciprocal peer tutoring, cooperative learning, and problem‐based learning. These elements have been well theorized and their effectiveness has been empirically documented. To date, little is known about the effects of interteaching on students' perceived learning outcomes in food science and nutrition. This case study describes how the interteach method was employed in an undergraduate nutrition and food science course with specific examples of the tools used, such as interteach preparation guides, the interteach record form, and the peer assessment form. Based on the continuous feedback provided by the students during the course work, several specific modifications were made from the conventional interteaching methods, including 4‐person interteaching instead of one‐on‐one interteaching, as well as the use of in‐class thought‐provoking “synthesis” questions. At the end of the course, we assessed the students' perceptions of interteaching, as well as the students' perceived learning outcomes. The method generally fostered critical thinking and enhanced their motivation, which led to their perceived learning. On the other hand, some of the students expressed challenges in learning from peers due to their peers' varied preparation levels, as well as tackling complex scientific concepts prior to lectures. Further investigation is needed to develop possible strategies for accommodating the challenges among students with different learning styles.