Use Of Hands-on Activities Research Articles

Learning through the design, process, artefact, analysis and evaluation of thin-film modules in nanotechnology

The aim of this study is to report on the implementation of the laboratory activities of the thin-film module in the learning-by-doing programme. It takes a course in nanotechnology through the implementation of design, process, artefacts, analysis and evaluation in a thin film module, which equips students with hands-on activities. Based on the evaluation results, over 70% of the students finds the use of hands-on activities to learn the thin film module of the programme is very helpful. It strengthens their skills whilst motivating them to take an interest in nanotechnology. The program further offers the benefit of implementing hands-on film modules with laboratory activities, thus creating a more effective learning environment for the nanotechnology program. In addition, the favourable response to the project indicates that the thin film module is successful in helping students understand the concepts and applications of nanotechnology. Regardless, by applying thin-film modules in ‘learning by doing’ activities, students can enhance their self-confidence in nanotechnology-related fields in terms of professional knowledge, technical skills and learning attitudes. Most of all, students get a good satisfaction and achievement. Overall, the feedback from students, both quantitative and qualitative, indicates that the thin film module in the nanotechnology programme is well received by the students.

Improving Conceptual Understanding Through STEM-Based Mathematics Learning

This study aims to improve conceptual understanding through STEM-based mathematics learning. The research method was pre-experimental research with one-group pretest-posttest design. The population is grade 8 of one of school in Ternate City. The method of sampling is random sampling. Research variable in the research, the independent variable is STEM-based learning and the dependent variable is the conceptual understanding. The validity of test that will be used in this research is content validity. Data analysis technique are descriptive and inferential. A test given to measure conceptual understanding The indicators are (1) restating a concept and providing examples, (2) Implementing specific procedures or operations, (3) Use algorithm to solve a problem. The results of the study is that students’ conceptual understanding is improving of the circle concept through STEM-based mathematics learning. The increase of conceptual understanding can be seen in the average value obtained, where for the pretest it is 40.41 then after the STEM is applied and the posttest is carried out the average value has increased to 83.73. Therefore, STEM-based mathematics learning is one of approaches that can improve conceptual understanding, and promotes the use of hands-on activities to solve problems in everyday life

Toward Video-Conferencing Tools for Hands-On Activities in Online Teaching

Many instructors in computing and HCI disciplines use hands-on activities for teaching and training new skills. Beyond simply teaching hands-on skills like sketching and programming, instructors also use these activities so students can acquire tacit skills. Yet, current video-conferencing technologies may not effectively support hands-on activities in online teaching contexts. To develop an understanding of the inadequacies of current video-conferencing technologies for hands-on activities, we conducted 15 interviews with university-level instructors who had quickly pivoted their use of hands-on activities to an online context during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on our analysis, we uncovered four pedagogical goals that instructors have when using hands-on activities online and how instructors were unable to adequately address them due to the technological limitations of current video-conferencing tools. Our work provides empirical data about the challenges that many instructors experienced, and in so doing, the pedagogical goals we identify provide new requirements for video-conferencing systems to better support hands-on activities.

Use of Activity-Based Learning to Improve Students' Outcomes in Basic Education Subjects

The study deals with Activity-Based learning to improve students` outcomes in English language and Basic Science. The study examines how the use of the activity-based learning strategy enhances students` outcomes in the two core subjects taught in the upper basic levels in Nigeria. Quasi-experiment research design was used to conduct the study. The target group comprised six hundred and forty-three (643) Junior Secondary School Students (JSS II) in two selected schools. One Hundred and ten (110) were sampled using a stratified sampling technique. Self-developed instrument entitled `Basic Education Performance Scale` was deployed to assess the experimental and control groups` outcomes. The data collected were analyzed using independent t-test. The study's findings indicated that activity-based learning significantly affects the students` outcomes in English language and Basic science subjects. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers should promote active learning through the use of hands-on activities.

Methodological Reflections on Monitoring Interactive Knowledge Creation during Farming Demonstrations by Means of Surveys and Observations

During farming demonstrations, peer-to-peer learning is known to be more effective than technology transfer when encouraging farmers to consider adopting more sustainable farming practices. Interactive knowledge creation has the potential to create a stimulating peer-learning environment focusing on the use of hands-on activities, knowledge scaffolding, discussions and negotiation. This study investigated how insight can be gained about the interactive knowledge creation that occurs during farming demonstrations by monitoring and evaluating a diverse sample of farming demonstrations in Belgium, Spain and Denmark via surveys and observations originally designed for the AgriDemo-F2F project. The study found that the selected monitoring tools provided insight about how participants experienced specific interactive knowledge creation. However, several stumbling blocks were also identified in using the proposed tools to monitor these learning processes, including the monitoring of abstract concepts and the reluctance among farmers to respond to self-administered open-ended survey questions. Based on these learning points, several proposals were made to improve the monitoring process of interactive knowledge creation. This study confirms that the improved understanding of learning practices and their impact on actual change presents a challenge, but it is essential if the adoption of sustainable farming practices is to be increased.

Learning with simulations: Influence of a computer simulation with hand- on activities on students' learning of the physics capacitors' concepts

The persistence of this study was to investigate the contribution of a computer simulation to students´ learning of physics concepts (charging and discharging of capacitors). Interactive computer simulation (Crocodile simulation) was used to spread over the aim of this study. This attempt assesses the progress in understanding the concepts by grade 11 Scientific section after four complete periods (200 minutes) in two different situations: 1- using only a computer simulation; 2-using computer simulation with “hand- on” activities. The progress was measured through post-test. The results of both descriptive and inferential statistics show that the learners’ understanding of capacitors’ concepts that can be enhanced and were highly achieved when learners used the computer simulation combined with “hand- on” activities. The use of Hands-on activities was identified as the cause of this differentiation.

Strengthening Students Mechanics Knowledge through Instructional Videos of Hands-on Activities

The use of hands-on activities has been proven in the past to be effective in teaching pedagogies. Recognizing this need, a first year Mechanics course at the University of Waterloo has already implemented the use of seven hands-on activities. Instructors of the course have found certain time limitations which results in students only participating in two of the seven activities. To continue improving student learning, instructional videos were developed to solve this problem. The techniques used for video development incorporate learning pedagogies to foster deeper learning throughout the viewing experience. These techniques include simulating experiential learning and reflective learning. In each video, a breakdown of the activity building and experimenting process is demonstrated. This is done through people physically interacting with the models as students would in the classroom. Accompanying the demonstration is an illustration of various mistakes students often make during the activities. Errors are discussed, and their outcomes are shown using course concepts to reinforce the appropriate processes. In addition, questions are posed to the viewers throughout each of the videos.

Preservice teachers’ ideas about how to enhance pupils’ long-term interest in science

ABSTRACTBackground: The four-phase model of interest development is a widely accepted theoretical perspective on the development of long-term interest. Our future teachers will be faced with the task of developing their students’ long-term interest in science. Yet it is not known whether they have workable ideas for how to achieve this.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify preservice teachers’ ideas about how to increase students’ long-term interest in science.Sample: The participants were 235 preservice primary teachers and 33 preservice secondary science teachers.Design and Methods: Data collection was by questionnaire, interview and classroom observations.Results: It was found that participants in both primary and secondary groups had very similar ideas about how to develop pupils’ long-term interest in science. These ideas mainly involved the use of hands-on activities, making science relevant, and using student-centred strategies or electronic media to make lessons fun and to enhance engagement. These can be interpreted as representing sources of situational interest (i.e. short-term interest arousal). These ideas broadly parallel the current theory on interest development, such that long-term individual interest is thought to develop from repeated experiences of short-term, situational interest.Conclusion: The participants’ ideas in this study were intuitive, because they were not derived from an understanding of theory, but rather from their personal experiences of interest arousal at university, school and practicum. Nevertheless, their ideas were workable for a practitioner, because they broadly paralleled current theory on interest development.

Introducing Engineering Design and Materials Science at an Earlier Age through Ceramic Cold Casting.

Elementary and middle school science curriculums typically focus on generating an interest in science and engineering through the use of hands-on activities that demonstrate specific concepts. Laboratory activities designed in this manner often circumvent some of the main challenges that engineers and scientists face, namely balancing advantages and disadvantages for a variety of potential solutions to solve a specific problem. This activity was designed to show students that different solutions for a given problem can exist, and engineers must manage priorities when choosing the best solution. This laboratory involves cold casting ceramics slurries with varying viscosities into a mold. The resulting casts have a varying final density, controlled by the initial viscosity. Students are presented with different outcome measures regarding the objects they cast: ease of manufacturing, cost, aesthetics, and mechanical properties. Based on the laboratory design, no single cast will perform the best in any of these categories. The students are then asked to choose the best mold, and justify their answers based on the initial problem presented to them by balancing which outcome measures they consider to be important for solving this specific problem. This laboratory teaches basic science concepts like viscosity and density, while addressing common industrial manufacturing issues, such as cost and ease of manufacturing. Through a combination of these features, this laboratory introduces engineering and design concepts using the scientific method to students at an earlier age.

Effect of Hands-On Activities on Senior Secondary Chemistry Students Achievement and Retention in Stoichiometry in Zone C of Benue State

The research was on the effect of hands-on activities on senior secondary chemistry students’ achievement and retention in stoichiometry in Zone C of Benue State. The moderating effect of gender was also examined. The study adopted the pretest, posttest, control group, quasi-experimental research design. The instrument used for data collection was Stoichiometry Achievement Test (SAT) with the reliability value of 0.92 using Pearson product moment coefficient. The target population of this study was 8381 which was the population of SSII chemistry students in study area. A sample of 292 students comprising 158 boys and 134 girls drawn from 8 schools within 4 Local Government Areas (LGA) out of 9 LGA in the zone selected using multi-stage sampling techniques. Four research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were answered using Mean and Standard Deviation scores while the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The study revealed that students taught stoichiometry using hands-on activities had significantly higher mean achievement scores than those taught using demonstration method F=555.374, P(0.0001<0.05) and students taught stoichiometry using hands-on activities had significantly higher mean retention scores than those taught using demonstration method F=117.523, P(0.0001<0.05). There was no significant difference between the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught stoichiometry using hands-on activities. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Chemistry teacher’s trainee should be trained on the use of hands-on activities and serving teachers should use it. Hands-on activities teaching method is not gender sensitive therefore both male and female students should be involved in hands-on activities to enhance their achievement and retention in stoichiometry.

A “Chop-Suey” Musician in a Melting Pot: Kuo-Huang Han and the Northern Illinois University World Music Program, 1975–1985

Multicultural education in the United States took a significant step forward when the Tanglewood Symposium of 1967, in American Society, recommended the expansion of the repertoire taught in schools to include the music of all periods, styles, forms, and cultures and music of our time in its rich variety, specifically popular teen-age and avant-garde music, American folk music, and the of other cultures. (1) In response, some institutions started to incorporate non-European music, such as jazz and other ethnic/world classes and ensembles, into their standard curriculum in the 1970s. Some researchers examined prospective and in-service teachers' toward such inclusion and found positive attitudes among general and instrumental teachers. (2) Other studies suggested significant benefits of incorporating non-Western materials into the classroom: for example, the use of hands-on activities to learn such music, the expansion of the repertoire, and an increased social/cultural awareness of the world. (3) However, most of the studies are surveys concerning the inclusion of multicultural courses, and there are not many biographical sketches about individual endeavors and the challenges encountered when introducing multicultural to college students. The purpose of this study is to document the integration of various Asian traditions into the curriculum of the department (now the School of Music) of Northern Illinois University and specifically to trace the development of its Asian ensemble in the 1970s. This integration was a pioneer effort because the Big Ten and the majority of other public universities with departments of approximately the same size as NIU's did not introduce such programs until much later in the 1980s and '90s. (4) As L. C. Chin reported, only 27 percent of 538 National Association of Schools of Music-accredited institutions offered one multicultural course, and 13 percent offered two such courses in the 1994-95 academic year, while by 1975 NIU already offered two world ensembles (the steel band ensemble and the Asian ensemble) and two ethnomusicology courses (Introduction to Ethnomusicology and Survey of World Music). (5) Among the individuals credited with the inclusion of multicultural content in the NIU curriculum was Kuo-Huang Han, a Chinese-born musicologist who founded the preliminary stage of the world program at NIU. (6) To document the early establishment of the world program, I conducted interviews with Han, several administrators, and alumni. The data also consists of artifacts, including course catalogs, concert program notes, and photos of instruments and students' performances during this period. The Birth of the NIU World Music Program Kuo-Huang Han was trained at Northwestern University (1964-74) as a musicologist in early European and began teaching Western history at NIU in 1971. He studied Asian at the Center for World Music in San Francisco in the summers of 1974 and 1975, and in San Diego in 1980. These experiences and his Chinese heritage catalyzed the early stage of the NIU world program. Although he did not officially earn any degree in ethnomusicology, these two sources and his enthusiasm for learning and teaching non-Western classical created the foundation for what he accomplished later in his career at NIU. Han's Chinese Background Han was born in Xiamen, China, in 1936 and grew up in Taiwan, where he learned to play the violin as a child. Although he was an English major in college, his passion for violin continued, and he was a violinist in the Provincial Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and the host of a classical program on the Fu-Hsin radio station in Taipei from 1959 to 1964. During this time, he was able to practice Western professionally, and because of his dual specialty in and English, he was invited to serve as translator for the prominent American composer Lou Harrison when he visited Taiwan in 1962. …

Teaching cardiac electrophysiology modeling to undergraduate students: laboratory exercises and GPU programming for the study of arrhythmias and spiral wave dynamics

As part of a 3-wk intersession workshop funded by a National Science Foundation Expeditions in Computing award, 15 undergraduate students from the City University of New York(1) collaborated on a study aimed at characterizing the voltage dynamics and arrhythmogenic behavior of cardiac cells for a broad range of physiologically relevant conditions using an in silico model. The primary goal of the workshop was to cultivate student interest in computational modeling and analysis of complex systems by introducing them through lectures and laboratory activities to current research in cardiac modeling and by engaging them in a hands-on research experience. The success of the workshop lay in the exposure of the students to active researchers and experts in their fields, the use of hands-on activities to communicate important concepts, active engagement of the students in research, and explanations of the significance of results as the students generated them. The workshop content addressed how spiral waves of electrical activity are initiated in the heart and how different parameter values affect the dynamics of these reentrant waves. Spiral waves are clinically associated with tachycardia, when the waves remain stable, and with fibrillation, when the waves exhibit breakup. All in silico experiments were conducted by simulating a mathematical model of cardiac cells on graphics processing units instead of the standard central processing units of desktop computers. This approach decreased the run time for each simulation to almost real time, thereby allowing the students to quickly analyze and characterize the simulated arrhythmias. Results from these simulations, as well as some of the background and methodology taught during the workshop, is presented in this article along with the programming code and the explanations of simulation results in an effort to allow other teachers and students to perform their own demonstrations, simulations, and studies.

Science Curriculum in Practice: Student Teachers' Use of Hands-On Activities in High-Stakes Testing Schools

This article describes the influence of recently adopted high-stakes testing on the curriculum and instruction of 12 secondary science student teachers (or interns). The study, which used a postpositivist, qualitative method with researcher as participant as the university supervisor, focused on interns' abilities to implement hands-on, reform-minded practices in the context of their school placements. Findings indicate that high-stakes testing could adversely influence interns' use of hands-on activities in courses assessed on tests and in schools where students did not receive high scores.

Effective Use of Hands-On Activities, State-of-the-Art Technology, and Computers In Introductory Environmental Geology

As part of a concerted effort to counter a dwindling number of both majors and students taking introductory courses in the Geosciences Department at Franklin and Marshall College, we initiated a new introductory course in environmental geology in 1990. Deliberate efforts to make hands-on activities play a major role in the course were critical to its success and effectiveness. These activities included: 1) in-class problem-solving sessions; 2) in-class debates; 3) in-class critical-thinking sessions (involving analysis of various interpretations of scientific data); 4) laboratory/computer exercises with the emphasis on examining models and developing quantitative reasoning skills; 5) field/laboratory exercises; and 6) an end-of-semester research project that culminated in a symposium with poster-session presentations. In all activities, we incorporated the use of state-of-the-art technologies, including remote sensing imagery, digital analytical equipment, and computer databases. The course has served to ...

A Core Curriculum in Geometry

What do a course for mathematically talented geometry students and a course for the non-college-bound have in common? Concepts and learning activities! I teach both courses and have found that many of the same activities can be used to develop concepts. Both the depth and breadth of the activities need to be adjusted to the developmental level of the students—a good example of the core curriculum as described in NCTM's Curriculum and Evaluation Standards (1989). The focus of this article is the use of hands-on activities in the third year of an integrated sequence for the non-college-bound. Reference is made to variations and extensions for an honors geometry course.