E-learning and e-systems to facilitate learning from marked student work : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University

Heinrich (2004a) first introduced the concept of 'electronic repositories of marked student work' and suggested an innovative approach of learning from marked student work. This research project further develops this e-learning approach. The learning approach was analyzed in the framework of modern educational theories, especially those relevant to formative assessment. Learning activities that mostly suit this new approach were identified. These activities show a large degree of variation in cognitive complexity and learning effectiveness, and according to their characteristics, can be associated with various learning styles. A range of factors that need to be considered in constructing learning processes based on these learning activities were investigated. The conceptualization of an e-learning environment to support the approach of learning from marked student work was developed. Three major objectives of developing such an e-learning environment were identified. Based on these objectives the general framework of e-learning from marked student work was outlined. There were very few applications of this approach in teaching practice and no study has been done on its effectiveness in the practical teaching before this research. An initial learning experiment using this approach was carried out. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated and various aspects associated with this approach were investigated. To fully support this new learning approach, a web-based prototype system named E-Repositories of Marked Student Work, was developed. This research project developed opportunities for student learning and provided guidelines for teaching staff on how to reuse valuable learning resources in their teaching practice in the e-learning context

Curriculum renewal for interprofessional education in health

In this preface we comment on four matters that we think bode well for the future of interprofessional education in Australia. First, there is a growing articulation, nationally and globally, as to the importance of interprofessional education and its contribution to the development of interprofessional and collaborative health practices. These practices are increasingly recognised as central to delivering effective, efficient, safe and sustainable health services. Second, there is a rapidly growing interest and institutional engagement with interprofessional education as part of pre-registration health professional education. This has changed substantially in recent years. Whilst beyond the scope of our current studies, the need for similar developments in continuing professional development (CPD) for health professionals was a consistent topic in our stakeholder consultations. Third, we observe what might be termed a threshold effect occurring in the area of interprofessional education. Projects that address matters relating to IPE are now far more numerous, visible and discussed in terms of their aggregate outcomes. The impact of this momentum is visible across the higher education sector. Finally, we believe that effective collaboration is a critical mediating process through which the rich resources of disciplinary knowledge and capability are joined to add value to existing health service provision. We trust the conceptual and practical contributions and resources presented and discussed in this report contribute to these developments.Office of Learning and Teaching Australi

Advanced marketing education curriculum in secondary schools in Wisconsin

Includes bibliographical references

Integrating new assessment strategies into mathematics classrooms: an exploratory study in Singapore primary and secondary schools

Educational researchers and practitioners have in recent years paid mounting attention to the importance of new assessment (or the so-called alternative assessment) strategies in Mathematics instruction to better reflect the new desired educational goals and shifted values in education. However, research is wanting in this area, particularly in Singapore's educational setting. This project seeks to investigate the influence of using new assessment strategies in Mathematics teaching and learning on students' achievements, in both the cognitive and affective domains, in our local school settings. A quasi-experimental study with about 15-20 teachers at primary and lower secondary levels will be carried out to assess the impact of using a variety of strategies (e.g., projects, journal writing, oral presentation, performance tasks, student self-assessment, classroom observation and interview, etc.) for three school semesters on students' learning. The project will also look into issues concerning how to use new assessment strategies effectively in classrooms in local schools. For this purpose, data will be collected from classroom observation, interviews with teachers and students, and questionnaire surveys. It is hoped that the project will provide research-based evidence and practical suggestions for promoting the effective use of alternative assessment in Singapore Mathematics classrooms. <br/

The Tutor's Role

This chapter addresses three questions about being an effective online tutor: 1. Why do we still think that online tutoring can principally draw its basis from face-to-face group processes and dynamics or traditional pedagogy? 2. Does the literature tell us anything more than we would make as an intelligent guess? 3. Do we really know what an ‘effective’ online tutor would be doing? The OTiS participants have gone some way to answering these questions, through the presentation and discussion of their own online tutoring experiences. Literature in this area is still limited, and suffers from the need for timeliness of publication to be useful. Intelligent guesses are all very well, but much better as a source of information for online tutors are the reflections and documented experiences of practitioners. These experiences reveal that face-to-face pedagogy has some elements to offer the online tutor, but that there are key differences and there is a need to examine the processes and dynamics of online learning to inform online tutoring

Reinventing College Physics for Biologists: Explicating an epistemological curriculum

The University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group (UMd-PERG) carried out a five-year research project to rethink, observe, and reform introductory algebra-based (college) physics. This class is one of the Maryland Physics Department's large service courses, serving primarily life-science majors. After consultation with biologists, we re-focused the class on helping the students learn to think scientifically -- to build coherence, think in terms of mechanism, and to follow the implications of assumptions. We designed the course to tap into students' productive conceptual and epistemological resources, based on a theoretical framework from research on learning. The reformed class retains its traditional structure in terms of time and instructional personnel, but we modified existing best-practices curricular materials, including Peer Instruction, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, and Tutorials. We provided class-controlled spaces for student collaboration, which allowed us to observe and record students learning directly. We also scanned all written homework and examinations, and we administered pre-post conceptual and epistemological surveys. The reformed class enhanced the strong gains on pre-post conceptual tests produced by the best-practices materials while obtaining unprecedented pre-post gains on epistemological surveys instead of the traditional losses.Comment: 35 pages including a 15 page appendix of supplementary material

Solved! Making the case for collaborative problem-solving

This report argues that the ability to solve problems with others is a crucial skill for our young people in the workplace of the future but the current education system does little to support it. Key findings Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) is an increasingly important skill to teach young people in order to prepare them for the future. Despite strong evidence for its impact, CPS is rarely taught in schools but if structured well it can reinforce knowledge and improve attainment. Significant barriers exist for teachers implementing this practice, from behaviour management to curriculum coverage, to task-design. For CPS to gain ground, a concerted shift is needed including teacher training, better resources and system level support. This report is part of Nesta’s ongoing commitment to equipping young people with the skills they need to succeed. It makes a series of recommendations on how organisations and policymakers can help support and embrace the implementation of CPS. Nesta is following this up with a series of small-scale pilots of aligned programmes in order to evaluate impact and explore how CPS can be implemented in a range of practical settings. Policy recommendations Stimulate production of quality collaborative problem-solving (CPS) resources and training, from primary education onwards. Fund existing, aligned programmes to scale and evaluate impact. Educate and involve the out-of-school learning sector and volunteer educators. Develop smarter collaborative problem-solving assessment methods. Help higher education organisations and MOOCs to track what works

Quality Enhancement Themes: the First Year Experience. Curriculum Design for the First Year

This report outlines the work and outcomes of a practice-focused development project 'Curriculum design for the first year'. The project was one of nine funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) under the First-Year Experience Enhancement Theme of the Scottish quality enhancement agenda. The stages of this curriculum design project included: completing a literature review; running staff workshops to gather and disseminate information; holding student focus groups to gather students, views and experiences of the curriculum; collecting case studies of interest to the sector; and reporting findings to the sector. Key findings from the literature are presented in this report. They include the need to adopt student-centred active learning strategies (Harvey, Drew and Smith, 2006; Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2005; Barefoot, 2002) and the importance of providing early formative feedback to students (Davidson and Young, 2005; Barefoot, 2002). Many suggestions for improving learning and teaching strategies have been adopted at module level, but could be implemented strategically across the breadth of a programme curriculum. Kift and Nelson (2005) supported this view and argued that it is equally important to support these principles with systemic university-wide change, including administrative and support programmes that are also integrated with the curriculum and student needs

The use of electronic voting and peer assessment to encourage the development of higher order thinking skills in learners

In the research reported here, electronic voting and peer assessment were used with 215 first year computer science and information technology undergraduates undertaking an electronic media design module. In previous years it proved difficult for learners following this module to develop good quality practical skills resulting in poor results in practical tests. In this study, the module delivery team used electronic voting and a form of peer assessment in order to motivate learners and to engage them more deeply in learning. It was hypothesised that this would improve higher order thinking skills and lead to improved performance in practical work. A significant improvement in performance of 6% was achieved (p<0.001) as compared to previous years. We were able to show that the most likely reason for this was the use of electronic voting systems and peer assessment. In the concluding section of the paper we discuss some issues related to this finding and our teaching approachPeer reviewe