Validation of an Instrument for Assessing Conceptual Change with Respect to The Theory of Evolution By Secondary Biology Students

This pilot study evaluated the validity of a new quantitative, closed-response instrument for assessing student conceptual change regarding the theory of evolution. The instrument has two distinguishing design features. First, it is designed not only to gauge student mastery of the scientific model of evolution, but also to elicit a trio of deeply intuitive tendencies that are known to compromise many students’ understanding: the projection of intentional agency, teleological directionality, and immutable essences onto biological phenomena. Second, in addition to a section of conventional multiple choice questions, the instrument contains a series of items where students may simultaneously endorse both scientifically normative propositions and intuitively appealing yet unscientific propositions, without having to choose between them. These features allow for the hypothesized possibility that the three intuitions are partly innate, themselves products of cognitive evolution in our hominin ancestors, and thus may continue to inform students’ thinking even after instruction and conceptual change. The test was piloted with 340 high school students from diverse schools and communities. Confirmatory factor analysis and other statistical methods provided evidence that the instrument already has strong potential for validly distinguishing students who hold a correct scientific understanding from those who do not, but that revision and retesting are needed to render it valid for gauging students’ adherence to intuitive misconceptions. Ultimately the instrument holds promise as a tool for classroom intervention studies by conceptual change researchers, for diagnostic testing and data gathering by instructional leaders, and for provoking classroom dialogue and debate by science teachers

Annual Report Of Research and Creative Productions by Faculty and Staff from January to December, 2002.

Annual Report Of Research and Creative Productions by Faculty and Staff from January to December, 2002

Wiring the Writing Center

As computers have brought important developments to composition studies, writing centers have found themselves creating and improvising applications for their own work and often for the writing programs and institutions in which they live. Online tutorials, websites with an array of downloadable resources for students, scheduling and email possibilities--all of these are becoming common-place among writing centers across the country. However, in spite of impressive work by individual centers, exchange on these topics between and among writing centers has been sporadic. As more writing centers approach getting wired and others continue to upgrade, the need for communication and collaboration becomes ever more obvious, and so does the need to understand theoretical implications of choices made.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1122/thumbnail.jp

Designing for Shareable Interfaces in the Wild

Despite excitement about the potential of interactive tabletops to support collaborative work, there have been few empirical demonstrations of their effectiveness (Marshall et al., 2011). In particular, while lab-based studies have explored the effects of individual design features, there has been a dearth of studies evaluating the success of systems in the wild. For this technology to be of value, designers and systems builders require a better understanding of how to develop and evaluate tabletop applications to be deployed in real world settings. This dissertation reports on two systems designed through a process that incorporated ethnography-style observations, iterative design and in the wild evaluation. The first study focused on collaborative learning in a medical setting. To address the fact that visitors to a hospital emergency ward were leaving with an incomplete understanding of their diagnosis and treatment, a system was prototyped in a working Emergency Room (ER) with doctors and patients. The system was found to be helpful but adoption issues hampered its impact. The second study focused on a planning application for visitors to a tourist information centre. Issues and opportunities for a successful, contextually-fitted system were addressed and it was found to be effective in supporting group planning activities by novice users, in particular, facilitating users’ first experiences, providing effective signage and offering assistance to guide the user through the application. This dissertation contributes to understanding of multi-user systems through literature review of tabletop systems, collaborative tasks, design frameworks and evaluation of prototypes. Some support was found for the claim that tabletops are a useful technology for collaboration, and several issues were discussed. Contributions to understanding in this field are delivered through design guidelines, heuristics, frameworks, and recommendations, in addition to the two case studies to help guide future tabletop system creators

Lived Experiences of the Trails: Perspectives from Three Southwestern Ontario Trail Organizations

The purpose of this qualitative thesis is to describe the common elements of sense of place in the lived experiences of volunteer trail managers. Through a triangulation of data gathered from secondary research, interviews with trail managers, and participation observation of hikers, I sought to draw out the essence of the trail manager’s sense of place towards their trail experience and connect this back to ongoing management challenges in the organization. Some of these challenges include declining membership, limited lines of communication, and problematic landowner relations. Themes around this common sense of place are situated within meanings, relationship/ attachments, emotions, and behaviors towards the trail experience. Interrelationships between sense of place, phenomenology, and trail management are also highlighted

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

Proceeding: 3rd Java International Nursing Conference 2015 “Harmony of Caring and Healing Inquiry for Holistic Nursing Practice; Enhancing Quality of Care”, Semarang, 20-21 August 2015

This is the proceeding of the 3rd Java International Nursing Conference 2015 organized by School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Diponegoro University, in collaboration with STIKES Kendal. The conference was held on 20-21 August 2015 in Semarang, Indonesia. The conference aims to enable educators, students, practitioners and researchers from nursing, medicine, midwifery and other health sciences to disseminate and discuss evidence of nursing education, research, and practices to improve the quality of care. This conference also provides participants opportunities to develop their professional networks, learn from other colleagues and meet leading personalities in nursing and health sciences. The 3rd JINC 2015 was comprised of keynote lectures and concurrent submitted oral presentations and poster sessions. The following themes have been chosen to be the focus of the conference: (a) Multicenter Science: Physiology, Biology, Chemistry, etc. in Holistic Nursing Practice, (b) Complementary Therapy in Nursing and Complementary, Alternative Medicine: Alternative Medicine (Herbal Medicine), Complementary Therapy (Cupping, Acupuncture, Yoga, Aromatherapy, Music Therapy, etc.), (c) Application of Inter-professional Collaboration and Education: Education Development in Holistic Nursing, Competencies of Holistic Nursing, Learning Methods and Assessments, and (d) Application of Holistic Nursing: Leadership & Management, Entrepreneurship in Holistic Nursing, Application of Holistic Nursing in Clinical and Community Settings

Mentoring a teacher’s innovation with task-based language teaching in an Indonesian secondary school

A teacher-educator assisted a teacher with no prior experience of task-based language teaching. Focusing on how the teacher implemented TBLT over a 12-week period, I document changes in the teacher’s use of the L1, questions, and focus-on-form and draw lessons for how educators can assist teachers with innovating with TBLT