The Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Every chapter in the widely distributed first edition has been updated, and four new chapters on current issues such as connectivism and social software innovations have been added. Essays by practitioners and scholars active in the complex, diverse, and rapidly evolving field of distance education blend scholarship and research; practical attention to the details of teaching and learning; and mindful attention to the economics of the business of education

Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education

International audienceThis volume contains the Proceedings of the Seventh Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education (ERME), which took place 9-13 February 2011, at Rzeszñw in Poland

Best Practice: Bringing the Elements of Effective Practice to the College Writing Classroom

Studies of college writing students suggest that many students associate writing ability with innate talent rather than sustained, deliberate practice. As a result, these students may lack the motivation to improve their writing abilities, leading to a vicious cycle in which they come to increasingly resent writing as a curricular and extracurricular activity. This dissertation argues that the elements of effective practice as outlined by cognitive psychology are equally applicable to writing as they are to skills such as music and that convincing students of the “practice-ability” of writing may improve their motivation to improve their writing abilities. The dissertation discusses the methodology and results of a study to determine how well the five “elements” of effective practice could be incorporated into a first-year college writing curriculum. More specifically, it examines the author’s design and teaching of “Perfect Practice and Writing,” a course centered on the five elements: setting effective goals, maintaining appropriate challenge, appreciating error and failure, evaluating feedback, and thinking metacognitively. Course discussions and assignments were designed to engage students with all five of these essential components of effective practice, ideally leading students to conceive of writing as a skill that could be practiced and improved upon like any other. The results suggest that a first-year writing course premised on the elements of effective practice can successfully reorient students’ attitudes about writing as a practice-able skill; however, some elements are more difficult to incorporate into the typical first-year writing classroom than others. The more difficult elements are those which require an especially individualistic approach, which may be logistically problematic for larger classes. The dissertation concludes with potential strategies for overcoming these obstacles, as well as implications for further research

EBook proceedings of the ESERA 2011 conference : science learning and citizenship

This ebook contains fourteen parts according to the strands of the ESERA 2011 conference. Each part is co-edited by one or two persons, most of them were strand chairs. All papers in this ebook correspond to accepted communications during the ESERA conference that were reviewed by two referees. Moreover the co-editors carried out a global reviewing of the papers.ESERA - European Science Education Research Associatio

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Towards a disruptive learning model in information systems education: a reflective student-dominant logic perspective

This thesis describes the research carried out to identify mechanisms as potential causes of action that can lead to improved learning outcomes. Identifying mechanisms requires an exploratory approach because mechanisms are not always directly perceivable. The potential mechanisms in this study were identified by analysing the reflections of students who participated in experiential learning projects during business process management education. The research was necessary due to a persistent need to minimise the gap between learning and practice. The research is unique because it takes a student-dominant approach to review students' reflective practices using a novel pragmatic-critical realist paradigm. Although reflection is central to experiential learning, there is limited understanding of how students reflect and what they consider to influence their learning outcomes. This limitation was explored using action research with mixed methods analysis which combined thematic analysis and partial least squares based structural equation modelling. During four action research cycles, student reflections on business process projects as part of higher education enterprise systems and business process management courses in a South African higher education institution were observed and analysed. Each action research cycle changed one aspect of the students' projects. The first intervention required students to reflect on action, the second required students to reflect in action, and the third required reflection for action. In the fourth cycle, the teaching staff changed. The findings showed that reflection is complex and must be linked to action to improve learning. Reflections were observed to positively influence learning outcomes when students apply effort to assigned tasks. On the basis of the observations, two models were proposed. The first model is a learning influence model embedded in the second disruptive learning model. The models show that reflective practices can improve learning outcomes by recognising that students learn at different levels but are predominantly absolutist. Students need to be inspired to apply effort in completing tasks and overcoming satisficing

Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Edited book by Athabasca authors, describing production, delivery, theory and support for online learnin