Under the hood: How an authentic online course was designed, delivered and evaluated

A key challenge for university professionals is to identify how to construct more interactive, engaging and student-centred environments that promote 21st century skills and encourage selfdirected learning. Existing research suggests the use of real-life tasks supported by new technologies, together with access to the vast array of open educational resources on the Internet, have the potential to improve the quality of online learning. This paper describes how an authentic online professional development course for higher education practitioners was designed and implemented using a learning management system (LMS) and an open companion website. It also briefly discusses how the initial iteration was evaluated and identifies recommendations for improving future iterations of the cours

Peer reviews: What can we learn from our students?

This paper describes lessons learnt whilst using an online peer review system in an undergraduate unit for pre-service teachers. In this unit students learn to use information technologies as part of their future teaching practice. The unit aims to foster graduates who become life-long reflective educators by providing opportunities to explore and reflect on how they might use technology in authentic learning situations. Whilst peer review is an appropriate activity for supporting critical thinking and reflective practice in this kind of unit, it requires a number of decisions to be made in relation to student preparation and support, implementation strategy, and technological infrastructure to make it work in specific contexts. Much research has been conducted in recent years to inform educators in making these decisions. However, there are still gaps in the research, particularly in how to improve the quality and consistency of feedback that students give to each other in their feedback. This paper describes the experiences of implementing an online peer review system aiming to improve quality and consistency of feedback. This exploration has revealed that we can learn much about ways to improve our teaching practices by giving students an opportunity to review each other’s work and give each other feedback

Formative assessments using text messages to develop students’ ability to provide causal reasoning in general chemistry

Formative assessment is critical in providing students the opportunity to self-assess their content knowledge and providing data to inform instructional decisions. It also provides students with information about course expectations. If, as called for in numerous science instruction reform efforts, we expect students to be able to apply their chemistry knowledge to analyze data and construct coherent explanations, then not only must summative assessments include items that require this of students, but students must also be provided with frequent and ongoing opportunities to individually practice this difficult task and receive feedback. Although online homework systems can be quite effective at providing students with feedback regarding their mastery of basic skills, it is typically less useful in providing meaningful feedback on constructed student explanations. This study examined the impact of providing students with frequent out-of-class formative assessment activities initiated by text messages. Student responses were then used to facilitate in-class instruction. Increased student participation in these formative assessment tasks correlated positively with success on exams even after accounting for student prior knowledge. There was also evidence that students increased their ability to construct complete explanation over the course of the semester. All results were consistent across two different institutions and three instructors

Educational Reform in the Sunshine State: High Need, Low Funding and A Disaffected Electorate

The state of Florida greets the 20th century as the fourth largest state in the country

Expansion Potential for Irrigation within the Mississippi Delta Region

17.6 million acres, or 73 percent, of the Mississippi Delta Region is currently cropland and possesses the physical characteristics of slope, texture and soil type which are recommended for irrigation. Economic feasibility of expanding irrigation by flood, furrow and center pivot methods were examined under 24 scenarios representing two sets of crop prices, yield levels, production costs, opportunity costs and six crop rotations. Irrigation was economically feasible for 56 to 100 percent of the cropland across all scenarios. Approximately 88 percent of the cropland can be economically irrigated with flood or furrow in its present form, 8 percent yield highest net returns if furrow irrigated following land forming and 4 percent can be economically irrigated only with center pivot systems

Students’ Independent Use of Screencasts and Simulations to Construct Understanding of Solubility Concepts

As students increasingly use online chemistry animations and simulations, it is becoming more important to understand how students independently engage with such materials and to develop a set of best practices for students’ use of these resources outside of the classroom. Most of the literature examining students’ use of animations and simulations has focused on classroom use with some studies suggesting that better outcomes are obtained when students use simulations with minimal guidance while others indicate the need for appropriate scaffolding. This study examined differences with respect to (1) student understanding of the concept of dissolution of ionic and covalent compounds in water and (2) student use of electronic resources when students were asked to complete an assignment either by manipulating a simulation on their own or by watching a screencast in which an expert manipulated the same simulation. Comparison of students’ pre- and posttest scores, answers to assignment questions, near-transfer follow-up questions, and eye-tracking analysis suggested that students who viewed the screencast gained a better understanding of the dissolving process, including interactions with water at the particulate level, particularly for covalent compounds. Additionally, the eye tracking indicated that there were significant differences in the ways that the different treatment groups (screencast or simulation) used the electronic resources

Reproducibility of kinematic measures of the thoracic spine, lumbar spine and pelvis during fast running

This study evaluated the reproducibility of the angular rotations of the thoracic spine, lumbar, spine, pelvis and lower extremity during running. In addition, the study compared kinematic, reproducibility between two methods for calculating kinematic trajectories: a six degrees of freedom, (6DOF) approach and a global optimisation (GO) approach. With the first approach segments were, treated independently, however with GO approach joint constraints were imposed to stop translation, of adjacent segments. A total of 12 athletes were tested on two separate days whilst running over, ground at a speed of 5.6ms-1. The results demonstrated good between-day reproducibility for most, kinematic parameters in the frontal and transverse planes with typical angular errors of 1.4-3°., Acceptable repeatability was also found in the sagittal plane. However, in this plane, although, kinematic waveform shape was preserved between testing session, there were sometimes shifts in, curve offset which lead to slightly higher angular errors, typically ranging from 1.9-3.5°. In general, the, results demonstrated similar levels of reproducibility for both computational approaches (6DOF and, GO) and therefore suggest that GO may not lead to improved kinematic reproducibility during running

The Town Lake Report, Volumes I and II

This report makes brief references to sediment and other trends seen in Waller Creek.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Town Lake’s importance as a natural resource is growing in tandem with Austin’s rapid population. The lake is a source of drinking water for the City, and its greenbelt and open waters are widely used for recreation and as a focal-point for public events. In 1992, under the Clean Lakes program, a comprehensive report entitled the “Town Lake Study” (COA 1992a; COA 1992b; COA 1992c) was prepared. It examined the condition of the lake (Volume I), water quality control alternatives (Volume II) and a feasibility study (Volume III). This report updates the diagnostic study, Volume I (COA 1992a), including the current status of water quality with data analyzed through the year 2000. It also includes a summary of measures taken to reduce pollution from urban runoff since 1990.Waller Creek Working Grou