Relevant prior knowledge moderates the effect of elaboration during small group discussion on academic achievement

This study set out to test whether relevant prior knowledge would moderate a positive effect on academic achievement of elaboration during small-group discussion. In a 2 × 2 experimental design, 66 undergraduate students observed a video showing a small-group problem-based discussion about thunder and lightning. In the video, a teacher asked questions to the observing participants. Participants either elaborated by responding to these questions, or did not elaborate, but completed a

Research on potential features to enhance on-line course materials for student revision

Providing online course materials on the course website has become standard practice in most institutions. These materials are intended to support students’ study after class and especially revision before an examination. Most students download and print out these online materials uploaded by teacher, which reduces the advantages of being online. Besides which, students sometimes suffer from the stress of revising a large amount of material. Maximising the potential of these online materials as an alternative method of revision is a challenge in the area of technology enhanced learning. To address this issue and overcome the challenge, we have developed the self-revision electronic course materials framework (SRECMATs) that features direct access to specific materials through keyword browsing and keyword searching, allowing users to gain a quick overview of extracted keywords along with easy access to related materials. This feature restructures the uploaded materials and delivers intelligent online materials for students. The first prototype was developed and launched for a Design of Information Structures module in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick. This paper evaluates the proposed framework in order to assess student satisfaction, understand students’ perceptions of using the system prototype, and understand whether or not the developed features are appropriate for practical use

Elaboration during problem-based group discussion: Effects on recall for high and low ability students

Item does not contain fulltextAlthough elaboration has been investigated frequently, there is little evidence for the beneficial effect of elaboration in problem-based learning. A controlled experiment tested the effect of elaboration during problem-based discussion on recall. Sixty-seven students observed a video-recorded, problem-based discussion. In one experimental condition, a tutor in the video encouraged participants to elaborate by asking elaborative questions. In a second condition, the tutor asked superficial questions. After the discussion, all participants studied a text with relevant new information. Elaborative questions had no significant effect on recall of idea units from the text, p = .39, eta(2) = .01. High-ability students outperformed low-ability students, p = .04, eta(2) = .07, but this effect did not interact with the experimental treatment, p = .22, eta(2) = .02. Suggestions for further research are presented

Crowdsourcing content creation in the classroom

The recent growth in crowdsourcing technologies offers a new way of envisioning student involvement in the classroom. This article describes a participatory action research approach to combining crowdsourced content creation with the student as producer model, whereby students’ interests are used to drive the identification and creation of educational content. This article first describes how this approach is grounded in cognitive psychology and aligned with contemporary learner-centered approaches to education. A case study is then provided detailing how this conceptual framework was implemented in an undergraduate psychology course on persuasion and influence. Two specific applications of this approach are described, one involving found content—with students identifying, explaining the research basis for, and archiving examples of persuasive content, they discover outside the classroom, in a public blog entitled Propaganda for Change—and a second involving content creation—with students producing their own persuasive messages that promote pro-social messages of their choosing. This framework offers a promising contemporary approach to learner-centered education and shifts the burden of education from figuring out how to expose what students know and are interested in into helping them construct relationships between content and their own prior understanding of the world