Looking At Learning...Again, Part 2
This classroom video footage encourages you to analyze existing theories about how children learn, as well as your own beliefs, and then examine how those beliefs might influence your teaching.,Students try to cut a sheet of notebook paper to make a "truss" as light as possible but still able to support two separate one-pound weights hanging from it.
Assessing the validity and reliability of a Piagetian-based paper pencil test
Piaget hypothesized that we understand the world through the use of cognitive frameworks. The strengths and limitations of these cognitive frameworks (or levels) both help and hinder the learning process. Comprehending individuals’ cognitive levels is essential for teachers to ensure that their students learn. Piaget developed a series of tasks to assess individuals’ cognitive levels (typically called "clinical interviews" which can only be conducted in a one-to-one fashion). Thus, a paper-a
HST.725 Music Perception and Cognition (MIT)
This course is a survey of perceptual and cognitive aspects of the psychology of music, with special emphasis on underlying neuronal and neurocomputational representations and mechanisms. Basic perceptual dimensions of hearing (pitch, timbre, consonance/roughness, loudness, auditory grouping) form salient qualities, contrasts, patterns and streams that are used in music to convey melody, harmony, rhythm and separate voices. Perceptual, cognitive, and neurophysiological aspects of the temporal di
Developing Distance Learning Materials - draft course handbook template
This draft course handbook is the development of a handbook which is intended to provide students with essential information relating to their programme of study, including: general course information, University information, information about the course, the student calendar, information about assessment and academic regulations, help, advice and other information. This has a particular focus for distance learners.
Virtual Pedagogical Agents as Aids for High School Physics Teachers
The Pathway project is improving the quality of physics teaching and the number of available physics teachers by providing virtual expert help on issues of pedagogy and content. The project combines Carnegie Mellons Synthetic Interviews and state-ofthe- art digital video library technology with pedagogical advances developed at Kansas State University, and materials contributed by master teachers. The Synthetic Interview is a technology and technique that creates an anthropomorphic interface i
Important Ornaments: The Impact of Graphics and Rule Systems on Academic Wiki Use
Collaborative websites, or wikis, are being used in the classroom to recruit user attention and to disseminate information [1). These wikis place a heavy emphasis on text, while generally neglecting graphics. Little to no research has examined the impact of this textual approach. This paper examines the use of graphics and rule systems as motivating tools in academic wikis. It reports the results of a 6 month long experiment involving 21 10th and 11th grade users to determine the impact of diffe
Efficient object based streaming framework for web-based education
An efficient moving object extraction algorithm suitable for real-time content-based multimedia streaming systems is proposed in this paper. A Motion Vector (MV) based object extraction is used to dynamically detect the objects. To utilize the bandwidth efficiently, the important object can be real time detected, encoded, and transmitted with higher quality and higher frame rate than those of background. In order to meet the real-time requirement, no computationally intensive operation is includ
Freshman Organic Chemistry
This is the first semester in a two-semester introductory course
focused on current theories of structure and mechanism in organic
chemistry, their historical development, and their basis in
experimental observation. The course is open to freshmen with
excellent preparation in chemistry and physics, and it aims to
develop both taste for original science and intellectual skills
necessary for creative research.
Bridging the Contextual Distance: The e-CASE Learning Environment for Supporting Students Context
Supporting students awareness of the complex way that contextual issues affect knowledge application in authentic situations is a critical instructional mission and can lead to improved problem solving in the workplace. In this work we present the design of e-CASE (Context Awareness Supporting Environment), which is a case based learning environment for supporting instruction in the domain of software development. In designing e-CASE we employ a model for context which further guides the use o
The defining characteristics of intelligent tutoring systems research: ITSs care, precisely
his paper argues that, despite the changes in philosophies and techniques that have occurred since ITS research began, there are continuous threads running through this research which define its essential and distinctive nature. In particular, ITSs are computer-based learning systems which attempt to adapt to the needs of learners and are therefore the only such systems which attempt to 'care' about learners in that sense. Also, ITS research is the only part of the general IT and education fie
Learning physics with a computer algebra system
To become proficient problem-solvers, physics students need to form a coherent and flexible understanding of problem situations with which they are confronted. Still, many students have only a limited representation of the problems on which they are working. Therefore, an instructional approach was devised to promote students' understanding of these problems and to support them in forming associations between problem features and solution methods. The approach was based on using the computer alg
A Neural Approach for Modeling the Inference of Awareness in Computer-Supported Collaboration
Individuals interacting in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment produce a variety of information elements during their participation; these information elements usually have a complex structure and semantics, which make it rather difficult to find out the behavioral attitudes and profiles of the users involved. This work provides a model that can be used to discover awareness information lying underneath multi-user interaction. This information is initially captured in
Computerized scripts for enhancing collaborative learning
Free collaboration does not systematically produce learning. One way to enhance the effectiveness of collaborative learning is to structure interactions by engaging students in well-defined scripts. A collaboration script is a set of instructions prescribing how students should form groups, how they should interact and collaborate and how they should solve the
problem. In computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), the script is reified in the interface of the learning environment. This co
An examination of two types of timeline, linear vs. staggered: a mixed method approach
This study conducted as follow-up study to evaluate effects of two different time-based interfaces, linear and staggered. This study also tries to reveal users preferences when they look for information in two different computer-based timeline. Explanatory mixed method design was implemented. In the first part, quantitative, there were 42 subjects. Results shows no significant difference between two types of computer-based time-line in terms of task completion time and answer accuracy. In the
Narrative Evolution: Learning from Students' Talk about Species Variation
Learners do not always enjoy productive interactions with Multimedia Interactive Learning Environments. Their attention can be distracted away from the educational focus intended by designers and teachers through poor design and operational inadequacy. In this paper we describe a study of groups of learners using a multimedia CD-ROM research tool called Galapagos. This tool was developed to enable us to observe groups of learners interacting with different versions of the same multimedia content
Décrire l'accompagnement des apprenants Proposition d'une extension du langage de modélisation pé
L'objectif de cet article est de proposer une modification du langage de modélisation pédagogique IMS-Learning Design en termes de description d'une activité d'accompagnement des apprenants et de la spécification des rôles des acteurs participant à cette activité. Les modifications apportées s'appuient sur un modèle d'organisation du tutorat que nous avons défini. Ce modèle a pour objectifs (1) d'organiser les tâches entre les acteurs tuteur et apprenants, (2) d'assurer auprès des a
Narratives and their significance for childrens communication about their world
In this article I will give a description and a definition of narrative through historical review. This forms a background to my other purpose, to describe and discuss the importance of using storytelling as a tool for meaning making for the individual. In this text I will also raise the significance of stories as a tool for society to mediate culturally important messages to the individual and thereby shed light upon the dialectics between the individual and the collective.,part of Kaleidoscope
Towards a Generic Service Oriented Framework for Integrated User Management of Virtual Communities
A central Service layer for the European eLearning Grid Infrastructure (ELeGI) is the one for the management of members and the provision of collaborational services (Virtual Community Services).
Because it is a lot of effort to totally newly (re-)write the collaboration services like e.g. a videoconferencing service, it is much more desirable to take existing applications and just to wrap them with a Web Service interface to programmatically access the existing functionality relevant to user m
edCity - a New Learning Environment
edCity will facilitate learning anywhere, anytime, for anyone - for users of all ages both in traditionally taught and in pedagogically innovative courses - by fusing physical and virtual representations of real cities in order to provide a new learning framework.
The edCity project will be scenario-driven with major conceptual inputs to the design generated by highly interactive scenario-building activities.
After 18 months, a "Semantic Web" framework will be published and a prototype of the
A study of the development of programming ability and thinking skills in high school students
This article reports on a year-long study of high school students learning computer programming. The study examined three issues: I) what is the impact of programming on particular mathematical and reasoning abilities?; 2) what cognitive skills or abilities best predict programming ability?; and 3) what do students actually understand about programming after two years of high school study? The results showed that even after two years of study, many students had only a rudimentary understanding o
