Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

The measurement of meaning

Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: A literature review

This article offers a critical review of the literature on 21 st century knowledge frameworks, with a particular focus on what this means for teachers and teacher educators. The authors ac complish this by identifying common themes and knowledge domains in 15 reports, books, and articles that describe the kinds of knowledge that researchers state are integral and important for success in the 21 st century. The authors argue that seemingly disparate frameworks converge on three types of knowledge, as necessary for the 21 st century: foundational, meta, and humanistic. Although 21 st century frameworks are thought to advocate new types of knowledge, little has actually changed in the new century with respect to the overall goals of education. Despite this sense of continuity, significant changes related to how technologies change all three types of knowledge need to be conveyed. The article ends with specific conclusions and recommendations for teacher education.

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What Knowledge Is of Most Worth: Teacher Knowledge for 21st Century Learning.

We tested the hypothesis that highly structured course designs, which implement reading quizzes and/or extensive in-class active-learning activities and weekly practice exams, can lower failure rates in an introductory biology course for majors, compared with low-structure course designs that are based on lecturing and a few high-risk assessments. We controlled for 1) instructor effects by analyzing data from quarters when the same instructor taught the course, 2) exam equivalence with new assessments called the Weighted Bloom's Index and Predicted Exam Score, and 3) student equivalence using a regression-based Predicted Grade. We also tested the hypothesis that points from reading quizzes, clicker questions, and other "practice" assessments in highly structured courses inflate grades and confound comparisons with low-structure course designs. We found no evidence that points from active-learning exercises inflate grades or reduce the impact of exams on final grades. When we controlled for variation in student ability, failure rates were lower in a moderately structured course design and were dramatically lower in a highly structured course design. This result supports the hypothesis that active-learning exercises can make students more skilled learners and help bridge the gap between poorly prepared students and their better-prepared peers.

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Increased Course Structure Improves Performance in Introductory Biology

Teaching Science with Case Studies: A National Survey of Faculty Perceptions of the Benefits and Challenges of Using Cases

In this investigation we assessed whether different formats of media (video, text, and video + text) influenced participants’ engagement, cognitive processing and recall of non-fiction cases of people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. For each of the cases used in the study, we designed three informationally-equivalent versions: video, text, and video + text. Thirty participants experienced one version in each format, thought aloud as they read or viewed the case, discussed their reactions to the stories during an interview, and completed an affective and engagement survey. Participants were again interviewed 6 weeks later to assess their memory for the cases. Results from protocol analysis indicate that the video and video + text versions of the stories led to higher levels of both engagement and sympathy with the characters, and recall of particular information; however, interactions between medium and content were important. We argue the main benefit of video lies in engaging students emotionally in the content.

If a picture is worth a thousand words is video worth a million? Differences in affective and cognitive processing of video and text cases

This article reports the results of an experimental study on multimedia learning environments, which investigated the impact of increasing the social behaviors of a pedagogical agent on students' perceptions of social presence, their perceptions of the learning experience, and learning. Paradoxically, in this experiment students detected higher degrees of social presence in both the text only and the fully animated social agent conditions than students in the voice only and the static image of the agent with voice conditions. Furthermore, students had more positive perceptions of the learning experience in the text only condition. The results support the careful design of social behaviors for animated pedagogical agents if they are to be of educational value, otherwise, the use of agent technology can actually detract from the learning experience. ********** Recent research in technological learning environments has begun to focus on the educational benefits of including pedagogical software agents. The work of Reeves and Nass (1996) has demonstrated that in human-to-computer interactions, humans will anthropomorphize the software even to the extent of applying social rules of human-to-human communication to the computer agents. The application of these rules to interactions with a software agent in an electronic learning environment may have educational benefits as well. Pedagogical software agents are animated interface agents in instructional environments that draw upon human-to-human social communication scripts by embodying observable human characteristics (such as the use of gestures and facial expressions). Research in the past few years on the use of pedagogical software agents has expanded to cover a variety of pedagogical roles taken on by the agent. The Teachable Agent Group at Vanderbilt (TAG-V) has developed social agents who play the role of the tutee rather than the tutor. In this environment where students learn by teaching, students are able to adjust the agent's attitude, and teach him or her relevant skills and concepts. The Tutoring Research Group at the University of Memphis, under Art Grasser, has developed a system called AutoTutor, which uses conversational agents that act as dialogue partners to assist learners in the active construction of knowledge. The Pedagogical Agent Learning Systems (PALS) laboratory at the University of Florida, under Amy Baylor, has developed a multiple agent environment called Multiple Intelligent Mentors Instructing Collaboratively (MIMIC) in which the agents act as mentors to students. Research on the MIMIC environment has focused on manipulating the characteristics of the agents such as programming the agents to offer feedback from an instructivist and constructivist theoretical perspective (Baylor, 2002). Baylor has also investigated the impact of using multiple agents that serve as experts and/or motivators to students (Baylor & Ebbers, 2003). The agents in all of the aforementioned environments are responsive to user input. However, even in a more didactic electronic teaching environment, agents can maintain motivational and affective features. According to Atkinson (2002): In particular, it may be possible to structure an example-based learning environment so that a lifelike character can exploit verbal (e.g., instructional explanations) as well as nonverbal forms of communication (e.g., gaze, gesture) within the examples themselves in an effort to promote a learner's motivation toward the task and his or her cognitive engagement in it. (p. 416) In traditional classroom settings "it is difficult to deny that teaching by its very nature involves some sort of intervention in the learning process of students in an attempt to facilitate their acquisition of desired educational outcomes" (Shuell, 1996). One form that this intervention takes is "providing cues as to which information in the material being studied is most important and the manner in which students might process the information" (p. …

Kathryn Hershey Dirkin

Papers

Teaching Science with Case Studies: A National Survey of Faculty Perceptions of the Benefits and Challenges of Using Cases

If a picture is worth a thousand words is video worth a million? Differences in affective and cognitive processing of video and text cases

All or Nothing: Levels of Sociability of a Pedagogical Software Agent and Its Impact on Student Perceptions and Learning.

Values, Beliefs, and Perspectives: Teaching Online within the Zone of Possibility Created by Technology

Three professors teaching online: The realization of teaching perspectives