Imagine if we could start over: Designing a college from scratch

Sitting in traditional offices, in traditional departments, doing traditional duties, it's not hard to picture a few educators thinking, “Wouldn't it be great if I could build my own college?” A team of Texas educators got to do just that. The result was a living laboratory for engaged and collaborative learning.     

Designing computer software for problem-solving instruction

The purpose of this article is to identify factors that might influence the effectiveness of computer software designed to teach problem solving. Problem solving is defined and the research literature related to the acquisition of problem-solving abilities and the capabilities of computers for delivering problem-solving instruction are reviewed. The factors critical to the acquisition of problem-solving abilities and the attributes of computers that make them potential tools in problem-solving instruction are identified. These items are synthesized into a list of factors that are expected to influence the effectiveness of computer software designed to teach problem solving.     

Designing computer systems to support peer learning

This article begins with a review of the various roles which computers have played in supporting collaborative learning and argues that, whatever role it plays, technology is not neutral with respect to interactions with and between users. Interfaces to learning environments embody particular representational schemes which have the potential either for competing with representations of the learning domain or for giving access to it. In this respect, the learner-machine interface has ‘Epistemic significance’ and its design is as important as the design of the materials and activities to which it interfaces.     

面向对象的计算机类教学媒体的角色设计

本文在分析总结媒体等同理论的基础上,提出用面向对象的思维模式看待教育媒体设计问题.教学的过程是个互动的过程,对教学媒体的设计首先要把媒体看作教学中的一个社会互动角色,分析其运用的环境,然后确定这个对象所应该具有的属性、行为,从而实现设计的人性化.     

Designing computer learning environments for engineering and computer science: The scaffolded knowledge integration framework

Designing effective curricula for complex topics and incorporating technological tools is an evolving process. One important way to foster effective design is to synthesize successful practices. This paper describes a framework called scaffolded knowledge integration and illustrates how it guided the design of two successful course enhancements in the field of computer science and engineering. One course enhancement, the LISP Knowledge Integration Environment, improved learning and resulted in more gender-equitable outcomes. The second course enhancement, the spatial reasoning environment, addressed spatial reasoning in an introductory engineering course. This enhancement minimized the importance of prior knowledge of spatial reasoning and helped students develop a more comprehensive repertoire of spatial reasoning strategies. Taken together, the instructional research programs reinforce the value of the scaffolded knowledge integration framework and suggest directions for future curriculum reformers.Portions of this paper were presented at the American Psychological Association Meeting, Ontario, Canada, August 22, 1993. under the title of Cognition and instruction in higher education: Applications of advanced technologies. The title of the symposium was New Fellows in Educational Psychology-The Implications of Their Work for University-Level Instruction. This material is based upon research supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MDR-8954753. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.     

计算机基础课程机考系统的设计与实现

根据计算机基础课程实践性强的特点,强调教学中考试覆盖范围的全面性,指出该课程在考核方式上存在的漏洞,提出了改革考核的方法,研制了在线机考系统,并对该系统进行了设计与实现.这对促进高校计算机基础课程的教学改革有一定的意义.     

Designing an intelligent tutoring system for computer programing in the Pacific

Education and Information Technologies - Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) are educational systems that reflect knowledge using artificial intelligence implements. In this paper, we give an...     

Designing a computer support system for multimedia curriculum development in Shanghai

The CASCADE-MUCH system was designed to help teacher-designers in Shanghai, China with the development of instructional scenarios for multimedia curricula. After four rounds of prototyping, a summative evaluation was carried out to assess practicality. Results showed that the system was practical for the intended target users in Shanghai and also had potential for users in other contexts. The purpose of this article is to present the design process of the CASCADE-MUCH program and discuss how the evolutionary prototyping approach improved program quality and contributed to the designer’s knowledge growth.     

单片机设计性实验与工程实践能力的培养

通过对工程实践与创新能力培养之间关系的分析,指出了工程实践与实验教学可以培养学生的创新精神、创新能力和实践能力,并在此基础上分析了设计性实验对本科生工程实践能力培养的效果.针对目前本科生开展的单片机设计性实验所面临的困难,提出了相应的措施与对策.     

Early childhood teaching manuals: Guidelines for selection

More and more early childhood teaching manuals and guides are appearing all the time. It is difficult to look at any teaching magazine without finding reviews and advertisements for guides which promise to help us in our work with children.Diane E. Levin is Assistant Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston.     

Essay-writing: do study manuals give relevant advice?

Twenty-eight geography students were questioned about how they had prepared an essay about Africa and their answers were related to their essay marks. Each essay was marked by one of 9 postgraduate tutors and the researcher. Aspects of the students' essays, such as length and number of main points, were analysed and related to the students' marks. Tutors said that, in order to qualify for a high grade, students should have: answered the question, made a readable presentation, a logical presentation, and showed evidence of wide reading. These criteria were positively correlated with the students' marks and consistent with the comments which the tutors wrote on the students' essays. In this study, the students attained higher marks if they: included more main topics in their essays, had a readable writing style, produced more drafts for their essays, and cited more references. The results are discussed in relationship to advice about essay-writing in study manuals and other ways of helping students to improve their essay-writing.     

Teaching manuals and the blackboard: accessing historical classroom practices

The blackboard, a useful teaching tool in nineteenth-century England, was transformed into a teaching necessity in the decades follwing 1870, when the Education Acts made school free and mandatory for all children. The resulting huge population of schoolchildren inspired the development of teaching techniques appropriate for large-group learning. Many of these techniques relied on the blackboard as a reusable demonstration space visible to the entire class at once, unlike a book or slate. To share these new practices among teachers, particularly the novice teachers recruited to serve the increased school population, dozens of teaching manuals were published around the turn of the twentieth century. These manuals’ instructions for how to teach reading, writing, arithmetic and nature study to elementary school students offer historians a rare glimpse into teachers’ and students’ school experiences by suggesting how the blackboard shaped classroom practices in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England.