An analysis of professional practice Ed.D. dissertations in Educational Technology

The University of Florida offers an online professional practice Ed.D. focused on Educational Technology. Twenty-three students have completed professional practice dissertations and graduated since the program’s inception in 2008. The purpose of this article is to share what these dissertations have looked like and to begin a dialogue about professional practice dissertations completed in online educational technology programs. Specifically, we (1) provide an overview of different ways professional practice Ed.D. dissertations are structured, (2) share guiding principles for professional practice dissertations in our Ed.D. program, (3) analyze the ways in which these guiding principles played out in the dissertations and (4) discuss the implications of our analysis for our program and for other online professional practice programs in Educational Technology.     

Cycles of Research and Application in Education: Learning Pathways for Energy Concepts

ABSTRACT— We begin this article by situating a methodology called developmental maieutics in the emerging field of mind, brain, and education. Then, we describe aspects of a project in which we collaborated with a group of physical science teachers to design developmentally informed activities and assessments for a unit on energy. Pen-and-paper assessments, called teasers , were employed, along with interviews, to study how students learned about the physics of energy. Results were used to describe students' learning pathways and to design a scoring rubric for teacher use. We hypothesized that (a) teasers, by themselves, could be used effectively to evaluate the developmental level of students' reasoning about energy and (b) teachers could employ the scoring rubric with minimal instruction. Encouraged by our findings, we went on to create a freely available online version of the energy teaser , including a new rubric designed to improve the accuracy with which teachers can assess the developmental level of students' energy conceptions.     

Improvements in heat tolerance induced by interval running training in the heat and in sweat clothing in cool conditions

To compare the effectiveness of training in heat and in sweat clothing in cool conditions on improving heat tolerance, two groups of active subjects (n = 6 in each) performed an interval running heat-tolerance test before and after a 7-day experimental treatment. On each treatment day the subjects attempted to complete 4 x 15 min interval treadmill running periods (a 7.5 s effort every 30 s, on 15 km h-1, 15% grade; the same exercise format as the heat-tolerance test), which were interspersed with 5-min recovery periods (total time each day = 80 min). Group 1 (heat) ran in shorts, socks and shoes in hot humid conditions, and Group 2 (sweat clothing) ran in cool conditions dressed in shorts, socks and T-shirt covered by a polyester-cotton tracksuit, over which was worn 100% nylon spray-proof pants and jacket (cotton lined) with an acrylic cloth bobble hat (beanie) on the head. Both groups displayed changes typical of heat acclimatization over the 7-day period, with significant decreases in final rectal temperature (Tr) and heart rate (HR) being evident, but no change in sweat loss. Mean skin temperature (Tsk) was similar in both groups during the training sessions (heat group: 34.8-35.7 degrees C; sweat clothing group 34.9-35.5 degrees C). After the heat-tolerance test, both groups had significantly lower Tr, Tsk and HR values than before, and sweating sensitivity (g m-2 h-1 degrees C rise in Tr) was significantly increased. There was only one significant difference between the two groups (Tsk, 20th min value). It was concluded that training in sweat clothing in cool conditions can provide the same improvements in heat tolerance as training in hot humid conditions where a fixed exercise intensity and duration are used.