Performance and perceptions of distance learners in cyberspace

Abstract

This study compared the performance and perception of cyber‐learners to that of traditional learners. A study of several hundred undergraduate students taking an introductory economics course at the University of California suggests that cyberlearners learn as well as, or better than, traditional learners regardless of characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, academic background, computer skills, and academic aptitude and that they do so with a high degree of satisfaction. CD‐ROM‐based lectures, electronic testing, threaded electronic bulletin boards, and online discussion rooms all appear to be effective instructional technologies. The CD‐ROM‐based lectures that simulated the traditional classroom experience were regarded as being both the most essential and most enjoyable instructional medium.     

A Multi-Year Study of the Impact of the Rice Model Teacher Professional Development on Elementary Science Teachers

A teacher professional development program for in-service elementary school science teachers, the Rice Elementary Model Science Lab (REMSL), was developed for urban school districts serving predominately high-poverty, high-minority students. Teachers with diverse skills and science capacities came together in Professional Learning Communities, one full day each week throughout an academic year, to create a classroom culture for science instruction. Approximately 80 teachers each year received professional development in science content and pedagogy using the same inquiry-based constructivist methods that the teachers were expected to use in their classrooms. During this four-year study, scientists and educators worked with elementary teachers in a year-long model science lab environment to provide science content and science pedagogy. The effectiveness of the program was measured using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods that allowed the researchers to triangulate the findings from quantitative measures, such as content test and surveys, with the emerging themes from the qualitative instruments, such as class observations and participant interviews. Results showed that, in all four years, teachers from the REMSL Treatment group have significantly increased their science content knowledge (p?<?0.05). During the last two years, their gains in science content knowledge, use of inquiry-based instruction and leadership skills were significantly higher than those of the Control group teachers' (p?<?0.01, p?<?0.001 and p?<?0.05, respectively). Three themes resonated in the interviews with participants: science content knowledge growth, constructivist pedagogy and leadership skills.     

Educational Reform at MIT: Advancing and Evaluating Technology-Based Projects On- and Off-Campus

This issue is the first of two special issues that present a diverse collection of studies which describe and discuss innovative approaches to science and technology teaching and learning at MIT. This issue focuses on advancing and evaluating technology-based projects on-campus, while the second one will focus mainly on off-campus technology-based projects.     

Development and validation of a new measure of teacher perceptions of science and mathematics learning environments

This article describes the development and validation of the Inventory of Teaching and Learning (ITAL) as a new measure of teacher perceptions of science and mathematics learning environments. The ITAL was initially developed and administered in 2004 and has subsequently been revised annually. The ITAL is administered using a confidential web-based procedure to large samples of K–12 teachers in Georgia as part of an external evaluation of an NSF-funded effort to improve K–16 science and mathematics education. Results of extensive Principal Components Analyses of the 2006 and 2007 ITAL databases are reported to support the replicated measurement structure of this new measure. Alpha reliabilities for three ITAL dimensions of teaching and learning for the 2007 ITAL administration with a sample of 3,012 teachers were: 0.95 for Inquiry-Based, 0.90 for Standards-Based and 0.85 for Traditional. Implications of the research findings for future research and evaluation studies involving teacher perceptions of science and mathematics and other learning environments are described.     

Teaching Thinking Skills in Context-Based Learning: Teachers’ Challenges and Assessment Knowledge

For an educational reform to succeed, teachers need to adjust their perceptions to the reform’s new curricula and strategies and cope with new content, as well as new teaching and assessment strategies. Developing students’ scientific literacy through context-based chemistry and higher order thinking skills was the framework for establishing a new chemistry curriculum for Israeli high school students. As part of this endeavor, we developed the Taste of Chemistry module, which focuses on context-based chemistry, chemical understanding, and higher order thinking skills. Our research objectives were (a) to identify the challenges and difficulties chemistry teachers faced, as well as the advantages they found, while teaching and assessing the Taste of Chemistry module; and (b) to investigate how they coped with teaching and assessing thinking skills that include analyzing data from graphs and tables, transferring between multiple representations and, transferring between chemistry understanding levels. Research participants included eight teachers who taught the module. Research tools included interviews, classroom observations, teachers-designed students’ assignments, and developers-designed students’ assignments. We documented different challenges teachers had faced while teaching the module and found that the teachers developed different ways of coping with these challenges. Developing teachers’ assessment knowledge (AK) was found to be the highest stage in teachers’ professional growth, building on teachers’ content knowledge (CK), pedagogy knowledge (PK), and pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). We propose the use of assignments designed by teachers as an instrument for determining their professional growth.     

Attentional enhancement in matching-to-sample: Facilitation in matching acquisition by sample-discrimination training

In three experiments, we examined how matching-to-sample by pigeons is affected by discrimination versus nondifferential training between the matching stimuli. In Experiment 1A, pigeons responding differentially to the sample stimuli off-baseline acquired accurate matching performances more rapidly than did pigeons responding nondifferentially to those same stimuli. In Experiment 1B, tests involving reversal of the off-baseline requirements demonstrated that the birds were primarily controlled in their matching choices by the sample stimuli. The results of Experiment 2 showed that off-baseline nondifferential training did not retard acquisition relative to comparable training between stimuli unrelated to the matching task. Together, these results suggest that discrimination training can facilitate matching acquisition by enhancing attention to the sample stimuli.