Useful metaphors for tackling problems in teaching and learning

Textbooks and lectures are typically structured around the belief that students learn the same way they would climb a ladder: straight up, one step at a time. Marc Schwartz and Kurt Fischer propose a pyramid and webs of pyramids as far more appropriate and useful metaphors.     

Plasmaaustausch und Immunadsorption

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Improving Design Understandings and Skills through Enhanced Metacognition: Reflective Design Journals

The main aim of this study was to investigate and discover whether going through the process of reflection by keeping reflective design journals (RDJ) enhances architecture students’ metacognition and whether this enhanced metacognition improves their design understandings and skills. The study was a mixed‐methods design and utilised content analysis method to identify the metacognitive actions of the participants. The study also investigated participants’ attitudes towards RDJs and their views regarding the effect of enhanced metacognition on their design understandings and skills. Twenty college students registered to an undergraduate course offered by the department of Architecture participated in the research. The findings of the study revealed that by writing in their RDJs, participants were able to progressively enhance their metacognitive skills and performed several metacognitive actions by using the four main metacognitive strategies: awareness, organisation and planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The results also disclosed that participants found RDJ keeping exceptionally effective and stated that their enhanced metacognition improved their design understanding and abilities.     

The Effects of Simultaneous Prompting on Teaching Expressive Identification of Objects: An instructive feedback study

The present study examined whether the use of a simultaneous prompting procedure would result in an increase in the percentage of correct responses when expressively identifying first aid materials. A multiple probe design across behaviours and replicated across students was used. Three training sets with a total of nine first aid materials were presented to three students. Also, instructive feedback stimuli were presented during consequent events to increase the efficiency of instruction. The instructive feedback con tained the functions of the instructional materials. Maintenance effects were assessed 1, 2, and 4 weeks after training. The results showed that all students learned expressive identification of first aid materials and maintained them after training. Furthermore, all students acquired and maintained some of the instructive feedback stimuli presented to them during instruction.