Developing an ID course for graduate-level students at UCD

Contributors: Brent, Patrick, Nathan, Lee

The University of Colorado Denver (UCD) School of Education and Human Development has a doctoral program entitled Educational Leadership and Innovation (EDLI). Currently, the EDLI program requires 40 hours of coursework dedicated to exploring the theories and practice behind principles of educational leadership. The remaining 30 hours are spent working on a research-based dissertation.

New changes, however, require fewer dissertation hours and more coursework for EDLI students. Therefore, there is a significant need to develop and offer more doctoral-level courses that align with the EDLI program goals.

Our lab will develop an instructional design course for doctoral students, or masters-level students with a special interest in ID, to provide the EDLI program and its students with a course specifically focused on the theories behind the practice of instructional design. The course is expected to be delivered in the Spring Semester 2005.

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Author's Abstract:

Nathan Balasubramanian

This overview examines the challenges and opportunities afforded by games and simulations to enrich teaching and learning. It presents the preliminary findings from a classroom study that used the promising educational games and simulations developed by the Nobel Foundation.

Middle school students from all groups, disaggregated by gender and ethnicity, showed significant learning gains after playing these challenging Nobel games. We recommend five guidelines that are necessary for games and simulations to be meaningfully integrated into classrooms.

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Author's Abstract:

Nathan Balasubramanian

This paper describes how the author uses an online communication and
assessment tool, SchoolFusion (http://www.schoolfusion.com/), to (a) monitor and manage middle-school students’ work and provide them immediate feedback, (b) collect real-time data on students’ understanding of science and engineering concepts, and (c) use the information gathered to guide subsequent instruction.

Quantitative data analysis showed that the mean test scores increased significantly from the pre-test to the post-test across the entire class. Students’ responses in online think-writes also revealed students’ improved conceptual understanding of scientific and engineering principles.

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Contributed by:

Author's Abstract:

Nathan Balasubramanian

This paper describes design of an interactive learning environment to
increase student achievement in middle schools by addressing students’ preconceptions, and promoting purposeful social collaboration, distributed cognition, and contextual learning. The paper presents a framework that guided our design efforts to immerse all students in a progression of guided-inquiry hands-on activities.

Students find compelling reasons to
learn by responding to authentic science-based challenges, both in
simulations and hands-on activities, based on specific instructional
objectives from the national standards.

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Author's Abstract:

Nathan Balasubramanian

Current trends in physics education research (PER), career development (CD), and classroom management (CM), and how they might promote smart education are outlined in this draft.  Developing epistemic games to foster a constructivist learning environment appears to be a distinct possibility for blending subject expertise with CD and CM. 

The expertise of instructional designers in the development of such games (computer based and online), which could be tested by practitioners subsequently in the different disciplines (physicists, linguists, historians, and so on), will go a long way in establishing their meaningful instructional use.

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Author's Abstract:

Diann Mazingo

Feedback has been identified as a key variable in developing academic self-efficacy (ASE). The types of feedback can vary from a traditional, objectivist approach that focuses on minimizing learner errors to a more constructivist approach, focusing on facilitating understanding. The influx of computer-based courses, whether online or through a series of computer-assisted instructional (CAI) modules, requires that the current research of effective feedback techniques in the classroom be extended to these computer environments in order to impact the instructional design of these learning experiences.

In this study, gender and exposure to different types of feedback during a chemistry CAI module were studied in relation to ASE and performance on an objective-driven assessment (ODA) of the chemistry concepts covered in the module. No significant changes in ASE across time were found. Also, no significance of the between-subjects or within-subjects effects for the ODA was observed. These findings are discussed in relation to the need to further refine the instruments to continue exploring the possibility that the type of feedback might play a role in developing ASE, and consequently, academic performance. Future research, building on this pilot, may reveal significance that could have impacts on the instructional design of the growing body of online and computer-based coursework.

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Annotation:

Diann Mazingo

Feedback in instructional environments is a widely studied topic. In the realm of computer-assisted instruction (CAI), the use of feedback has often been limited to objectivist-type responses aimed at reinforcing the "correct" answer.

Constructivist principles, although widely discussed and researched in classroom settings, are not represented within the body of literature as a means of feedback in CAI settings. This paper reviews the body of literature surrounding feedback in CAI, with an emphasis on the gaps that are present in the existing work.

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