PBL) isan instructional method in which students lear

At a recent keynote speech (2016), Richard Culatta, former director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, noted that more than half of higher education enrollments for 2016 are nontraditional students.

Effect of a metacognitive scaffolding on self-efficacy, metacognition, and achievement in e-learning environments

Bridging Formal and Informal Learning Through Technology in the Twenty-First Century: Issues and Challenges

Technology Infused Professional Development: A Framework for Development and Analysis

ample Professional Development (PD) Activity Collection

Educational technology professional development as transformative learning opportunities

1Engaging Adults Learners with TechnologyThrough hands-on experience and reviewing the literature, two instruction librarians explore and model best practice

Technology Starts with Professional Development and Training

AMR in 120 Seconds

Reading on the web is a critical skill for engaging content online. They can be viewed as “exploring,” or “navigating the web.” Just as traditional reading requires knowledge of the text and concepts of print, reading online requires a basic understanding of web mechanics. Good online readers know the tools and strategies that can be used to search for and locate people, resources, and information. They then know how to judge the credibility of these sources.1 The web literacy skills and competencies identified under reading on the web are as follows. Search

Learning Technologies that Increase the Impact of Classroom Training

“In the USA, EdTech product catalogues are either too complex for many teachers to use, not objective or comprehensive enough, or not based on credible user reviews (which often have more

This article contains the following sections:Getting Started Integrating Technology Across the Access Spectrum Getting to "Seamless" Integration Tips for Shared Hardware Creating a Professional-Development Plan Hardware and Equipment Using Technology for Feedback and Assessment The Role of Digital Citizenship

A Pedagogical Framework for Technology Integration in ESL Classrooms 191is that in an online reading environment designed with embedded compre-hension strategy supports, ELLs’ comprehension gains were significantly associated with their frequency of using coaching avatars that provided sup-port for effective use of reading comprehension strategies (Proctor et al., 2007). Ubiquitous technology environments can arouse student interest in us-ing the technologies (Huang, Huang, Huang, & Lin, 2012; Sandberg, Maris, & de Geus, 2011) and promote better learning outcomes in listening, speak-ing and vocabulary acquisition (Gromik, 2012; Liu & Chu, 2010; Sandberg et al., 2011). Sandberg et al. (2011) observed that when students took home a smartphone to learn English about zoo animals, they were motivated to use it in their spare time, which enabled them to outperform those who did not take the mobile applications home. Technologies designed to adapt to individual learners’ needs have also demonstrated positive effects in promoting learning (Lo, Wang, & Yeh, 2004; Chen & Chung, 2008; Hsu, Hwang, & Chang, 2010; Jia, Chen, Ding, & Ruan, 2012; Wible, Kuo, Chien, Liu, & Tsao, 2001). Lo et al. (2004) used a hypermedia-based English prepositions learning system2 to diagnose students’ errors and provide adaptive remedial instructions, which signifi-cantly improved students’ confidence and learning outcomes. Challenges. The degree of freedom that teachers should give students when students use technology for language learning deserves exploration. Experiments have shown that, when students were free to choose how and when to use CALL, their choices could lead to poor learning and wasted time (Sciarone & Meijer, 1993). Another challenge is that, although learning tools provide easy access to resources, learners may feel overwhelmed by large amounts of information and become passive receivers of knowledge (Schmid, 2008). Easy access to resources can encourage laziness and pas-sivity of learners when it comes to checking materials and exploring knowl-edge themselves.

nontraditional students. The education department at OSU-M is housed within the School of Teaching and Learning and the Integrated Teaching and Learning (ITL) section. The Integrated Teaching and Learning section of the College of Education serves those preservice teachers who are studying to be teachers of children age 3 to Grade 8. The Ohio State University Master of Education degree, the degree that offers course requirements for licensure in elementary and middle childhood, is a five-quarter, graduate licensure program. Students enter the program with a B.A. in Elementary Education or a similar field. We license approximately 24 teachers per year. Class size ranges from 12 through 24 students. During the bachelor’s program, student studies are focused on theories of child development and learning, primary reading and language courses, general liberal arts courses, content courses, and two beginning field courses. At least one field placement during the undergraduate coursework takes place in an urban school. Following admission to the graduate program in education, students begin their coursework in general pedagogy and specific methods: social studies, mathematics, language arts, reading, and science. During this year and a half of studies, students are in the field each week for 4-10 hours and have a 12- to15-day period toward the end of the two methods block quarters when they create and implement lessons in their field classroom. All students complete two separate placements in teams of two. Field placements are primarily in suburban and rural schools. Following these field placements, students have one quarter of student teaching and one quarter for a master’s project, including a comprehensive portfolio and a research paper. Experiences With Technology During the undergraduate program students take one technology course. This course is intended to provide students with exposure to the basic knowledge of computer hardware and an introduction to traditional educational software. During this course, students are required to complete an “All About Me,” project (see Powerpoint 1) for which students familiarize themselves with tools such as the scanner, digital camera, clipart, and presentation software. Figure 1. The technology teaching lab After students are admitted to the master’s licensure program, they take one basic technology course that covers other technologies available to elementary education teachers (e.g., Ellison cutters, laminating machines, filmstrip projectors, video projectors, enlargers), and they continue their development of computer knowledge. The two courses, one in the undergraduate program and the other in the graduate program, are the only two stand-alone courses on technology. After students have completed the basic technology course in the graduate program, they begin their methods courses. Throughout the methods coursework, students are asked to use technology when appropriate to enhance their teaching. In addition to this expectation, instructors of the methods courses integrate technology into their teaching to serve as a model of ways in which technology can enhance learning in the particular subject areas. During the two methods course quarters, students attend a lab course entitled the Technology Teaching Lab (TTL). The goal for this course is to increase the use of technology in students’ lessons in ways that will enhance their teaching. The TTL is a series of 2-hour labs that runs concurrently with our methods blocks. The purpose of this lab is to provide the preservice teachers in our elementary education program opportunities to create, with assistance, technology-enhanced lessons for their field placements. The lab course provides the students with instruction, opportunities, and equipment to take their technology-enhanced lessons directly to the field.

ommunities using technology in ambitious and innovative ways to support adult learners. Our Beacons’ stories of how they address common challenges show what it takes to develop and scale effective adult learning across multiple partnerships. Through their work at the leading edge of integrating technology into adult learning, we can understand and amplify new models and practices.

Adult enrollment in higher education grew by more than 50 percent between 1991 and 2011, according to U.S. News & World Report. This trend shows that today’s educators and corporate trainers must adapt to the different needs, learning styles and challenges presented by teaching adult students. By understanding adult students, you can become a better educator or trainer. Here are six key teaching strategies for making lessons more applicable for adult learners. Keep It Relevant Adult students truly latch onto lessons they feel are relevant. They have to understand how the skills they learn will improve their daily lives. If they believe a lesson will have a measurable impact, they will be far more likely to be engaged and internalize the lesson. How can this be achieved? Education resource eLearning Industry recommends considering the “real value in the educational experience you’re providing.” While teaching adults, educators and trainers should consider the real-world impact on how a person works or interacts with  family. Remind adult students that a math lesson can help them better understand what they do every day or that the course will give them the experience they need to advance in their careers. Real-world outcomes will inspire an adult student to put forth more effort in a course. Remember Student Backgrounds One of the many differences between adult learners and their younger counterparts is experience. Adult education has to draw on the fact that stu

Learning House offered recommendations based on the study's findings. They include: mandatory or incentivized training for instructors who have not taught online. a regular feedback cycle for continuous professional development. a regular feedback cycle for instructor evaluation, including peer feedback. a uniform learning experience for standard components of an online course.

Effective Classroom Practices To Transform Education DOI:https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264293243-en Teachers are the most important school-related factor influencing student learning. Teachers can help level the playing field and provide opportunities for success to all their students. They can inspire students to innovate; to think and reflect and to work in collaboration with others.

A New Report: Reimagining the Role of Technology in Higher Education The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology recently released Reimagining the Role of Technology in Higher Education, a supplement to the 2016 National Education Technology Plan (NETP). The NETP calls for technology-supported, transformational learning in higher education. This vision emphasizes everywhere, all-the-time learning, improved access to learning opportunities, and a level playing field for students with diverse backgrounds. Below is a high-level summary of the report. The first step to achieving this vision is to recognize that higher education is comprised of students of all ages, races, socioeconomic backgrounds and learning abilities. More than 18-year-old high school graduates, new students include returning veterans and single moms. Forty-three percent of students attend part-time and 62 percent work either full-time or part-time. Two-thirds transfer before completing their degree. The student body, and the needs and goals of the student body, have never been so diverse, and higher education has never been more important to those who seek it. Supporting diverse needs and goals requires a student-centered higher education ecosystem that is flexible, integrated and efficient. The NETP believes this new ecosystem must support transformative learning through technology, teaching with technology and assessments enabled by technology. Educators, institutions and educational technology developers should collaborate across institutions to determine the best way to use technology to improve learning outcomes and create new learning experiences and delivery systems. Use data to study how students learn and identify the causes of success and failure. Develop new, standardized tools that enable real-time data analysis. Use digital learning materials to improve access to collaborative and project-based learning, and adopt learning resource design standards for evaluating learning resources. In addition to enhancing student learning experiences, technology and data should be used to improve instructional approaches, develop and implement new, research-based teaching models, and provide academic and non-academic support. Such initiatives must be promoted at the institutional level and include the sharing of information and best practices for various applications. Institutions must also provide training, technical support and professional development opportunities for educators. Assessments enabled by technology should allow for personalization and provide frequent feedback to improve student performance. This will also help faculty better understand and measure student progress. Technology-enabled assessment systems should be open, transparent and auditable, making them less susceptible to fraud and waste. They should create assessment activities that replicate real-world experiences to better prepare students for their careers. Implementing new learning and instructional models and modern assessments requires a robust IT infrastructure. However, this infrastructure must integrate formal, informal, workplace and mobile learning environments to support success for a diverse student body. Student learning and outcome data should be integrated across the higher education ecosystem while meeting security and privacy requirements. Investment decisions should be the result of collaboration between senior administrators, academic leadership and IT. Student feedback should be considered as well. Of course, technological change in higher education requires strong leadership and a culture that promotes collaboration and innovation. A strategic plan should welcome input from educators, students, technology providers, other institutions, and community and economic development organizations. An expanded strategic network can only improve system operability, transparency, innovatio

After a full day of teaching at Boston College, Karen Arnold had to find time to read her students’ contributions to an online discussion board. Each was required to write at least one post, and, as usual, they seemed to have waited to do it until the night before the deadline. “They would just blather something,” said Arnold, who teaches higher education and educational administration. “They didn’t have a conversation. It was more like a hoop-jumping exercise.” That was around 2008, and Arnold has avoided assigning online discussions ever since. Student and instructor at Bronx Community College (Photo by Ryan Brenizer) Like other faculty with memories of failed experiments such as these, she’s pushing back against the widespread notion that technology can necessarily improve teaching and cut costs. “We are fooling ourselves that we’re getting more efficient,” she said. Related: MOOC bandwagon shows signs of slowing down It’s been a high-stakes bet. Universities and colleges are marketing themselves to tech-savvy teenagers while promising higher productivity and financial savings. They will pour $10.4 billion into education technology this year, according to the Center for Digital Education, from computers to in-class gadgets such as digital projectors and wireless “clickers” that let students answer questions electronically. “We are fooling ourselves that we’re getting more efficient.” Karen Arnold, Boston College But professors say they don’t have enough help to use this technology effectively, haven’t seen results from it, and fear that the cost savings administrators keep insisting that technology will bring could mean their own careers are on the line. That’s left many in the university ranks rolling their eyes when the next “innovation” pops up. “We’ve been hearing over the last four or five years that technology is going to reduce costs, increase quality and increase access,” said Diane Harley, director of the Higher Education in the Digital Age project at University of California, Berkeley. She doesn’t think it can do all three of those things. “I always say, pick two.” Not that professors have completely resisted the trend. Nearly 75 percent have tried a new technology in their classes in the past year, according to a survey of 1,600 of them by Faculty Focus, a newsletter that shares effective teaching practices. Yet 34 percent said keeping up with technology was either “moderately” or “very” problematic. Related: As online courses expand, so do questions about ownership One of the most common complaints from faculty is that much of this technology creates more work, not less, a survey of 42 professors by David R. Johnson, a sociology researcher at Rice University, found. One of the reasons for this inefficiency is that professors adopt educational technology from companies that market it to them directly, even when their universities aren’t equipped to troubleshoot or upgrade it, said Gary W. Matkin, dean of continuing education, distance learning, and summer session at the University of California, Irvine. Then, when something even better comes along, faculty and universities chase after that. “It produces this technology war,” said Matkin. He thinks more universities will eventually switch to the model used by many corporations in which only certain technology is allowed. That way they’ll be better able to manage it — and track the results. Related: Want higher-ed reform? You may be surprised where you’ll find it Many schools have used this model to adopt the wireless clickers — or “student response systems” — in large classrooms. Allowing students to use the TV remote-style clickers to collectively answer questions can keep them engaged in lecture classes, according to a study at Canisius College, which found that student grades increased by 4.7 percent in classes that used clickers. But the technology’s impact goes only so far. In another study released this year, by Butler University professor Juan Pablo Rodriquez Prieto, language students who took clicker-based quizzes performed about 4.5 percent worse than classmates who used pencil and paper. Clare O’Connor, a Boston College biology professor who teaches several large classes and uses clickers regularly, agrees that they have limitations. She doesn’t use them for quizzes or tests, she said. “I like students to have the opportunities to change their answers,” she said. “If students have to answer when a question appears on the screen, you eliminate the possibility of more reflective answers.” One way schools have tried to lower the cost of education is by using another kind of technology: online courses. Yet even after teaching English online for 15 years, Wright State University-Lake Campus’ Martin Kich believes in-person courses offer students far more. Related: Colleges take cues from private business to improve their customer service He said he has to assign what he calls “busy work” to online classes simply to check that students are completing assignments, since there’s no opportunity to gather and discuss. “Academically, they are very suspect,” Kich said of online courses. Instead of lectures, online courses often use PowerPoint to present material. But studies have found that students, when given the ability to see lectures via PowerPoint — both online and in person — slack on doing their own assigned reading. “Students perceive the teachers will highlight all of the material worth considering in the textbook,” University of Central Missouri professor Thomas M. Mitchell wrote in a study of the use of PowerPoint in classes. “Unfortunately, students accept this efficient and time-saving system as a normal way of learning and disregard reading as an effective method of acquiring information.” As for Arnold, she abandoned discussion boards until her university upgraded to Canvas — an online learning management system — and encouraged professors to use it starting this year. After getting student feedback, she assigned two students to moderate the discussion board each week, filling it with questions that would drive conversation. At the start of class, the two students recap the results, saving Arnold the need to keep daily tabs on the board. “The good and bad thing about technology is it will do anything,” she said. But “you have to have time at the expense of other things you could be doing to figure it out.”   This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education. This article was originally published on The Heching Report and authored by Ryan Derousseau. Read the original article. Spread the love