The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of positive peer reinforcement on self-reported psychological measures and songleading performance in beginning guitar students. No differences were found between the control group (n = 21) and the experimental group (n = 20) concerning psychological measures of self-esteem, stress, and…

The most effective pedagogies are those that foster students' metacognition and their learning effectiveness. This paper presents a new model of activity-based learning in which students construct knowledge using practices that include constructs of engagement, motivation, and affect that drive deeper processing and higher levels of metacognitive…

Traditional teaching styles practiced at universities do not generally suit all students' learning styles. For a variety of reasons, students do not always engage in learning in the courses in which they are enrolled. New methods to create and deliver educational material are available, but these do not always improve learning outcomes.…

This study investigated the effects of teacher, self and peer evaluation on preservice teachers' performance, knowledge and attitudes. Earlier research by the same authors revealed that students made significant improvements in their lesson plans under all three of these conditions, but the teacher-evaluation improved significantly more than the…

A team of researchers at De Montfort University's Centre for Excellence in Performance Arts has explored uses of technology in dance education. The wider context of dance and technology pedagogy includes research into dance, technologies, learning and teaching and the relationships between teaching and research. The paper addresses all of these…

Much time is invested by markers in providing feedback to students that is personalised, aimed at providing them with information to feed forward into their next piece of work. Given the investment of time by tutors in the feedback process, we were necessarily concerned with how it is used by students and keen to explore and develop practice. This…

In September 2007, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) officially launched the Student Achievement Initiative, a system-wide policy to reward colleges for improvements in student achievement. Developed by a task force comprised of State Board members, college trustees, presidents, and faculty representatives,…

Community colleges play an important role in the U.S. economy, providing access to higher education for low-income young people, a path to higher-earning employment for low-income workers, and a supply of well-trained employees for local industry. In order to remain competitive with other major economies, however, the U.S. must sharply increase…

This project addressed the difficulties of teaching argument skills, a staple of liberal education, to a mixture of Communication majors and non-majors taking the course for General Education Requirement (GER) credit. The design uses independent instructor comparison of students' pre- and post-test performances, students' comparative…

The Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) department at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is investigating the use of audience response systems (ARS) in its lecture style classes. ARS, or clickers, as they are more commonly called, are wireless hand held devices about the size of a small calculator. Students may use clickers in class…

This case study examined a multi-college community college district in northern California in a primarily rural area, to understand how their practices compared to management best practices designed to improve student success, barriers that may exist in implementing best practices, and how the institution may improve its own practices. The problem…

Article VIII of Louisiana's Constitution authorizes the Board of Regents (BoR) to develop a master plan for higher education in Louisiana. This Master Plan provides a broad vision for the State's higher education system and acknowledges its interdependence with the economy and its many contributions towards better lives for Louisiana's citizenry.…

Article VIII, §5 D (4) of Louisiana's Constitution requires the Board of Regents (BoR) to "formulate and make timely revision of a master plan for postsecondary education…" On August 24, 2011, the BoR adopted the "Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education in Louisiana: 2011" outlining the long-term goals for the State's…

This report presents the Administration's National Education Technology Plan. This plan calls for applying the advanced technologies used in everyone's daily personal and professional lives to the entire education system to improve student learning, accelerate and scale up the adoption of effective practices, and use data and information for…

This study explores the contribution that can be made by self and peer assessment to effective teaching and learning. The purpose of this research was to introduce an intervention to a group of students, many of whom had non-traditional academic backgrounds, with the intention that it might enhance their academic skills and lead to more effective…