Evolutionary processes can be studied in nature and in the laboratory, but time and financial constraints result in few opportunities for undergraduate and high school students to explore the agents of genetic change in populations. One alternative to time consuming and expensive teaching laboratories is the use of computer simulations. We…

Embedded systems are increasingly pervasive, and the creation of reliable controlling software offers unique challenges. Embedded software must interact directly with hardware, it must respond to events in a time-critical fashion, and it typically employs concurrency to meet response time requirements. This paper describes an innovative course…

Many students perform extraction experiments without connecting relevant molecular features to corresponding macroscopic features. Two versions of an Organic Extraction Simulation, one with text "captions" and the other with "narration" accompanying the animation, were developed based on a cognitive view of multimedia learning.…

This article illustrates the utility of using virtual environments to transform social interaction via behavior and context, with the goal of improving learning in digital environments. We first describe the technology and theories behind virtual environments and then report data from 4 empirical studies. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that…

Several well-known and newly discovered counterintuitive regular and chaotic modes of the sinusoidally driven rigid planar pendulum are discussed and illustrated by computer simulations. The software supporting the investigation offers many interesting predefined examples that demonstrate various peculiarities of this famous physical model.…

The following article discusses an educational simulation created within Second Life (SL) in order to assist pre-service teachers (PSTs) in gaining more experience managing student behavior. The article discusses the development, implementation, and assessment of the simulation as well as student data on the feasibility of the approach in…

Historical time and chronological sequence are usually conveyed to pupils via the presentation of semantic information on printed worksheets, events being rote-memorised according to date. We explored the use of virtual environments in which successive historical events were depicted as "places" in time-space, encountered sequentially in…

A unique approach was planned and implemented for undergraduate dental students that would reinforce the principles of removable partial denture (RPD) design. 162 students were grouped according to their year of dental studies (66 second-year students and 96 third-year students) within the Discipline of Prosthodontics at the Faculty of Dentistry,…

Technology was integrated into service-learning activities to create an interactive teaching method for undergraduate students at a large research institution. Chemistry students at the University of Central Florida partnered with high school students at Crooms Academy of Information Technology in interactive service learning projects. The…

Learning real three-dimensional (3D) anatomy for the first time can be challenging. Two-dimensional drawings and plastic models tend to over-simplify the complexity of anatomy. The approach described uses stereoscopy to create 3D images of the process of cadaver dissection and to demonstrate the underlying anatomy related to the speech mechanisms.…

Involving two or more academic subjects, interdisciplinary studies aim to blend together broad perspectives, knowledge, skills, and epistemology in an educational setting. By focusing on topics or questions too broad for a single discipline to cover, these studies strive to draw connections between seemingly different fields. Cases on…

Grading on the curve is a common practice in higher education. While there are many critics of the practice it still finds wide spread acceptance particularly in science classes. Advocates believe that in large classes student ability is likely to be normally distributed. If test scores are also normally distributed instructors and students tend…

Worked examples have been effective in enhancing learning outcomes, especially with novice learners. Most of this research has been conducted in laboratory settings. This study examined the impact of embedding elaborated worked example modeling in a computer simulation practice activity on learning achievement among 39 undergraduate students…

Empirical evidence is needed to corroborate the intuitions of gamers and game developers in understanding the benefits of Immersive Virtual Worlds (IVWs) as a learning environment and the role that music plays within these environments. We report an investigation to determine if background music of the genre typically found in computer-based…

Because evolution in natural systems happens so slowly, it is difficult to design inquiry-based labs where students can experiment and observe evolution in the way they can when studying other phenomena. New research in evolutionary computation and artificial life provides a solution to this problem. This paper describes a new A-Life software…