This paper describes how a gamified rewards and penalties framework was used to increase attendance and engagement in a level six undergraduate computing module teaching game production. The framework was applied to the same module over two consecutive years: a control year and a trial year. In both years the tutor, assignments and assessment…

With the spread of the Internet, students now have greater opportunities to use Japanese outside of the classroom. For example, they can interact with other Japanese speakers through instant messaging or social networking, or utilize online dictionaries and translation tools to decipher websites in ways that would be impossible with traditional…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an online automated evaluation and feedback system that assessed students' word processing assignments prepared with Microsoft Office Word. The participants of the study were 119 undergraduate teacher education students, 86 of whom were female and 32 were male, enrolled in different…

While distance education continues to grow in higher education, students express the concern that they feel isolated. The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of a cooperative learning strategy would affect social presence and achievement. Each group completed an individual assignment and a cooperative learning assignment…

This paper describes a new approach for a course and laboratory designed to allow students to develop low-cost prototypes of robotic and other embedded devices that feature Internet connectivity, I/O, networking, a real-time operating system (RTOS), and object-oriented C/C++. The application programming interface (API) libraries provided permit…

Stochastic understanding of probability distribution undergirds development of conceptual connections between probability and statistics and supports development of a principled understanding of statistical inference. This study investigated the impact of an instructional course intervention designed to support development of stochastic…

Cooperative learning and team-based learning have been widely recognized as beneficial strategies to improve all levels of education, including higher education. Just forming groups, however, does not automatically lead to better learning and motivation; cooperation flourishes only under appropriate conditions (Fink; Gillies; Parmelee et al.).…

Concerns about the poor quality of students' use of sources in undergraduate research writing have typically led to investigations either of students' information-seeking strategies or of their composing practices. I argue that an either/or approach provides an incomplete picture of students' research writing processes, and that an exploration of…

The authors discuss the effectiveness of the Quality School model and active learning in an undergraduate classroom setting. They compare performance levels of students in two course sections of Principles of Macroeconomics and two sections of Managerial Communications. Students are given an opportunity to help shape the structure of the…

The aim of this study is to evaluate a teaching strategy designed to teach first-year undergraduate life sciences students at a research university how to learn to read authentic research articles. Our approach--based on the work done in the field of genre analysis and argumentation theory--means that we teach students to read research articles by…

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a novel assessment method developed to determine if the curriculum from two separate safety degree programs provided sufficient opportunity for students to obtain the knowledge required for professional practice in occupational safety. The method relies on the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP)…

Most scientists agree that comprehension of primary scientific papers and communication of scientific concepts are two of the most important skills that we can teach, but few undergraduate biology courses make these explicit course goals. We designed an undergraduate neuroimmunology course that uses a writing-intensive format. Using a mixture of…

This paper explores the expression of certainty in a set of high- and low-rated Geography argumentative essays. Using one aspect of Hunston's (1989, 2000) concept of the evaluation of status, the paper compares the statement types used to construe the writer's expression of certainty in the construction of arguments. Drawing on the framework,…

Argumentation and discourse are two integral parts of scientific investigation that are often overlooked in undergraduate science education. To address this limitation, the story of peptide bond formation by the ribosome can be used to illustrate the importance of evidence, claims, arguments, and counterarguments in scientific discourse. With the…

Students who study English as a Foreign Language (EFL) often already speak two or more languages. Knowing more than one language is a necessity for many people worldwide, whether it is because their parents come from different language backgrounds, because their home, regional, national, or school languages are different, or for a variety of other…