New Superheroes/Villain Characters for Teaching Engineering Materials Selection

Superhero themes have been increasingly used in the teaching of a range of topics including business, humanities and science in recent years. Typically, characters from existing popular media are adopted for the teaching activities. On the other hand, customised characters that are developed from scratch allow the educator to have more control of the characters’ features so that the learning objectives can be achieved more effectively. In this work, new fictitious characters have been created as cases for students to perform their engineering materials selection assignment. The motivation for using the superhero theme was to increase the students’ excitement in the assignment. This paper shares the approach taken and the teaching experience after running the superhero theme with two cohorts of students.

Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking: Integrating Online Tools to Promote Critical Thinking

The value and importance of critical thinking is clearly established; the challenge for instructors lies in successfully promoting students’ critical thinking skills within the confines of a traditional classroom experience. Since instructors are faced with limited student contact time to meet their instructional objectives and facilitate learning, they are often forced to make instructional decisions between content coverage, depth of understanding, and critical analysis of course material. To address this dilemma, it is essential to integrate instructional strategies and techniques that can efficiently and effectively maximize student learning and critical thinking. Modern advances in educational technology have produced a range of online tools to assist instructors in meeting this instructional goal. This review will examine the theoretical foundations of critical thinking in higher education, discuss empirically-based strategies for integrating online instructional supplements to enhance critical thinking, offer techniques for expanding instructional opportunities outside the limitations of traditional class time, and provide practical suggestions for the innovative use of critical thinking strategies via online resources.

Exploring the Pedagogical Effectiveness of Clickers

Clickers, electronic response systems, are widely popular in college classrooms and proponents have argued clickers can increase student engagement, active learning, and, perhaps most importantly, student comprehension. Determining whether the effectiveness of clickers justified their purchase seemed warranted. A campus-wide project was developed to address this questions. Five university instructors adopted clickers in one of their introductory courses (psychology, speech, accounting, and education) while teaching a second, control course. Contrary to expectation, attrition was higher and grades were lower in the clicker courses, although these differences were not statistically significant.

Book Review: Quick Hits for Teaching with Technology: Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers

The Future of Learning and Training in an Augmented Reality

Students acquire knowledge and skills through different modes of instruction that include classroom lectures with textbooks, computers, and the like. The availability and choice of learning innovation depends on the individual’s access to technologies and on the infrastructure environment of the surrounding community. In this rapidly changing society, information needs to be adopted and applied at the right time and right place to maintain efficiency in all settings. Augmented reality is one technology that dramatically shifts the timing and location of learning. This paper describes augmented reality, how it applies to learning, and its potential impact on future education.

Improving Secondary School Students’ Achievement and Retention in Biology Through Video-Based Multimedia Instruction

The study examined the effects of video-based multimedia instruction on secondary school students’ achievement and retention in biology. In Nigeria, 120 students (60 boys and 60 girls) were randomly selected from four secondary schools assigned either into one of three experimental groups: Animation + Narration; Animation + On-screen Text; Animation + Narration + On-screen Text or a control group. The pretest, posttest experimental, and control group design was adopted. A 50-item multiple-choice objective test termed Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used for collecting data. The validated BAT was tested for reliability using Kuder Richardson (KR20), which yielded 0.89. T-test, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and Scheffe’s post-hoc analysis were used in determining the significant differences among the four groups. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference among the experimental groups. Generally, students under multimedia instruction performed better than their colleagues in the conventional teaching method. However, students in conventional teaching method had better retention than other groups.

Using Technology-Nested Instructional Strategies to Enhance Student Learning

Students today expect the use of technology in their classes, rather than have to listen to less-than-engaging lectures. College students are connected electronically and incessant technology consumers. As a result, they may prefer the infusion of technologies to help them learn and enjoy the process of learning, rather than having to listen exclusively to lectures. To investigate this, the authors solicited student perceptions to assess the importance of learning through technology-nested instructional strategies. Student perceptions give direction to and affirm the benefits of instructional strategies that increase student motivation to engage more actively in their learning. Based on quantitative and qualitative responses through action research in multiple courses, students perceive their learning as more engaging and enjoyable when technology-nested instructional strategies are infused into their classes.

The Use of Feature Film for Teaching Undergraduate Bioethics: Course Format and Assessment through Student Narratives

Film is a form of engaging narrative being employed with greater frequency in undergraduate and graduate education. To optimize their pedagogical impact, it is important to carefully select films that address core course objectives. Additionally, viewing should be structured with written guidelines to direct the audience to consider the relevant dimensions associated with the instructional goals of the film. A course, “Medical Ethics and Film” is described to illustrate cinemeducation. In order to assess the impact of this recently developed course, students kept ongoing diaries in which they regularly wrote about their reactions to each film. Analysis of the diaries revealed that students routinely addressed the moral dilemmas portrayed and often applied specific ethical theories. While ethical theory is typically presented as a series of cognitive frameworks, students often expressed strong emotional reactions and frequently linked the dilemmas portrayed to their own life.

Student Perspectives on Using Virtual Reality to Create Informal Connection and Engagement

Following the global pandemic, educators relied heavily on live videoconferencing options and online meeting spaces to host class in lieu of traditional, in-person classroom learning. Yet, exhaustion and Zoom fatigue fueled a lack of engagement in such online spaces, while simultaneously the need for more informal connection to support learners’ emotional well-being emerged. This study aims to better understand how online learners perceive the use of virtual reality (VR) as an alternative platform to informally connect and engage with one another, and to ascertain the impact on their satisfaction and motivation for such engagement. Specifically, the investigation sought to examine participant perceptions of social presence felt, the ability to connect and exchange informally, and the impact on motivation, digital literacy, and satisfaction overall.