Pranjalee Lahri’s article explores the differences between games, game-based learning, and gamification in regards to education. She looks at it from a marketing and corporate-based angle but her ideas can be easily applied to the classroom as well.
Since the beginnings of online instruction, the biggest challenge has been how to build in social presence. The choice of LMS makes a big difference, as that can limit options. However, most LMSs these days have options that can work, even when fully asynchronous. In this article, Kari Henry Hulett details what changed her mind on how to go about engaging her online students differently. Read on to see how she built a better community in her online classes, and practical methods you can use as well.
Although not a terribly new concept, there is quite a bit of literature out there that supports improved learning (and retention of knowledge) by students when they participating in creating questions for a quiz or exam. As this Chronicle.com article details, not just any question types will do. Multiple-choice questions rarely challenge the intellect of students. True/false are worse. As the article details, professor Max Teplitski wanted students to focus on higher-order cognitive processes. So he had them learn about Bloom’s Taxonomy too!
Bradley Emerling, a research scientist at Pearson Research and Innovation Network, documents his observations of the K-12 education system in Japan. He notices early on that almost all teaching is done with a chalkboard, a tool that is rarely used in the US anymore after being surpassed by overhead projectors, PowerPoint presentations, and Smart Boards. The chalkboard is an integral aspect of the Japanese classroom, and Emerling’s findings point not only to a difference in tools, but also a difference in what is valued in American and Japanese pedagogy.
Cathy Moore, an internationally recognized training designer, has a few things to say to the learning-style believers among us. She argues that learning styles, such as “auditory learner,” should be treated more like preferences than ways to group people into distinct categories. Read more to find out how creative and individual-focused training and teaching styles can be even more effective when we free ourselves from the auditory/visual/kinetic labels.