T. C. Reeves

University of Georgia | UGA · College of Education

This article was unintentionally published twice in this journal, by the same authors.

The special issue “A Synthesis of Systematic Review Research on Emerging Learning Environments and Technologies” edited by Drs. Florence Martin, Vanessa Dennen, and Curtis Bonk has assembled a noteworthy collection of systematic review articles, each focusing on a different aspect of emerging learning technologies. In this conclusion, we focus on t...

Background Solutionism is the all‐too‐common human propensity for jumping to a solution before adequately understanding the nature of a problem. Solutionism has long been prevalent in efforts to improve education at all levels, including medical education. Thesis Educational design research is a genre of research that features in‐depth understandi...

Despite the importance of evidence-based medical education, navigating the complexity of its implementation can be frustrating. Faculty development that engages and supports medical educators in Design-Based Research is one promising approach to respond to this challenge. An essential aspect of this process is to expand faculty’s Zone of Generativi...

Educational design research (EDR) was applied to address the challenge of providing more public health professionals with opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills related to Good Clinical Practices (GCP) inspections. The conduct of clinical research in accordance with the principles of GCP is necessary to ensure that clinical research pa...

Donald P. Ely, regarded by many as the father of Educational Technology and certainly one of the top leaders of our field, was my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. He had a profound impact on my life. After I completed 2 years of service in the U.S. Army, I went on a higher education binge between January 1971 and May 1979, completing a B.S. in El...

Despite a steady growth in educational innovations and studies investigating the acceptance and effectiveness of these innovations, medical education has not realized sufficient improvement in practice and outcomes from these investments. In light of this lack of impact, there has been a growing call for studies that more effectively bridge the gap...

Because of the perceived advantages and the promotion of Web-based learning environments (WBLEs) by commercial interests as well as educational technologists, knowing how to develop and implement WBLEs will probably not be a choice, but a necessity for most educators and trainers in the future. However, many instructors still don’t understand the m...

In this article, Professors Curtis J. Bonk, Mimi Miyoung Lee, Thomas C. Reeves, and Thomas H. Reynolds discuss the events that led to their recently edited book on “MOOCs and Open Education Around the World” as well as a special journal issue on this same topic. They reflect on the role of MOOCs and open education in the developing world as well as...

In this article, Professors Curtis J. Bonk, Mimi Miyoung Lee, Thomas C. Reeves, and Thomas H. Reynolds discuss the events that led to their recently edited book on “MOOCs and Open Education Around the World” as well as a special journal issue on this same topic. They reflect on the role of MOOCs and open education in the developing world as well as...

A high level of concern is placed on the storage, handling, transportation, and distribution of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, particularly those that are time and temperature sensitive. While active and passive cooling equipment and monitoring devices are important, it is the various personnel responsible for executing and writing pro...

This paper presents an analysis of educational technology research with specific emphasis on determining how the research goals pursued and methods used have evolved over the 25-year period from 1989 through 2014. For this study, the contents of the Educational Technology Research and Development journal were analyzed over two six-year periods, fir...

The World Health Organization converted an award-winning experiential learning course that takes place on a bus traveling down the “cold chain” for time- and temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products in Turkey to an online interactive learning environment through design-based research. Similarities and differences in the objectives of the two c...

There are no one-size-fits-all steps for tackling different design challenges within the context of education. There are, however, processes and activities that are often useful. Developing a repertoire so that designers can select and use the most fruitful and fitting approaches for specific situations is the focus of this chapter. After discussin...

This special issue of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology includes an introductory article by the guest editors and six papers that illustrate the potential of educational design research (EDR) to address important problems in higher education. In this final paper, reflections on the papers are made. Then the rationale for conducting...

The paper introduces a logic model of online collaborative group work for adult learners. This logic model was developed through a literature review in the context of a multi-year educational design research study aimed at optimizing the online group work experience of adult learners. The model is intended to guide online instructors at post-second...

This paper describes the use of two different risk assessment strategies during the design and development of a complex authentic task-based e-learning program developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The first strategy involved the use of expert reviewers and the second strategy employed the engagement of a risk assessment expert facilita...

In April of 2001, the president of MIT, Charles Vest, announced the establishment of a project for placing MIT course contents on the Web for free. In effect, this announcement started the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement. Since that time, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and open educational resources (OER) have proliferated on the scene. A flurry...

An argument is presented that the quest for quality teaching and learning in MOOCs should not be limited to merely demonstrating that these innovative learning environments have the same levels of effectiveness as traditional educational approaches (e.g., classroom instruction), but rather that they can actually go beyond current levels of impact....

This study describes the massive open online course (MOOC) experiences of three educational technology scholars assuming the roles of learners. Adapting Carroll’s model of school learning as a theoretical framework, the study employed an autoethnography method to collect empirical data in three different MOOCs. Data analysis from regularly recorded...

The storage, transportation and distribution of time and temperature sensitive pharmaceutical products (TTSPPs) such as vaccines within the appropriate temperature conditions are important public health concerns. The personnel who handle pharmaceutical products must have high levels of expertise so they can take actions to ensure that the TTSPPs ar...

Authentic learning is a pedagogical approach that situates learning tasks in the context of future use. Over the last two decades, authentic learning designs have captured the imaginations of innovative educators who see the approach as a means to enable students to develop robust knowledge that transfers to real-world practice. Authentic learning...

The target audience of this case study is current and future faculty interested in designing and teaching distance learning courses for learners in higher education institutions. The case involved adult learners’ collaborative group work in an online evaluation course in which authentic tasks comprised the major pedagogy. A guiding principle for th...

The target audience of this case study is current and future faculty interested in designing and teaching distance learning courses for learners in higher education institutions. The case involved adult learners’ collaborative group work in an online evaluation course in which authentic tasks comprised the major pedagogy. A guiding principle for th...

Constructivist teaching methods, such as Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, have been championed by many educators and international organizations as a way to improve education in developing countries and to prepare students for working within knowledge societies. However, few studies have examined how personal, cultural, institutional, and...

Educational design research is a genre of research in which the iterative development of solutions to practical and complex educational problems provides the setting for scientific inquiry. The solutions can be educational products, processes, programs, or policies. Educational design research not only targets solving significant problems facing ed...

Generational differences have been widely discussed; attention to and speculation on the ­characteristics of the Millennial Generation are especially abundant as they pertain to the use of educational technology for education and training. A careful review of the current popular and academic literature reveals several trends. First, whether based o...

The ludic, or gamelike, potential of simulations used in training is explored in this project, in which a prototype game was developed that had the mandate to train first responders to manage explosive blast incidents using an entertaining and engaging learning experience. One hypothesis and one question were postulated. The hypothesis was that the...

Sufficient attention and resources have been allocated to design-based research (DBR) to warrant review concerning if and how its potential has been realized. Because the DBR literature clearly indicates that this type of research strives toward both the development of an intervention to address a problem in practice and empirical investigation yie...

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of open education are viewed as positive disruptive innovations by some and as threats to traditional education by others. The discord over MOOCs is especially vociferous in the higher education sector. This paper examines the evidence for and against MOOCs, especially with respect to the quality...

Regardless of whether one thinks of today’s higher education students as “digital natives” or members of “Generation Me,” it is obvious that traditional instructional methods are failing to engage them adequately in developing the kinds of higher order learning outcomes necessary in the 21st Century. These outcomes should encompass the conative lea...

The outcomes of educational systems continue to lag far behind expectations at all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of educational research published in refereed journals has expanded enormously. There is an obvious disconnect between the educational research papers published in professional journals or presente...

McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. (2012). Conducting educational design research. London: Routledge.

Design principles are fundamental to the conduct of educational design research (or design-based research) studies, a research approach that is becoming more widely used in educational technology research and pedagogy. In this paper, we argue that design principles can be used to guide the design and development of learning environments in higher e...

Clinical education is a major component of higher education programs for healthcare professionals in fields such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and social work. The increasing complexity of performance in these fields demands new approaches to clinical education and training. The reform of clinical education in colleges and universi...

Design research (DR) has been an emerging research paradigm in the field of educational technology as well as in education generally for two decades. Educational design research integrates design and research into a socially responsible approach to inquiry related to learning and teaching. Given its still relative novelty, design research requires...

People who handle and regulate temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products require the knowledge and skills to ensure those products maintain quality, integrity, safety, and efficacy throughout their shelf life. People best acquire such knowledge and skills through "experiential learning" that involves working with other learners and experts. The...

Virtual schooling was first employed in the mid-1990s and has become a common method of distance education used in K-12 jurisdictions. The most accepted definition of a virtual school is an entity approved by a state or governing body that offers courses through distance delivery – most commonly using the Internet. While virtual schools can be clas...

As the use of course management systems (CMSs) becomes nearly ubiquitous in higher education, it is imperative that we consider their impact and influence on instructional methods and the learning environments. Moves to incorporate more student-centered models of teaching and learning, and integrating technology such as CMSs, are unlikely to be suc...

The dramatic economic and social developments underway in Asia have been fueled by traditional education, but that is rapidly changing. E-learning is essential to further develop-ment in Asia and elsewhere around the world. Despite the laudable achievements described in the articles included in this special issue of the International Journal of E-L...

During a career of more than 40 years that links the interrelated fields of educational and human performance technology, Roger Kaufman has created numerous new innovative approaches to enhance strategic planning, change management, needs assessment, assessment, evaluation, and organizational improvement. Through numerous publications, including ne...

Regardless of whether one thinks of today's higher education students as "digital natives" or members of "Generation Me," it is obvious that traditional instructional methods are failing to engage them adequately in developing the kinds of higher order learning outcomes necessary in the 21st Century. These outcomes should encompass the conative lea...

Evaluation falls into the category of those often neglected human practices such as exercise and eating right. All of us involved in education or training know that we should engage in systematic evaluation when designing or implementing any type of learning environment, but we rarely get around to it. Perhaps this lapse stems from the fact that mo...

Increasingly, health and social work educators are joining their colleagues throughout higher education in exploring the possibilities of teaching and learning online. Online teaching and learning initiatives have been aided by both proprietary and open source course management systems such as BlackBoard and Moodle. However, the rush to put courses...

The role of educational technologies in improving educational practices and outcomes has been criticized as over-hyped and insignificant. With few exceptions, the state of education has changed less than expected as a result of tools such as computers and the Internet. To a considerable degree, this is due to the minor role educational technology r...

Information technology (IT) tools in education have primarily been intended to serve two distinct goals, first expanding access to educational opportunities for learners who would not otherwise have them, and second, improving the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning for all. The Digital Planet 2006 report from the World Information T...

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Project RELATE (Realizing Environmental Literacy through Advanced Technology and Experimentation) is a collaborative effort of several departments at The University of Georgia (UGA), including Ecology, Geography, and Instructional Technology. The Georgia State Botanical Gardens, located near the UGA...

Generational differences are the subject of much popular speculation but relatively little substantive research. Among the speculations are suggestions that instructional designers should take generational differences into account when developing instruction and that games and simulations will be more effective learning environments with today’s yo...

Interaction is an essential ingredient in any learning process. However, every interaction does not lead to increased learning. When interaction has a direct influence on learners' intellectual growth, we can say the interaction is meaningful. The precise meaning of meaningful interaction is strongly related to the learning theories underlying the...

Online learning is growing in higher education contexts around the world, but very few research‐based studies have addressed the cultural aspects of online teaching and learning. In this study, we focused on international students from Taiwan and examined their perspectives of taking a synchronous online course in the US. Specifically, we were inte...

THE DEVELOPMENT of immersive learning technologies in the form of virtual reality and advanced computer applications has meant that realistic creations of simulated environments are now possible. Such simulations have been used to great effect in training in the military, air force, and in medical training. But how realistic do problems need to be...

Authentic learning designs have been explored for some time now and have frequently been shown to provide learning settings that provide many meaningful contexts for learning. These meaningful contexts provide not only encouragement for students to learn but also a raft of learning enhancements including higher-order learning and forms of learning...

Previous research and development with cognitive tools has been limited by an inadequate conceptualization of the complexity underlying their nature and affordances for supporting learning and performance. This paper provides a new perspective on cognitive tools through the lens of the theories of distributed cognition and expertise. The learner, t...

Friedman (2005) argues that the rapid growth of Internet technology is fundamentally changing human life in modern societies. This Internet revolution is also having an impact on higher education in the United States. More than half of all institutions of higher education in the U.S. now offer entirely online or blended courses. The issue becomes m...

Evaluation falls into the category of those often neglected human practices such as exercise and eating right. All of us involved in education or training know that we should engage in systematic evaluation when designing or implementing any type of learning environment, but we rarely get around to it. Perhaps this lapse stems from the fact that mo...

Collaborating closely with a 10th-grade science teacher, we designed a Web-based learning environment (Web-LE) to improve student motivation to learn science. Factors believed to enhance intrinsic motivation (challenge, control, curiosity, and fantasy) were integrated into the instructional design of the Web-based learning tool. The Web-LE was impl...

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to describe robust rationales for integrating inquiry-based learning into undergraduate science education, and to propose that digital libraries are potentially powerful technological tools that can support inquiry-based learning goals in undergraduate science courses. Overviews of constructivism and situated c...

Fostering synergies amongst learner , task , and technology to create innovative and immersive distance learning environments runs counter to the widespread practice of incorporating traditional classroom pedagogical strategies into Web‐based delivery of courses. The most widely accepted model of online higher education appears to be one of reducti...

Despite robust rationales for using an inquiry-based pedagogy in university and college-level science courses, it is conspicuously absent from many of today's classrooms. Inquiry-based learning is crucial for developing critical-thinking skills, honing scientific problem solving ability, and developing scientific content knowledge. Inquiry-based pe...

The success of any learning environment is determined by the degree to which there is adequate alignment among eight critical factors: 1) goals, 2) content, 3) instructional design, 4) learner tasks, 5) instructor roles, 6) student roles, 7) technological affordances, and 8) assessment. Evaluations of traditional, online, and blended approaches to...

The paper describes the design and evaluation of three collaborative 3D virtual environments for learning (i.e. 3D worlds shared through the internet in which learners meet together at the same time). Since the first program was launched in 2002, more than 3,600 students and 180 teachers from Europe and Israel have been involved in these projects....

Individual online learning courses and even entire online degree programs are increasingly a part of the mainstream in higher education. Steadily-improving online delivery systems and an emphasis on globalization have encouraged more and more higher education institutions to try to reach diverse learners around the world. In light of the growing po...

Individual online learning courses and even entire online degree programs are increasingly a part of the mainstream in higher education. Steadily-improving online delivery systems and an emphasis on globalization have encouraged more and more higher education institutions to try to reach diverse learners around the world. In light of the growing po...

Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of a digital library requires a "triangulation" approach including multiple models, procedures, and tools. Carrying out valid evaluations of digital libraries in a timely and efficient manner is the focus of this tutorial. Why is evaluation of digital libraries so important? Each year sees the introduction of n...

DESIGN RESEARCH has grown in importance since it was first conceptualized in the early 90s, but it has not been adopted for research in instructional technology in higher education to any great extent. Many researchers continue to conduct studies that principally seek to determine the effectiveness of the delivery medium, rather than the instructio...

The Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) Evaluation Services Core (ESC) team has been established to:Provide evaluation support for DLESE core team activities.Establish pilot studies with key user audiences (e.g. K-12 teachers and undergraduate faculty),Implement studies designed to better characterize DLESE users and user needs.Offer...

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to describe a model that illustrates several classes of variables that may account for learning when the World Wide Web (WWW) is used as a vehicle for the design and delivery of a learning environment, specifically in the context of higher education. The model is based upon a model of school learning develo...