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Technology-Enhanced Exploratory Installations to Support Constructivist Professional Development: The Technology Test Kitchen
Abstract
The growth in technology tools and their uses continues to grow at an exponential pace. Whether it is for personal or professional use technology is everywhere, and it is ubiquitous. It is changing the way we seek knowledge, interact with information, and process the world around us to construct our learning pathways. Technology has made it simple for us to be consumers of information, but how do we evaluate and synthesize this information to construct meaning and create value? The technology test kitchen is a curated and managed makerspace designed for exploratory installation where novices and experts engage in deep, meaningful, constructive uses of technology for teaching and learning. The goal of the test kitchen is acquisition of "native-expert" use of technology in support of authentic learning, engendering deeper levels of technological fluency within a constructivist professional development experience.
As a growing issue, there is no formal and universally accepted definition of the Internet of Things. Browsing the literature in this area, one finds that every single researcher and organization has interpreted this technology as they understand it. As a result, 116 various definitions of this emerging technology have been proposed so far. This research is an attempt to better understand and master the definition of the Internet of Things. The research is carried out through the method of browsing the literature and reviewing the relevant texts. All relevant but varied definitions and descriptions have been exhaustive to provide a definition that could be used as a reference for the stakeholders who want to understand the concept of the Internet of Things. An examination of the definitions provided in this area showed that many of them have common similarities. In this article, a comprehensive definition of the Internet of Things derived from the scientific definitions available in articles, books, and websites of various global organizations is provided. Finally, the authors provide a fairly comprehensive definition of the Internet of Things that is not an absolute definition of the true meaning of the term in question, but is expected as part of its research and development for a clearer meaning of the term. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the definitions
Learning theories are essential for effective teaching in that they shed light on different aspects of the learning process. The spectrum of learning theories can be categorized into three main areas: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Behaviorism as a teacher-centered instructional framework for a long time dominated educational settings, shaping every aspect of curriculum and instruction. In contrast to behaviorism, cognitivism is a relatively recent learning theory and its features are not well known or are confused with constructivism by teachers. This article aims to provide an overview of the core characteristics of cognitivism, its philosophical and theoretical basis, its implications for classroom practices, and its illustrative teaching methods. Cognitive apprenticeship, reciprocal teaching, anchored instruction, inquiry learning, discovery learning, and problem-based learning are explicated as the most distinctive methods of the cognitive perspective on learning.
Swift changes in educational technology are transforming the landscape of our society and how we transfer knowledge in a digital world. Teachers, administrators, and education students need to stay abreast of these developments. Yet while the new educational software, technologies, and networks may be available, the learning theories and methods required to take complete advantage of the tools are often neglected.
Learning theories are a crucial element of education studies for anyone involved with students from pre-school to higher education and business training. This book is a substantive dictionary of over 500 terms relating to learning theories and environments. Definitions range from approximately 100 to 700 words, and each term is identified by the primary type of learning theory to which it applies: cognitivism, constructivism, behaviorism, humanism, or organizational learning. An annotated bibliography provides further resources to the most important writings about learning theories.
Background
Faculty acceptance of distance learning plays an important role in its success or failure in higher education. Information about faculty experiences of teaching online can improve understanding about this delivery mode's potential longevity in academe. Exploratory qualitative research has begun to uncover and unpack faculty experiences with online learning. Such studies provide a focused and detailed picture of faculty perceptions of teaching online; however, they have not been considered for what they add to cumulative knowledge.
Purpose
The purpose of this research was to employ a rigorous and systematic approach to make meaning of individual studies that investigated faculty experiences of teaching online by considering the studies in aggregate.
Research Design
This study drew upon qualitative synthesis methods to investigate faculty experiences with online teaching. In particular, the study used metaethnography, an interpretive approach, to synthesize findings from nine original studies conducted by 23 researchers involving interviews with 117 faculty members with online teaching experience.
Data Collection and Analysis
This study involved searching electronic databases and tables of contents of key journals to gather relevant articles. It relied upon analysis techniques common to metaethnographic approaches, including reciprocal translation analysis (translating themes into each other), refutations synthesis (attempts to explain variations and contradictions), and lines-of-argument analysis (building a general interpretation from findings of separate studies through reliance on qualitative analysis such as constant comparison).
Findings
This article presents findings from a qualitative synthesis of university faculty experiences with online distance education. Results show that faculty members believe teaching online changes the way they approach and think about teaching, course design, time, instruction, and students.
Conclusions
Finding new ways to understand existing literature was one of the chief goals of this study. These results represent a starting place for improving current practice as well as for guiding future research.
This essay explores the development and conceptual validation of the Faculty Processing Model for SoTL through anecdotal reports gathered from six institutions and additional survey data collected from three institutions. The results identified how faculty learning occurred through faculty development activities across various campuses and how that faculty learning cumulatively represented distinctive developmental stages that led to both cognitive and affective transformations for the professors' and their students' learning. This analysis provided a first step in understanding the efficacy of faculty development activities in relation to their impact on student and faculty learning and upon practicing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Copyright © 2013 The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
This article examines a review of literature related to online learning and teaching. The authors provide a brief historical perspective of online education as well as describe the unique aspects of online teaching and learning. The barriers to online teaching, the new faculty roles in online learning environments, and some implications for online learning and teaching are also provided. This article is intended to stimulate reflections on effective strategies to enhance faculty success in their transition from traditional pedagogical platforms to online learning and teaching.
Background
Although advances in distance learning have shown signs of a reconfiguration of the teacher's role in online environments, a large number of online teaching practices still do not show many signs of this shift. Given the need for a change in pedagogies, investigating how exemplary teachers transfer their thinking, pedagogical knowledge, and beliefs to successful online teaching is critical to understanding new online learning and teaching practices. The research on online teacher roles and practices, however, has been limited in terms of bringing teachers’ voices into the research process and empowering them as autonomous professionals who constantly engage in a dialogue about solving complex problems and making decisions about online teaching.
Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this research was to look at exemplary online teachers’ transition to online teaching with a focus on their successful practices. The research investigated two central questions: (1) What are the successful practices that exemplary online teachers employ in their online teaching? (2) How do exemplary online teachers make a transition to online teaching in such a way that they create successful practices?
Research Design
The study followed a qualitative multiple-case study approach examining six different cases of exemplary online teachers and their teaching contexts within a large research university in the Midwestern United States. Using multiple cases allowed for comparison of similar and contrasting online teaching situations and conditions within the university's different colleges.
Participants, Data Collection, and Analysis
The data sources of the study consisted of (1) semistructured interviews conducted with six online program coordinators to collect contextual information and gather nominations for successful online teachers in each college, and (2) ethnographic interviews conducted with 6 online teachers nominated as exemplary to gather teacher-expressed needs, knowledge, and successful practices. Within- and cross-case analyses were conducted to generate codes and identify the similarities and differences across the cases as well as common themes.
Conclusions/Recommendations
The findings of this study indicated that when teachers described their successful practices, they often linked them to their changing roles and new representation of their “selves” within an online environment. Their portrayal of the teacher self, both built on a plethora of previous experiences and reformed with the affordances and limitations of the online environment, went through a process whereby teachers were constantly challenged to make themselves heard, known, and felt by their students. This study showed that it was critical to listen to teachers’ voices and give them a participatory role in the creation and use of their knowledge and experience in order to form their online teacher personas. As a result, programs that prepare faculty to teach online may need to encourage teachers to reflect on their past experiences, assumptions, and beliefs toward learning and teaching and transform their perspectives by engaging in pedagogical inquiry and problem solving.
Effective online instruction in higher education.
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