The Importance of Teaching Students How to Read to Comprehend Mathematical Language

In this action research study of my classroom of 8th and 9th grade Algebra I students, I investigated if there are any benefits for the students in my class to learn how to read, translate, use, and understand the mathematical language found daily in their math lessons. I discovered that daily use and practice of the mathematical language in both written and verbal form, by not only me but by my students as well, improved their understanding of the textbook instructions, increased their vocabulary and also increased their understanding of their math lessons. I also found that my students remembered the mathematical material better with constant use of mathematical language and terms. As a result of this research, I plan to continue stressing the use of mathematical language and vocabulary in my classroom and will try to develop new ways to help students to read, understand, and remember mathematical language they find daily in their textbooks.

The Impact of Teaching Presence in Intensive Online Courses on Perceived Learning and Sense of Community: A Mixed Methods Study

This mixed methods concurrent triangulation design study was predicated upon two models that advocated a connection between teaching presence and perceived learning: the Community of Inquiry Model of Online Learning developed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000); and the Online Interaction Learning Model by Benbunan-Fich, Hiltz, and Harasim (2005). The objective was to learn how teaching presence impacted students’ perceptions of learning and sense of community in intensive online distance education courses developed and taught by instructors at a regional comprehensive university. In the quantitative phase online surveys collected relevant data from participating students (N = 397) and selected instructional faculty (N = 32) during the second week of a three-week Winter Term. Student information included: demographics such as age, gender, employment status, and distance from campus; perceptions of teaching presence; sense of community; perceived learning; course length; and course type. The students claimed having positive relationships between teaching presence, perceived learning, and sense of community. The instructors showed similar positive relationships with no significant differences when the student and instructor data were compared. The qualitative phase consisted of interviews with 12 instructors who had completed the online survey and replied to all of the open-response questions. The two phases were integrated using a matrix generation, and the analysis allowed for conclusions regarding teaching presence, perceived learning, and sense of community. The findings were equivocal with regard to satisfaction with course length and the relative importance of the teaching presence components. A model was provided depicting relationships between and among teaching presence components, perceived learning, and sense of community in intensive online courses.

Making Learning Visible: Peer Review and the Scholarship of Teaching

This is the promotional brochure from the March 2004 national conference, Making Learning Visible: Peer Review and the Scholarship of Teaching. This conference was hosted by the UNL Peer Review of Teaching project and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Chicana, Indian and Sudanese Perspectives of Teaching in the Academy: Three Levels of Experience in the Teaching-Learning and Social Environment

“Women of color from any culture or country face additional barriers in predominantly white institutions. This panel presents perspectives and experiences of three women from three cultures and three different levels of academia—a Chicana Latino visiting professor, a graduate teaching assistant from India, and a Sudanese graduate research assistant.”

Simulator Network project report: a tool for improvement of teaching materials and targeted resource usage in Skills Labs

During the last decade, medical education in the German-speaking world has been striving to become more practice-oriented. This is currently being achieved in many schools through the implementation of simulation-based instruction in Skills Labs. Simulators are thus an essential part of this type of medical training, and their acquisition and operation by a Skills Lab require a large outlay of resources. Therefore, the Practical Skills Committee of the Medical Education Society (GMA) introduced a new project, which aims to improve the flow of information between the Skills Labs and enable a transparent assessment of the simulators via an online database (the Simulator Network).

A new way of teaching different subjects in a foreign language in the Building Engineering Degree at the Universidad Politécnica.

The European Union has been promoting linguistic diversity for many years as one of its main educational goals. This is an element that facilitates student mobility and student exchanges between different universities and countries and enriches the education of young undergraduates. In particular, a higher degree of competence in the English language is becoming essential for engineers, architects and researchers in general, as English has become the lingua franca that opens up horizons to internationalisation and the transfer of knowledge in today’s world. Many experts point to the Integrated Approach to Contents and Foreign Languages System as being an option that has certain benefits over the traditional method of teaching a second language that is exclusively based on specific subjects. This system advocates teaching the different subjects in the syllabus in a language other than one’s mother tongue, without prioritising knowledge of the language over the subject. This was the idea that in the 2009/10 academic year gave rise to the Second Language Integration Programme (SLI Programme) at the Escuela Arquitectura Técnica in the Universidad Politécnica Madrid (EUATM-UPM), just at the beginning of the tuition of the new Building Engineering Degree, which had been adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) model. This programme is an interdisciplinary initiative for the set of subjects taught during the semester and is coordinated through the Assistant Director Office for Educational Innovation. The SLI Programme has a dual goal; to familiarise students with the specific English terminology of the subject being taught, and at the same time improve their communication skills in English. A total of thirty lecturers are taking part in the teaching of eleven first year subjects and twelve in the second year, with around 120 students who have voluntarily enrolled in a special group in each semester. During the 2010/2011 academic year the degree of acceptance and the results of the SLI Programme have been monitored. Tools have been designed to aid interdisciplinary coordination and to analyse satisfaction, such as coordination records and surveys. The results currently available refer to the first and second year and are divided into specific aspects of the different subjects involved and into general aspects of the ongoing experience.

Multidisciplinary Learning, Another way of Teaching Maths in Engineering

Multidisciplinary training is widely appreciated in industry and business, and nevertheless usually is not addressed in the early stages of most undergraduate programs. We outline here a multidisciplinary course for undergraduates studying engineering in which mathematics would be the common language, the transverse tool. The goal is motivating students to learn more mathematics and as a result, improve the quality of engineering education. The course would be structured around projects in four branches in engineering: mechanical, electrical, civil and bio-tech. The projects would be chosen among a wide variety of topics in engineering practice selected with the guidance of professional engineers. In these projects mathematics should interact with at least two other basic areas of knowledge in engineering: chemistry, computers science, economics, design or physics.

The introduction of teaching innovations into the traditional teaching of construction and building materials

The traditional teaching methods used for training civil engineers are currently being called into question as a result of the new knowledge and skills now required by the labor market. In addition, the European Higher Education Area is requesting that students be given a greater say in their learning. In the subject called Construction and Building Materials at the Civil Engineering School of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, a path was set three academic years ago to lead to an improvement in traditional teaching by introducing active methodologies. The innovations are based on cooperative learning, new technologies, and continuous assessment. The writers’ proposal is to offer their experience as a contribution to the debate on how students can be encouraged to acquire the skills currently demanded from a civil engineer, though not overlooking solid, top-quality training. From the outcomes obtained, it can be concluded that using new teaching techniques to supplement a traditional approach provides more opportunities for students to learn while boosting their motivation. In our case, the introduction of these changes has resulted in an increased pass rate of 29% on average, when such a figure is considered in the light of the mean value of passes during the last decade.

Traditional education vs modern education. What is the impact of teaching techniques' evolution on students learning process?

The main objective of this article is to focus on the analysis of teaching techniques, ranging from the use of the blackboard and chalk in old traditional classes, using slides and overhead projectors in the eighties and use of presentation software in the nineties, to the video, electronic board and network resources nowadays. Furthermore, all the aforementioned, is viewed under the different mentalities in which the teacher conditions the student using the new teaching technique, improving soft skills but maybe leading either to encouragement or disinterest, and including the lack of educational knowledge consolidation at scientific, technology and specific levels. In the same way, we study the process of adaptation required for teachers, the differences in the processes of information transfer and education towards the student, and even the existence of teachers who are not any longer appealed by their work due which has become much simpler due to new technologies and the greater ease in the development of classes due to the criteria described on the new Grade Programs adopted by the European Higher Education Area. Moreover, it is also intended to understand the evolution of students’ profiles, from the eighties to present time, in order to understand certain attitudes, behaviours, accomplishments and acknowledgements acquired over the semesters within the degree Programs. As an Educational Innovation Group, another key question also arises. What will be the learning techniques in the future?. How these evolving matters will affect both positively and negatively on the mentality, attitude, behaviour, learning, achievement of goals and satisfaction levels of all elements involved in universities’ education? Clearly, this evolution from chalk to the electronic board, the three-dimensional view of our works and their sequence, greatly facilitates the understanding and adaptation later on to the business world, but does not answer to the unknowns regarding the knowledge and the full development of achievement’s indicators in basic skills of a degree. This is the underlying question which steers the roots of the presented research.

Analysis of teaching experience based on teaching by the case method. Application to reinforcing wooden floors

The technique of reinforcement of wooden floors is a matter clearly multidisciplinary. The teaching of the subject using the "traditional" method, explaining the theory first and then proposing and solving problems has not been successful. This paper discusses the results of a teaching experiencie. It has been the teaching of the subject by the case method. The results are clearly superior to those obtained with the traditional methodology.