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"Teaching"

In a technologically driven society, math and science students in the United States are falling further and further behind their international counterparts, resulting in an influx of STEM focused, reformed K-12 schools, including schools focused on project-based learning (PBL). This article reports a study of the effectiveness of PBL on high school students' performance on state mandated standardized mathematics and science achievement measures. Manor New Tech High School is a nationally recognized model STEM school, with a diverse student population, where all instruction is delivered through PBL. Although there is ample research suggesting that PBL is advantageous for increasing STEM learning compared to conventional teaching approaches, there is a lack of studies randomly assigning students to receive PBL. Further, some of the effects observed for students attending project-based schools could be due to a self-selection bias for students or parents that choose such an alternative learning environment. This study addresses both of these concerns and found that students taught through PBL, as a group, matched performance of conventionally taught students on all science 11th grade and mathematics 9th, 10th, and 11th grade TAKS achievement measures and exceeded performance by a scale score increase of 133 for the 10th grade science TAKS measure by (B = 133.082, t = 3.102, p <.05). One possible explanation of the differences observed in this study could be the TAKS instrument used to capture student math and science achievement that interprets “real-life applications” of content differently between math and science questions. These results align with literature on the effects of PBL and deepen our understanding of these effects by providing a controlled study with random assignments to the PBL experience. Future research looking at the effect of PBL on achievement on the PISA could be beneficial in identifying benefits of PBL implementation in schools. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The purpose of programming education is to train students with the abilities of logical thinking and solving problems. In the basic education stage, many developed countries are promoting programming education based on computational thinking in order to respond to rapid advance on science and technology. However, it is an important issue that how to teach programming is beneficial to students and let students be able to apply the problem-solving skills to other knowledge fields. In addition, project-based learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills through learning by doing and can train students’ self-confidence, teamwork and self-learning ability. Hence, in this study, we designed a project-based learning teaching activity to teach students programming based on computational thinking. The results show that project-based learning can effectively enhance students’ motivation, satisfaction and participation. © 2019, The Education University of Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the contexts that teachers can create to promote collaborative learning in 3D virtual learning environments. The authors report on the findings of a case study using the 3D virtual world Second Life in a preservice teacher distance education program. Two types of contexts are identified: social interaction (social context) and instructor's scaffolding (pedagogical context). The anonymity represented by avatars in the 3D environment allowed learners to engage in social interaction and practice collaboration skills. Scaffolding involved several stages: scaffold the students' learning of the new technology, plan the course structure, implement the procedures during the lesson, and facili-tate transitions between activities. The study also identifies the potential for a third context (emotional context), as the participants-both the instructor and the students-report a need to express emotions in many situations, but the environment does not seamlessly support this mode of communication. © 2019 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.

The rapid development and popularization of information technology has profoundly changed people's behaviors and thinking characteristics. Computational thinking has become an important content of information technology education in primary and secondary schools. As a kind of learning mode oriented to subject integration and project orientation, STEM education is practice training. Computational thinking provides a mode of operation. On the basis of combing the development of computational thinking and computational thinking education and related research, this paper clarifies the relationship between computational thinking and STEM education, and focuses on the core concept of computational thinking, drawing on the typical STEM curriculum practice model, from teaching themes and teaching. Five aspects of goal, teaching method, teaching resources and teaching evaluation, designing the STEM curriculum framework for computational thinking, and indepth analysis with specific teaching cases, explaining and explaining in case mode, in order to provide practical reference for the cultivation of students' computational thinking. © 2019, The Education University of Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

Every year, large numbers of American young people who are not terribly interested in attending a four-year college reluctantly enroll anyway, effectively pressured by combinations of parents, peers, teachers, guidance counselors, and the normative air they breathe. More than occasionally, they wind up confirming that collegiate life is not for them and, sooner or later, drop out. From there, again more than occasionally, they find themselves unemployed or underemployed, in big-time student debt, and quite possibly feeling like a failure. Cratered paths like these routinely stunt entries to middle-class jobs and careers. These are often needless delays and losses, because other education and career routes are primed to better serve millions of young men and women, especially those who enjoy working with their hands. Taking advantage of these routes also simultaneously enriches our economy. Digging deeply into issues like these is the book’s main aim. Helping teenagers think through what they want to do with their lives occupationally is its main educational mission. Recognizing the economic and other dangers posed by severe skill gaps, made worse by the retirement of skilled baby boomers, adds urgency to the mix. © 2019 by Mitch Pearlstein. All rights reserved.

At present, the important issue of engineering technology education is how to solve the problem of engineering talent training (Han, Capraro, Capraro, 2015), how to carry out engineering design teaching, etc., is a very important and urgent problem research problem. Today, technical artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and other technology industries require a large number of talent. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate good information engineering talents. The correct procedure should be used to teach students. This study will summarize in the semantic flow chart analysis. Expert course design courses in the field of information engineering can provide students with the best teaching content, train their information engineering talents, and improve their thinking skills. © 2019, The Education University of Hong Kong. All rights reserved.

Background: Clinical pharmacists must have a complex combination of academic knowledge and practical experience that integrates all aspects of practice. Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2007 launched the Postgraduate Year (PGY) training program to increase the standard of pharmaceutical care. This study aims to develop a pharmacist-specific Chinese-language Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) to evaluate the professional development of postgraduate year trainees. Method: The specialized Mini-CEX was developed based on the core competencies of pharmacists, published literature, and expert opinion. A pilot test and evaluator workshop were held prior to the administration of the main test. Fifty-three samples were recruited. The main study was conducted at two regional teaching hospitals and a medical center teaching hospital in Taiwan between February and June 2012. The results were analyzed with the kappa statistic (inter-rater reliability) and descriptive statistics, while the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to examine the PGY trainees' Mini-CEX scores based on their performances. Results: Trainees who had recently completed PGY programs (C-PGY) and 2nd year PGY trainees (PGY2) earned excellent scores, while the 1st year PGY trainees (PGY1) earned satisfactory scores in overall performance. C-PGY and PGY2 trainees also performed significantly better than PGY1 trainees in the organization and efficiency domain, and the communication skills domain. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the feasibility of using the newly developed pharmacist-specific Chinese-language version of the Mini-CEX instrument to evaluate the core competencies of PGY trainees in clinical settings. © 2019 The Author(s).

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to examine whether there is a relationship between goal attainment and overall training satisfaction among vocational education and training (VET) completers, and in turn whether this relationship varies across the different goals for undertaking training in a VET course. Design/methodology/approach: A request was made to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in Australia for access to the unit record data from the 2016 Student Outcomes Survey. Approval was obtained. The final sample comprised 149,632 students who completed a VET course in 2016, where 55 per cent of the sample were women and the average age was 36.55 years (SD=13.17). Findings: Students who achieved or did not yet know whether they had achieved their training goal were more satisfied with their overall training compared with those who partly achieved their goal, who in turn were more satisfied than those who did not attain their goal across the various training goals. However, participants who were training for personal reasons or reasons other than for employment or pursuing further study, and either partly achieved, did not achieve or did not know yet whether they had achieved their training goal reported the lowest levels of training satisfaction, although these participants were still satisfied overall with their training. Originality/value: These results highlight the importance of understanding the impact of goals on achievement-related activities and should be used to inform learning and teaching approaches as well as the provision of support services in the VET sector. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Objective: The present study aims to gain insight on the contributions of experiential learning to the achievement of the general competencies provided for in the National Curriculum Guidelines for Nursing Undergraduate Courses. Method: An integrative review was conducted from January 2013 to August 2017. Results: For the systematization of the discussion of the results, the presentation of the 43 selected articles was based on the general competencies set out in the National Curriculum Guidelines. Conclusion: Experiential learning as a teaching and learning strategy in nursing and its contributions are consistent with the general competencies and skills set out in the National Curriculum Guidelines. The Health Care skill was the most covered skill in all the studies. It is noteworthy that experiential learning is maximized when it reaches critical-reflective thinking in vocational training. The simulation addressed in the selected articles was an effective teaching methodology for nursing students. © 2019, Universidade Federal do Parana. All rights reserved.

Contemporary higher education is committed to enhancing students’ scientific thinking in part by improving their capacity to think critically, a competence that forms a foundation for scientific thinking.We introduce and evaluate the characteristic elements of critical thinking (i.e.cognitive skills, affective dispositions, knowledge), problematising the domain-specific and general aspects of critical thinking and elaborating justifications for teaching critical thinking.Finally, we argue that critical thinking needs to be integrated into curriculum, learning goals, teaching practices and assessment.The chapter emphasises the role of constructive alignment in teaching and use of a variety of teaching methods for teaching students to think critically in order to enhance their capacity for scientific thinking. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019.