Catherine Schifter

Teachers and game-based learning: Improving understanding of how to increase efficacy of adoption

Interest in game-based learning for K-12 is growing. Thus, helping teachers understand how to use these new pedagogies is important. This paper presents a cross-case study of the development of teacher professional development for the River City project, a games-based multi-user virtual environment science curriculum project for middle school children, over three years of its development. Successful professional development required attention to multiple factors including teacher efficacy in using the software, pedagogical issues and school culture. A theoretical model for successful technological implementations is discussed.

The distance education evolution: issues and case studies

Creating an online program / Sandy Kyrish -- Faculty participation in distance education programs : practices and plans / Catherine Schifter -- Can a viable DE program stay behind the technology wave / John Sorrentino -- Universal design for online education : access for all / Rosangela Boyd and Bonnie Moulton -- Building virtual teams : a comparison between academia and industry / Stella Shields, Gisela Gil-Egui, and Concetta Stewart -- Education mirrors industry (reprise) : the not-so revolutionary rise of the virtual classroom / Donald Hantula and Darlene Pawlowicz -- Tools in use to evaluate an online program / Catherine Schifter and Dominique Monolescu -- Online teaching, copyrights, and the need for concerted solutions / Gisela Gil-Egui -- Creatingand using multiple media in an online course / Maurice Wright -- Teaching a studies in race course online : the challenges and the rewards / Karen Turner -- Media enterpreneuship as an online course : a case study / Elizabeth Leebron -- The uses and impact of academic listservs in university teaching / Julie-Ann Mcfann -- Design and evaluation of an Internet-based personalized instructional system for social psychology / Erica Davis and Donald Hantula.

Teaching in the 21st century

Abstract One of the hottest topics in higher education today is distance or distributed education (DE)—whether to get into it or not, whether its as good as traditional in-class education or not, what forms of DE are better than others, whether its a threat to faculty or not, and more. This paper addresses making sure DE efforts meet the course objectives and the students needs by working through five DE components: defining the students, defining the faculty, defining the curriculum, describing needed support systems, and understanding the environment created (ethical, aesthetic, cultural, and hidden aspects). Careful consideration of these five components will help ensure a successful DE program with positive experiences for faculty and students alike, and assure you readiness to embrace teaching in the 21 st century.

Infusing Technology into the Classroom: Continuous Practice Improvement

Technology has impacted how many teachers develop methods of instruction in their classroom settings. The Continuous Practice Improvement (CPI) professional development program introduces teachers to infusing computers into the curriculum and classroom activities seamlessly. Infusing Technology into the Classroom: Continuous Practice Improvement retells compelling stories of a successful computer-related professional development program that was implemented into Kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms of a Philadelphia school. Through an analysis of the study, a theoretical model to guide technology infused professional development for teachers is discovered.

Constructivism vs Constructionism: Implications for Minecraft and Classroom Implementation

This chapter describes an exploratory case study observing one instructor as he used the video game environment, Minecraft in a high school English literature class. In our analysis of the study, we establish Minecraft as a learning tool that is a descendant of Piaget and Inhelder’s (1969) constructivist theories and Papert’s (1980) translation of those theories into the classroom (i.e., constructionism). Scholars have long seen the connection between constructionism, critical thinking, and digital environments. Minecraft is yet another accessible tool, but it implicates a style of learning that is still out of sync with most K-12 technological practices and the culture of the school environment itself. We discuss our observations in the context of the traditional educational culture and practices to suggest that full implementation of tools like Minecraft will require a shift in the way video game technologies are perceived and used for instruction.

Addressing Standardized Testing through a Novel Assesment Model.

The No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001 spawned a plethora of standardized testing services for the high stakes testing required by the law. We argue that one-size-fits-all assessments disadvantage a wide range of students in the United States, including those who are English Language Learners, have limited economic resources, are designated as special needs, or are not reading on grade level. The SAVE Science project was developed to explore whether and how contextually driven assessments support these students in demonstrating their understanding of science content in grades 6–8. Preliminary findings from this 6-year study (not reported here) suggest that situating assessment in virtual environments may help students in answering content questions correctly and better understand their own science knowledge and learning process.