Robert Lucking

Sense of community in a higher education television-based distance education program

The purpose of this study was to measure sense of classroom community in a television-based higher education distance education course and in the same course taught by the same instructor in a traditional face-to-face learning environment, in order to determine if differences existed and if so to identify the nature of these differences. Participants for this study consisted of 120 adult learners who were enrolled in either of two sections of a semester-long undergraduate educational technology course offered by an urban state university. One section was taught tradiationally and the other section was taught to a small studio audience and at a distance to 24 remote classroom sites using synchronous one-way television and two-way audio technologies. Study results revealed a significantly lower sense of classroom community among learners in the distance education course, to include the studio audience.

Microcomputer-Based Computer-Assisted Instruction within Differing Subject Areas: A Statistical Deduction.

This meta-analysis compared the academic achievement of students in grades six through twelve who received either traditional instruction or traditional instruction supplemented with computer-assisted instruction (CAI) across eight curricular areas. From the forty-two conclusions, an overall mean effect size of 0.209 was calculated, indicating that, on average, students receiving traditional instruction supplemented with CAI attained higher academic achievement than did 58.2 percent of those receiving only traditional instruction. The comparative effectiveness of CAI may be seen in the following descending order mean effect sizes: science, 0.639; reading, 0.262; music, 0.230; special education, 0.214; social studies, 0.205; math, 0.179; vocational education, −0.080; and English, −0.420.

The What, Why, and How of Cooperative Learning

he need for people to interact cooperatively and work work toward group goals undoubtedly will increase during the 1990s. Yet, American education traditionally has emphasized individual competition and achievement, an approach that results in winners and losers and sometimes produces outright hostility among learners. Although research on competitive versus cooperative learning efforts can be traced to the early 1900s, considerable attention has focused on cooperative learning and its outcomes during the past two decades. In this article, we define cooperative learning, examine reasons for and benefits to students working in cooperative teams, and provide an overview of eight selected cooperative learning methods that hold potential for middle and secondary schools.

Arab Contributions to World Knowledge: A Contemporary Curriculum Imperative.

American K-12 school curricula are often bereft of acknowledgements of the historical contributions of Arab societies to our present-day intellectual heritage, an oversight most apparent in the sciences. Teachers in a thriving democracy are obliged to introduce contemporary scholarship that reflects the contributions of Arab scientists between the period of 850 and 1200 in the larger area of the Middle East. This article illuminates significant Arab scientists in history and offers appropriate resources for the K-12 classroom.