Learning environments

According to researches, motivation that initiates and sustains behaviour is one of the most significant components of learning in any environment. Accordingly, level of intrinsic motivation triggers and sustains the interest of the open and distance education students when it comes to learning on their own in e‐learning environments. Despite a comprehensive literature regarding the motivation of those learning in traditional learning environments, the number of studies addressing the motivation of open and distance education students in e‐learning environments is not sufficient. In this context, this study aims at determining the level of intrinsic motivation of open and distance education students. Thus, data were collected from 1,639 distance education students in 22 programmes, through Intrinsic Motivation in e‐Learning Questionnaire developed and validated to that end. Analyses carried out indicate that the level of intrinsic motivation of open and distance education students is high in e‐learning environments, but there is not a statistically significant difference by gender, programme structure (graduate/undergraduate), instruction type (distance–blended), and academic disciplines.

"Noticing what is happening in a classroom is an important skill for teachers. However, noticing
effectively is both complex and challenging (Jacobs, Lamb, & Philipp, 2010; Mason, 2002). Noticing
has been defined in a multitude of ways but the common theme is how teachers process complex
classroom events. In initial teacher education contexts, the interest on the development of noticing
should be seen as a way to understand how prospective teachers learn to make sense the
mathematics teaching and learning. Recent studies have shown that the noticing skill can be
developed and have identified aspects that support its development (Fernández, Llinares, & Valls,
2011; 2012, Sherin, Jacobs, & Philipp , 2010). A particular focus for mathematics teachers’ noticing is
the students’ mathematical thinking. In this study, we focus on the development of prospective
mathematics teachers’ noticing of student’s understanding of the derivative concept designing a
learning environment based on a b-learning methodology.
We adopted Wells (2002)’s socio-cultural perspective for designing the learning environment
considering that individuals encounter different opportunities for making sense of students’
mathematical thinking: experience, information, knowledge building and understanding. Eight
prospective mathematics teachers (PTs) participated in a learning environment consisted of seven
sessions of two-hours each (one session per week). In the first session, PTs answered a
questionnaire. Their answers allowed us to identify how they identified the high school students’
understanding of the derivative concept (“Experience”). During the next five sessions PTs read and
discussed theoretical papers (“Information” about students’ mathematical thinking) about the learning
of derivative concept, and about the mathematical tasks related to the derivative concept. PTs worked
individually or in pairs in activities that required describing and interpreting students’ answers using the
theoretical information. These sessions were implemented in an online-platform to enhance the
interaction among prospective teachers. Next, there was a discussion to share their interpretations
(‘‘Knowledge building’’). In the last session, PTs answered another questionnaire that provided us
information about the changes on PTs noticing of students’ mathematical thinking (“Understanding”).
Results show that the learning environment integrating face-to-face and online sessions helped to
develop the prospective teachers’ skill of noticing of students’ mathematical thinking but this
development was not simple. The development of the noticing skill was related to PTs ability to
describe students’ answers to the problems using noteworthy mathematical elements."

This study investigated predictive effect of middle school students’ perceptions of constructivist science learning environment on their self-efficacy towards learning science. 663 seventh grade students from 15 public schools in Erzurum participated in the study. Self-report questionnaires were used to collect data in spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that all perceived constructivist science learning environment features (i.e., personal relevance, uncertainity, critical voice, shared control, and student negotiation) statistically significantly and positively predict students’ efficacy beliefs in science. Students’ constructivist learning environment perceptions accounted for 56.5% of the variance in their self-efficacy beliefs. These findings indicated that when students take active role in their learning, given opportunities for freely asking questions, participate in class discussions and share their knowledge with classmates, they are more likely to have higher confidence for learning science.

Experiential learning has been a foundational tenant of agricultural education since its inception. However, the theory of experiential education has received limited attention in the permanent agricultural education literature base. As such, this philosophical manuscript examined Kolb’s experiential learning process further, and considered the implications for experiential learning theory (ELT) in secondary agricultural education. Specifically, the researchers outlined Kolb’s ELT and conducted a telephone interview with Dr. David A. Kolb. Analysis of the interview indicated that experiential learning is a critical component of a comprehensive agricultural education model (i.e., three–circle model). It was explained that experiential learning builds meta–cognitive skills and can be goal–oriented and assessed. However, agricultural educators must be present and purposeful when providing experiences for students. Additionally, they must ask reflection questions (e.g., “What happened?” “Now what?” “So what?”) during each phase of ELT throughout the comprehensive agricultural education model (i.e., classroom and laboratory, Supervised Agricultural Experience [SAE], and FFA). Based on these conclusions, a Comprehensive Model for Secondary Agricultural Education was proposed to include the role of experiential learning more intentionally.

The scaffolding metaphor was originally developed to describe the support given by a more expert individual in a one-on-one interaction. Since then, the notion of scaffolding has been applied more broadly, and it has been transformed and generalized. Most recently, it has been used by researchers in the learning sciences to describe features and functions of technological artifacts, especially those of educational software.

This document provides a summary of the fall 2007 exploratory research on the Active Learning Classrooms constructed as a pilot project by the Office of Classroom Management (OCM). This pilot project involves a renovation of two general-purpose classrooms. These rooms were University of Minnesota design modifications modeled after North Carolina State University's Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) project and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) project.