Student course evaluations were analyzed for common themes across five different basic science, clinical, and innovative courses from the first and third years of medical school. Each course had both unique and common numerically scaled items including an overall quality rating item. A principal components analysis was conducted for each course to determine the items that loaded most heavily on...

Biological problems in the twenty-first century are complex and require mathematical insight, often resulting in mathematical models of biological systems. Building mathematical-biological models requires cooperation among biologists and mathematicians, and mastery of building models. A new course in mathematical modeling presented the opportunity to build both content and process learning of m...

In the first part of this article, we describe the basic objectives of the math curriculum in Spain as well as the basic contents, teacher resources, and obstacles perceived in mathematics instruction. Second, we briefly describe the concept of learning disabilities (LD) as they are currently defined in Spain. As stated in the recent educational reform, a student with LD is any student with spe...

Enrollment numbers and retention rates have been decreasing in technology programs in United States of America, particularly for underrepresented minority groups. At St. Mary’s University, we started an Engineering Summer Program (ESP) that consists of programming and robotics sessions for high school students. The programming courses offer an opportunity for many students to write a computer p...

We have recently added a strong writing component to one of our freshman courses in electrical engineering. The students prepared two kinds of reports—memoranda and formal engineering project reports. Our instructional objectives were to execute well these two forms: to write with a professional tone, and to make good choices about which technical material to include. To meet these objectives, ...

The development of design science is outlined in this article followed by a description of the concept of design space, which is illustrated by maritime design. The example is used to illuminate and situate the current state of instructional-design science. The article summarizes the developments of an instructional design science, both in Europe and in the United States of America. Following t...

Session Abstract Many scholars, professionals, and students have begun to employ geospatial analysis in their research; however, the teaching of geospatial thinking is still in its formative stages. Archaeologists deal with information that is inherently spatial in nature; thus, archaeology provides an ideal setting to develop spatial thinking. This symposium focuses on geospatially related top...

The importance given to competency management is well justified. Acquiring new competencies is the central goal of any education or knowledge management process. Thus, it must be embedded in any software framework as an instructional engineering tool, to inform the runtime environment of the knowledge that is processed by actors, and their situation toward achieving competency-acquisition objec...

The design and implementation of the instructional electric machine laboratory is described in this paper. The objectives of this project are to upgrade 50-year old laboratory equipment and to provide students with hands-on experience on up-to-date electric machines, drives and instruments, as well as to improve their understanding of the theory learned from lectures. Instead of the systems esp...

Recent technological advances now make possible the full integration of sound in instructional software. Sounds may gain and focus learner attention, reduce distracting stimuli, and make learning more engaging. In addition, they may help learners condense, elaborate on, and organize details, highlighting interconnections among new pieces of information and making connections to preexisting know...