Designing a new course can be an exciting proposition for a teacher. Perhaps you’ve been tasked with developing a curriculum for an area that you’ve long had a passion to explore. Or you may be developing materials for a core subject that needs a fresh approach. Either way, you know that your job is to help students recognize the importance and relevance of the topic at hand.

There are so many technological tools and pedagogical approaches that can be used in the classroom that you may have a hard time choosing which ones to use. There may be no right or wrong answer, but it is important to think about the students who will be taking your class as you make your choices. Here are five learning characteristics teachers need to know about their students as they prepare to teach them.

DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership
with a concentration in Learning Design and Leadership
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019

Link: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106179

ABSTRACT

Over the past 20 years, Learning Management System (LMS) software has become a standard part of teaching practices in higher education institutions.  These platforms were developed and sold with the promise of increasing student involvement, supporting teaching pedagogies, and enabling more distance learning programs.  While instructors and administrators have embraced various platforms that they feel will serve them best, there is need of a better theoretical framework to compare them.

Download the Report PDF

Composition-Originality-Tools-Report

 

You can also Download the Analysis Archives for copies of the test works I ran through each system and screen shots of results pages.

If you’ve been following tech news, you’ve probably heard that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is allowed to give away your private browsing history. They may share it with their partners, sell it, or utilize it for customized advertisements as they see fit. Privacy Groups are decrying the decision as an unprecedented invasion into user rights, but if you’ll give me a minute I’d like to explain why it is actually a good thing.

The issue at hand is that on April 3rd, President Trump signed into law a “Congressional Review” bill that repealed last-minute Obama-era FCC Internet Privacy Rules that set strict limits to the ways that ISPs are allowed to use records of your personal browsing. The bill passed on a party line with no Democrats voting for the bill and only about a dozen Republicans in the House voting against. The rules had been approved by President Obama’s FCC appointees but had not yet gone into effect since the new Republican Chairman that Trump assigned to take lead of the commission put a hold on them until Congress could act.

Students learn best when they take ownership in the learning process and are actively engaged along each stage of the learning process. While our current educational technologies do a good job of presenting information that needs to be passed on to learners, it does not necessarily do a good job helping students increase their level of engagement. Teaching techniques and learning technologies will best serve these students when engagement is supported and encouraged in every stage of the learning process. This culminates in a pedagogy is often referred to as “Engaged Learning.” Using a pedagogy of Engaged Learning means being mindful of the barriers to engagement and scaffolding learning exercises in a way that maximizes engagement opportunities.

With the development of knowledge and technology being a necessity for the good of our society and the individuals within it, we have built substantial systems of education to further the process. A Learning Management System (LMS) may be best defined as an online software platform used for the dissemination of educational materials or facilitation of teaching and learning. While many software platforms can be used to facilitate learning, we generally reserve this title for systems that are able to provide a comprehensive suite of tools for instruction and evaluation of student learning.

It’s been mere weeks since “Pokémon Go” was released to the public, but it has already become one of the hottest games ever developed for mobile devices. Within the first three days, “Pokémon Go” shattered download records and all expectations. The game surpassed the number of installs of trendy dating app Tinder, attracted more players than any other mobile game, and even beat Twitter for daily active users across all platforms.

As with any new phenomenon, it’s hard to separate the hype from the reality. Perhaps it’s a sign of our contentious times that we are seeing the Peak of Inflated Expectations in predictions of both salvation and disaster for our social order. Optimists see a game that gets people out walking more and meeting their neighbors, while pessimists see another reason for iZombies to be glued to a screen and ignore the world.