ABSTRACT This project describes the development and evaluation of two laboratory courses in First Year Biology, each of which is part of a larger full-year course of instruction given by the Biology Department at McMaster University. Introductory Human Physiology is prepared for Physical Education students. Adaptation in the Biological World - a general Biology course - is prepared for Natural Sciences students. Design of the laboratory exercises utilizes a variety of different educational models which are intended to stimulate the students' interest in Biology. The exercises give students first-hand experience with important principles and concepts related to the lecture material. This project stresses the role of the Teaching Assistants who supervise activities in the laboratories and who demonstrate the basic skills we expect students to learn. Conclusions drawn from this project are: 1. The majority of students consider the laboratory courses to be useful. 2. Educational goals established for the courses are being met. 3 • Change and improvement are important ongoing components of the curriculum. 4. As funds become available, we must introduce more interesting techniques and methodologies to the curriculum. 5. It is essential to maintain a high level of efficiency and organization within the team of people associated with laboratories. / Thesis / Master of Science (Teaching)

No description available.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Publishing Studies 2017 / An introspective look at editing a manuscript is a personal account of editing and proofreading an unpublished manuscript. It focuses on how an editor looks at a piece of work and the different aspects involved in editing such as how to communicate with an author, how to avoid bias editing as well as how to approach correcting grammar, punctuation and language. / MT2018

No description available.

Many textbooks have diagrams illustrating astronomy concepts. However, research shows that sometimes learners struggle to obtain information illustrated in diagrams. This study investigated learners‘ ability to interpret diagrams illustrating phases of the Moon. Three constructs formed a theoretical framework used to design the study and interpret results: a theory associated with design and interpretation of diagrams, spatial ability theory which explains how people mentally manipulate objects in space, and the theory of models which proposes issues to take into consideration when using models (e.g. diagrams) in classrooms. I collected and processed data in three phases. In the first phase, I administered a diagnostic test to 75 learners, investigating their ideas about concepts associated with phases of the Moon. In addition, I administered six spatial ability tests to these learners, investigating their mastery of spatial ability skills needed to understand concepts associated with phases of the Moon. Results show that all the learners lacked background knowledge of these concepts. Furthermore, most of the learners lacked spatial ability skills needed to understand these concepts. I used these results to select 10 learners for participation in the third phase of the study. Five of these learners had high spatial ability skills while the other five had low spatial ability skills. During the second phase of the study, I analyzed 28 diagrams illustrating phases of the Moon to investigate the extent to which their composition (i) might enable learners to perceive all diagrammatic information, (ii) might enable learners to understand information for which the diagrams are intended, and (iii) complies with context of intended learners. Results show that only few diagrams were designed in a way that might hinder perception of information. However, most diagrams were designed in a way that might hinder understanding of intended information, and many did not comply with context of intended viewers. These results enabled me to select four diagrams having the fewest design problems to be used in the third phase of the study. In the third phase, I interviewed the ten learners selected during the first phase, to investigate their ability to interpret diagrams illustrating phases of the Moon. The learners were generally able to interpret aspects of diagrams which required the diagrams to be perceived in two-dimensional space. However, they struggled to interpret aspects of the diagrams which required perception and mental manipulation of the components of the Earth-Moon-Sun system in three-dimensional space. The high spatial-ability learners were better able to cope with tasks requiring mental manipulation of the Earth-Moon-Sun system in space than their low spatial ability counterparts. These results suggest the existence of a link between spatial ability and learners‘ interpretation of these diagrams. Teachers should be informed about these findings to help them understand how usage of the diagrams might hinder leaning. This information might help them use diagrams that have fewer design problems. Also, teacher trainers should be informed about these findings, to help them caution pre-service teachers about problems found in textbook diagrams. In addition, publishers should be informed about findings of this study to help them improve quality of diagrams in school textbooks. Furthermore, researchers should investigate strategies that can help learners (particularly those with low spatial ability skills) to better cope with aspects of diagrams which require mental manipulation of the Earth-Sun-Moon system in space. Keywords Astronomy, phases of the Moon, diagram design, diagram interpretation, spatial ability.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography: leaves 88-96. / by Craig Alan Finseth. / B.S.

In 2 experiments I used a delayed multiple probe design to test the effects of teaching students to vocally segment the component phonemes after listening to composite words on the emergence of untaught textual responses, spelling responses, and vocal phoneme blends. All participants were kindergarten students and had been selected because they could textually respond to and write graphemes but did not learn textual responses and spelling responses for words from instruction. There were 2 phases in Experiment I. In Experiment I, Phase 1, I examined the effect of teaching 3 students to vocally segment the component phonemes in a five-word subset of phonemically transparent Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words on the emergence of (a) textual responses, (b) dictated written spelling responses (c) vocally blending the component phonemes into a composite word, and (d) vocally segmenting the component phonemes from untaught composite words. During the vocal phoneme segmentation intervention participants were vocally presented with a composite word and were taught to vocally segment and produce each component phoneme separately in the same sequential order as the component word (e.g., cat...c...a...t). Results showed that derived relations emerged across all topographies after learning to vocally segment the phonemes in 2 sets of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. In Phase 2, I used the same response topographies as Phase 1 using a set of 20 consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant (CCVC) words. All 3 participants demonstrated errors in which they did not include a fourth phoneme (e.g., spelling stop as sop). Results showed that learning to vocally segment a 5-word set of CCVC words established the essential stimulus control for correctly responding to CCVC words. Experiment II was a systematic replication (Sidman, 1960) of Experiment I, Phase 1, which included extra measures of learning and experimental control. Five participants acquired untaught derived relations after learning to vocally segment the component phonemes in composite CVC words. The participants in Experiment II required between 2 and 3 instructional sets before demonstrating derived learning. An additional measure showed that the rate of learning for textual responses increased across all participants after the intervention. Results also showed that verbal operants learned before the intervention joined with the newly acquired spelling repertoire for some participants after the intervention. The results from both experiments demonstrated that children who can identify phonemes and graphemes, but do not learn to textually respond and spell from instruction will acquire those skills as a function of learning the relationship between composite words and the component phonemes through vocal phoneme segmentation.

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