<p> Writing anxiety impedes meta-cognitive writing strategies, which results in a decline in writing skills amongst college freshman composition students. This study examined the effect autograders have on reducing writing anxiety. This paper presented (a) was there significant difference in students&rsquo; writing anxiety based on autograder usage for evaluation, (b) was there significant difference in writing anxiety on the basis gender, and (c) was there significant difference in writing anxiety on the basis of age. The participants were 129 community college undergraduate composition students, 67 male students and 62 female students, of first year English Composition Community College classes 2017. The samples were selected using purposive sampling. The data were collected from the Daly/Miller Writing Apprehensive Test adapted for Survey Monkey as a pretest to determine a baseline writing anxiety scale and as a post-test from an experimental group using an autograder to evaluate the writing and a control group using an instructor to evaluate the writing following an in-class writing. Then, the data were analyzed quantitatively using ANCOVA and ANOVA. The result showed no statistically significant difference on the basis of autograder usage, gender, or age. However, the findings confirmed previous research on community college students and indicated community college students&rsquo; exhibit writing anxiety. In addition the study almost resulted in statistical significance on the basis of gender and age. Closer analysis revealed students&rsquo; writing anxiety decreased with each writing attempt.</p>

<p> Problem-based learning is an especially useful learner-centered instructional approach in which learners collaborate within small groups to solve an authentic ill-structured problem that has no right or wrong answer. However, facilitating and designing problem-based learning can be challenging for instructors as well as instructional designers, especially for learning environments, such as the law enforcement academies, that traditionally have been designed for rote memorization and repetitive skills. The purpose of this basic qualitative research was to interview and explore instructors&rsquo; experiences and the factors instructors believed are essential for facilitating problem-based learning in their learning environment. For this study, participants were selected based on their attendance at the 2014 annual conference or by referrals from those attendees. Eleven participants met the requirements of having completed the 2-week problem-based learning instructor course sponsored by an organization dedicated to the advancement of problem-based learning in police training and had 3&ndash;5 years of facilitating problem-based learning in their learning environment. In this study, semi-structured interviews with law enforcement instructors were used to provide knowledge and insight about the challenges they experienced, such as resistance to change and instructional strategies used to overcome these challenges, as well as key elements of problem-based learning. Additionally, the findings provided instructional designers insight into how to design problem-based learning instruction using effective instructional strategies identified by participants. Moreover, participants provided instructional strategies on how to move from a teacher-centered learning environment focused on lower level skills to a student-centered learning that foster problem-solving and critical thinking skills using real-world situations. A recommendation for further research is to conduct a study on a larger sample to explore facilitators&rsquo; experiences when facilitating problem-based learning. A second recommendation calls for a study to identify ways for educators and training and development professionals to promote the benefits and value of the problem-based learning process to their agency leadership and educational institution administration. A third recommendation is to conduct a study with a targeted audience of instructional designers who have designed and developed training for the law enforcement field and who use a student-centered approach to explore further strategies used to incorporate real-world instructional methods that enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills.</p>

<p> High-ability adolescent African-American females from rural communities face many challenges when attempting to access science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career pathways. This research study focused on seven high-ability adolescent African-American females from rural communities who attended a public STEM-focused boarding high school in the southern United States. </p><p> This study used ethnographic methodology to examine race, gender, and giftedness together to explain how and why a selected population of seven African-American girls from rural environments who attended a southern, state-sponsored residential math and science high school successfully navigated STEM career trajectories. Despite encountering pervasive gender and racial discrimination, the young African-American women in this study persisted on STEM career trajectories because they were supported by a role model or mentor; accessed prolonged and meaningful exposure to STEM concepts, including attending a STEM-focused boarding school; and demonstrated a blend of resiliency, high self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. Although the sample size is small, this research provides encouraging results that show young African-American women can successfully pursue STEM careers despite facing substantial barriers (English, Lambert, &amp; Ialongo, 2016; Ghodsee, 2016). </p><p> This research is significant because high-ability African-American females represent an untapped opportunity to expand STEM employment in America. Expanding the contributions of young African-American women in STEM-related fields would also help safeguard the economic vitality of a robust STEM workforce. </p><p>

<p> The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to determine practice and feedback strategies used by instructional designers when creating synchronous online instruction. Practice and feedback have survived through many modes of learning including classroom, asynchronous online learning, and synchronous online learning. The research design consisted of open-ended questions administered during a telephone interview. A pre-qualifying questionnaire was posted on social media to recruit participants to determine the sample population; the qualifying survey produced 14 participants who met the requirements to participate in a telephone interview. The participants answered nine questions during the phone interview. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Based on the participant responses, five themes emerged. The results of the study contribute to the field of instructional design by providing suggestions of the current use of practice and feedback in synchronous online instruction and how they use motivation strategies to encourage adult learner participation. Similarities were found between the results and reviewed literature. This study was limited by only interviewing instructional designers who work, or have worked, in a hospital environment. Suggestions for future research would be to repeat this study on a larger scale by recruiting more participants that work in different work environments as an industry, higher education, and computer technology.</p><p>

<p> Instructional design (ID) is not a process that happens linearly as prescribed in models. Designers have a critical role of using their design judgment in design and shaping the practice. In the past decade, studies focusing on instructional designers in design have been identified and interest toward design judgment in ID practice has been increasing. However, how ID students exercise design judgment and how their design judgments develop have remained unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore ID students&rsquo; exercise and development of design judgment over a semester when working on design projects.</p><p> In this study, a qualitative, multi-case study design was employed. The participants were ID students in master&rsquo;s level introductory ID courses from different institutions in the USA. Data sources included course syllabi, course materials, students&rsquo; design projects, design reports, and semi-structured interviews conducted in the middle and end of their courses.</p><p> The findings in terms of ID students&rsquo; design judgment exercise revealed that students make design judgments continuously during their design processes and different types of design judgment were made concurrently. It was found that their design judgment was shaped by external factors and when making design judgment they used their experience. In terms of students&rsquo; design judgment development, the findings indicated that students&rsquo; design judgment developed slightly by the end of semester and their design judgment development varied by person. However, most of them were still identified as novice designers. The findings also suggested that design judgment can be developed with practice over time. To support ID students&rsquo; design judgment development, recommendations were made for ID education including increasing awareness of design judgment, considering the nature of design projects given to students, providing opportunities for reflection, considering instructional strategies such as peer review and mentoring and shifting to studio-based ID education.</p><p>

No description available.

No description available.

<p> Challenges in the implementation process of a new undergraduate nursing curriculum are multifactorial. Utilizing constructs of Hall&rsquo;s (2013) Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM), and Oreg&rsquo;s (2003, 2006) Resistance to Change Scale, the study examined faculty members&rsquo; personal concerns and resistance to change, regarding implementation of a new curriculum. The study is quantitative research, using correlational statistical analysis and use of descriptive statistics. Senge&rsquo;s Leadership Theory and Wegner&rsquo;s Community of Practice Theory formed the theoretical framework for the study. The study included participation from 11 BSN nursing program faculty from several universities in the United States that adopted a new conceptual-based nursing curriculum. Results of statistical testing showed no relationship between faculty profile scores for adoption along a change continuum and the study variables as objective measures. However, recommendations for follow-up research include qualitative research and further analysis of study demographic data not originally used in the study.</p>

<p> For many years, two international schools in Southeast Asia have had, as part of their high school curricular program, annual extended cross-cultural service-learning Outdoor Education (OE) trips in which the entire student bodies participated. The purpose of this study was to identify the educational and character development benefits to students experiencing the OE programs. The study sought to identify and describe from the students&rsquo; perspectives how the OE programs contributed to the students&rsquo; growth in social-emotional and character development (SECD), 21^st-century skills, and their schools&rsquo; global learning outcomes (GLOs). Additionally, the study sought to determine which components of the OE programs the students perceived as contributing to their growth. In this ethnographic intrinsic case study, the methodology for gathering data employed reflexive photography and photo elicitation interviews that resulted in photos submitted by students documenting their OE experiences, photo journals they kept during the trips, and transcripts of the interviews conducted soon after their trips. The student data were categorized and hand coded to identify 33 themes arranged in an explanatory schema. From the student data, 15 design-and-activity components were identified that facilitated 14 resultant design and activity outcomes. Additionally, four distinctive themes highlighted the importance of providing students with opportunities to experience collaboration, service, spiritual input, reflection, close communal living, reciprocity, and natural beauty. The components and outcomes were compared to the five aspects and selected character traits of SECD, selected 21^st-century skills, and each of the school&rsquo;s GLOs. The results of this study showed that students perceived that growth in SECD, 21^st-century skills, and their schools&rsquo; GLOs was attributable to the 15 identified components. These components worked together to create challenging conditions and tasks that students experienced, performed, and learned during the OE program. A science course analogy can be applied to OE. In this analogy, students get the lecture portion of the course at home, school, and church, while the laboratory portion is experienced through OE. During OE, students have opportunities to apply and practice the knowledge and skills they have been learning in the lectures. </p>

<p> This multiple-case study examined three teachers&rsquo; formal and peripheral engagement across multiple years of a three-year, professional development project. Collaborative support focused on applying the standards for effective pedagogy to the redesign and implementation of elementary instruction, in an effort to increase equity and inclusion for all diverse learners within general education classrooms. The complex contexts of teaching within psychosocial school systems influenced teachers&rsquo; active and limited engagement in a variety of collaborative support activities. Negative intersubjective perceptions generally influenced limited engagement. Long-term participants sought active engagement in collaborations perceived to support continually improved instruction, while responding to their challenging contexts, and relevant to their instructional obligations and classroom needs. Examination of longitudinal data revealed a substantive process of cyclical collaborative support through which teachers engaged collaboration to process and prioritize relevant challenges, explored ideas to apply effective pedagogy in the redesign and implementation of instruction, observed improved classroom outcomes, and sought further opportunities for continual improvement. Ongoing engagement in this cyclical process of collaborative support helped teachers mediate the influence of complex challenges across the teaching profession. Conditions that sustained long-term engagement included an iterative process of redesign for collaborative activities, which enabled support to be most responsive to teachers&rsquo; available time, and most relevant to teachers&rsquo; observed classroom needs and instructional obligations. In addition to proximal propinquity, psychosocial propinquity with the standards for effective pedagogy and trusted collaborators, along with engaging activities perceived to provide positive, collegial support, had significant influence on participants&rsquo; active, ongoing engagement. Administrator involvement during the third and final year of the project influenced significant changes in the design and delivery of collaborative support, including mandated and structured expectations for participation. This led to intersubjective perceptions of increased challenges, negative collegial interactions and an interruption of support provided across the first two years of the project when there had been no administrator involvement. Implications suggest future professional development should take the complex psychosocial contexts that influence teachers into account and respond flexibly to teachers&rsquo; capacity to engage while focused on relevant obligations and classroom needs.</p>