Browsing by Subject "student learning"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Best Practices for Field Days: Factors That Influence Students’ Learning in an Environmental Field Day
    (St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Extension Service, 2009) Wang, Hui-Hui; Carlson, Stephan
    A field trip is a common strategy used by educators to bring out-of-school learning experiences into schools. Many research studies suggest a field trip will not only bring an individual close to the real-world, but may also increase an individual’s environmental knowledge and responsible behaviors. Therefore, many environmental educators use field trips as a tool to strengthen their in-school curriculum. Thus, program evaluations usually focus on the predetermined outcomes, such as increasing environmental knowledge and responsible behaviors, which were decided by environmental educators and program designers. Students rarely have active voices in program evaluations. How do students evaluate their field trip experience? This study focuses on students’ prespective and the factors that influence students’ field trip experience. In this study, we found that an interesting and fun learning environment is a critical criterion, which students believe can increase their satisfaction level, can help them focus on field day activities, and can contribute to their learning in an out-of-school experience.
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    Integrative Student Learning: An Effective Team Learning Activity in a Learner-Centered Paradigm
    (University of Minnesota, College of Pharmacy, 2011) Karimi, Reza; Elbarbry, Fawzy; Fortner, Jeff
    Purpose: An Integrative Student Learning (ISL) activity was developed with the intent to enhance the dynamic of student teamwork and enhance student learning by fostering critical-thinking skills, self-directed learning skills, and active learning. Case Study: The ISL activity consists of three portions: teambuilding, teamwork, and a facilitator driven “closing the loop” feedback discussion. For teambuilding, a set of clue sheets or manufacturer‘s drug containers were distributed among student pairs who applied their pharmaceutical knowledge to identify two more student pairs with similar clues or drugs, thus building a team of six. For teamwork, each team completed online exams, composed of integrated pharmaceutical science questions with clinical correlates, using only selected online library resources. For the feedback discussion, facilitators evaluated student impressions, opened a discussion about the ISL activity, and provided feedback to teams’ impressions and questions. This study describes three different ISL activities developed and implemented over three days with first year pharmacy students. Facilitators’ interactions with students and three surveys indicated a majority of students preferred ISL over traditional team activities and over 90% agreed ISL activities promoted active learning, critical-thinking, self-directed learning, teamwork, and student confidence in online library searches. Conclusions: The ISL activity has proven to be an effective learning activity that promotes teamwork and integration of didactic pharmaceutical sciences to enhance student learning of didactic materials and confidence in searching online library resources. It was found that all of this can be accomplished in a short amount of class time with a very reasonable amount of preparation.
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    Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Executive Summary of Research Findings
    (The Wallace Foundation, 2010) Wahlstrom, Kyla; Seashore, Karen; Leithwood, Kenneth; Anderson, Stephen
    Educational leadership can have strong, positive, although indirect, effects on student learning. The full report of our study—Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning—provides evidence and analyses to substantiate this claim. As well, our study also unpacks how such leadership has these strong positive effects. Leaders in education—including state-level officials, superintendents and district staff, principals, school board members, teachers and community members enacting various leadership roles—provide direction for, and exercise influence over, policy and practice. Their contributions are crucial, our evidence shows, to initiatives aimed at improving student learning.
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    Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Final Report of Research Findings
    (The Wallace Foundation, 2010) Seashore, Karen; Leithwood, Kenneth; Wahlstrom, Kyla; Anderson, Stephen
    Educational leadership can have strong, positive, although indirect, effects on student learning. The full report of our study—Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning—provides evidence and analyses to substantiate this claim. As well, our study also unpacks how such leadership has these strong positive effects. Leaders in education—including state-level officials, superintendents and district staff, principals, school board members, teachers and community members enacting various leadership roles—provide direction for, and exercise influence over, policy and practice. Their contributions are crucial, our evidence shows, to initiatives aimed at improving student learning.