Animal Diversity Web as a Teaching & Learning Tool to Improve Research & Writing Skills in College Biology Courses

2013 ◽  
Vol 75 (7) ◽  
pp. 494-498
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Yahnke ◽  
Tanya Dewey ◽  
Phil Myers
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Research Writing ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
College Biology ◽  
Animal Diversity ◽  
Teaching Learning

Most teachers agree that writing is an important skill for students to master, yet not all teachers incorporate writing assignments in their courses. Employers agree that written communication is important for college graduates, yet in a survey, less than 10% of employers thought that colleges did a good job preparing students for work. Writing an animal species account for Animal Diversity Web (http://animaldiversity.org) provides students with a real-world example of writing skills and provides resources to instructors who want to incorporate writing in their classes.

Writing-Across-the-IT/MIS Curriculum

2011 ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Etter ◽  
Jeffrey W. Merhout
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
College Board ◽  
Achievable Goal

Popular literature not only claims that college graduates are entering the workforce lacking sufficient writing skills but that companies must spend billions of dollars annually to train employees how to communicate effectively through writing (Canavor & Meirowitz, 2005; College Board, 2004). While writing-across-the-curriculum is not a new concept, it seems that only certain areas of the curriculum have adopted it. The integration of writing into the MIS/IT curriculum is an important and achievable goal necessary for the overall development of students in Information Technology or Management Information Systems degree programs. While traditional IT/MIS programs rely heavily on technology-based courses, we argue that these technology courses must also promote effective writing habits needed for career growth in the IT/MIS fields. As business proposals, newsletters, and reports are frequently being written by those in the Information Systems Department of a corporation, rather than by those in the Communication Department, it is increasingly important that we prepare IT/MIS students with the appropriate writing skills needed for their careers. For example, in many cases we prepare students to create web pages, a highly public information source, without providing any instruction on writing within the IT/MIS curriculum. This paper illustrates how writing assignments can be used in many MIS/IT classes.

Developments of Serious Games in Education

2016 ◽  
pp. 392-419
Author(s):  
Luís Sousa ◽  
Mauro Figueiredo ◽  
Jânio Monteiro ◽  
José Bidarra ◽  
João Rodrigues ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Computer Application ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Technological Environment ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
New Type ◽  
The One ◽  
Teaching Learning

As Human Computer Interaction technologies evolve, they are supporting the generation of innovative solutions in a broad range of domains. Among them, Serious Games are defined as new type of computer game that is capable of stimulating users to learn, by playing and competing against themselves, against other users or against a computer application. While it could be applied to a broad range of fields and ages, these games are becoming especially relevant in educational contexts and for the most recent generation of students that is growing in a new technological environment, very different from the one we had some years ago. However, in order to become fully accepted as a teaching/learning tool in both formal and informal contexts, this technology has still to overcome several challenges. Given these considerations, this chapter makes a state-of-the-art review of several works that were done in this field, followed by the description of two real world projects, helping to understand the applicability of this technology, but also its inherent challenges.

Writing-Across-the-IT/MIS Curriculum

2008 ◽  
pp. 3246-3258
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Etter ◽  
Jeffrey W. Merhout
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Writing Assignments ◽  
College Board ◽  
Achievable Goal

Popular literature not only claims that college graduates are entering the workforce lacking sufficient writing skills but that companies must spend billions of dollars annually to train employees how to communicate effectively through writing (Canavor & Meirowitz, 2005; College Board, 2004). While writing-across-the-curriculum is not a new concept, it seems that only certain areas of the curriculum have adopted it. The integration of writing into the MIS/IT curriculum is an important and achievable goal necessary for the overall development of students in Information Technology or Management Information Systems degree programs. While traditional IT/MIS programs rely heavily on technology-based courses, we argue that these technology courses must also promote effective writing habits needed for career growth in the IT/MIS fields. As business proposals, newsletters, and reports are frequently being written by those in the Information Systems Department of a corporation, rather than by those in the Communication Department, it is increasingly important that we prepare IT/MIS students with the appropriate writing skills needed for their careers. For example, in many cases we prepare students to create web pages, a highly public information source, without providing any instruction on writing within the IT/MIS curriculum. This paper illustrates how writing assignments can be used in many MIS/IT classes.

scholarly journals Animal Real-Unreal in Traditional Conceptions of the World in Croatian Areas

2021 ◽  
pp. 298-319
Author(s):  
Lidija Bajuk
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The World

Trying to interpret oneself and the other in the world, the traditional Man has established a real world and an otherworld. Specific herbal and animal attributes were ascribed to particular people who allegedly had the power to communicate between worldliness and transcendence. Also some human characteristics were linked with herbal and animal mediators. These attributes were folklorized as miraculous powers. Such supernatural beings from South Slavic traditional conceptionsof the world have been largely associated with the pre-Christian deities and their degradations, based on the observed real attributes of the vegetal and animal species. The interdisciplinary comparative way of treating South Slavic folklore real-unreal motifs through time and space in this article is its ethnological, animalistic and anthropological contribution.

scholarly journals REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE IN INQUIRY-BASED EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE INSTRUCTION

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 284-292
Author(s):  
Roldan D. Atienza
Keyword(s):  
Science Teachers ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Real World ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Science Instruction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Space Science ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Teaching Learning

Science teachers play an important role in improving science literacy of their students. In achieving and building students’ interest and literacy about science, teachers must have an appropriate approach to be used in teaching. In teaching science, students must be active and participative in the learning process. Engaging students in variety of activities can help them in constructing their own knowledge by experiencing and observing results of the experiment. Teachers must provide real world experiences for students to engage with around global issues. This took the form of service-learning projects emphasizing issues of global concern, or working in teams to devise and debate solutions to real-world problems. Notably, these activities were student-centered and inquiry-based. Teachers also incorporated their own cross-cultural experiences into the classroom through informal conversation, discussions, around artifacts and photos, and lesson plans that incorporated knowledge gained and relationship built though their global experiences. The need for utilizing real life experiences in science teaching is a must in today’s classroom as the new generations of learners are ready to work with the different global issues and concerns of which can play an important role in the learning process. However, the utilization of real life experiences in science instruction grows as a measure when teachers are able to develop an engaging and positive learning environment for learners. With this, teachers should carefully plan how to utilize the students’ real life experiences efficiently and effectively in inquiry-based science instruction to enhance more the teaching-learning process. The focus of this study was to determine the real life experience in inquiry-based earth and space science instruction in public secondary schools in Batangas City. The descriptive method of research was applied in the study, with the questionnaire as the main data gathering instrument responded to by 102 science teachers. Based on the analysis, it was revealed that real life experiences in science areas were moderately utilized by the students while teachers applied inquiry-based learning activities along its phases of exploration, concept introduction, and concept application to a moderate extent. It was recommended that the proposed learning plans be used to enhance science instruction and an instrument or assessment tool may be developed to determine the impact of utilization of real life experiences in teaching-learning process.

scholarly journals A Qualitative Research on Portfolio Keeping in English as a Foreign Language Writing

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selami Aydin
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Efl Writing ◽  
Sample Group ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Language Writing

Little attention has been paid to the problems about portfolio keeping in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing, while the existing literature mostly focuses on the effects of portfolios on writing skills of learners, rather than those of teachers or pre-service teachers. This study aims to investigate the problems encountered and contributions of portfolios to the language skills of EFL pre-service teachers. The sample group consists of 39 pre-service teachers; a background questionnaire, interviews, a survey, and essays were used for data collection. The results indicate that portfolios significantly contribute to the writing skills, and that there exist potential problems. It was concluded that teachers and teacher trainers should use portfolio as a learning tool after solving the problems.

scholarly journals EFL students’ responses to learning basic reading and writing skills

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syayid Sandi Sukandi ◽  
Dian Noviani Syafar
Keyword(s):  
English Education ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Study Program ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Basic Reading Skills ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Teaching Learning

This research presents the responses from Indonesian EFL students to teaching-learning basic reading and writing skills in the context of Indonesian higher education. The 120 respondents, who completed questionnaires, were students enrolled in Writing 1 and Reading 2 courses in the English Education Study Program of the Teachers Academy in West Sumatra [STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat]. There were four findings from the survey, namely: 1) EFL students preferred studying reading (37%) more than writing (27%), 2) EFL students read about the same amount of literary texts (25%) as they did popular texts (23%) and academic texts (22%), 3) grammar and spelling are the most difficult aspects for EFL students to learn with 33% having difficulty with basic reading skills, and 53% with basic writing skills, and finally 4) EFL students prefer to open a dictionary when they encounter difficult words in reading a text (62%) and do the same when they have difficulties in expressing their thoughts in writing English (38%). These findings show that EFL students have a variety of responses in terms of learning basic reading and writing in EFL English. In addition, the findings show that the tendency of EFL students to prefer reading to writing is relatively high.

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