Serious Games in Higher Distance Education

Games have been socially entrenched throughout history as a form of entertainment. Current rapidly changing technological advances have permitted an increasingly prominent means of utilizing these sources of entertainment in an instructional capacity for educational purposes. Serious gaming as a result, focuses on engaging learners in activities which are not solely developed for enjoyment purposes. Goal oriented pursuits based in either an authentic or fictitious scenario can be designed to improve a learner or players motor and cognitive abilities or knowledge (de Freitas & Jarvis, 2006; Lamb et al., 2018; Protopsaltis et al., 2011). Serious gaming promotes intentional, active, and mobile learning that can be successfully used as a supplemental educational tool to facilitate a situated understanding of specific content (Admiral et al., 2011; Gee, 2005). This paper is a brief overview of game-based learning, or serious games, as an innovative instructional strategy in higher distance education.

The Role of Voluntary Military Training in Facilitating Officer - Like Qualities among the Youth: A Case Study on Bangladesh National Cadet Corps

This study’s prime objective is to appraise the role of Voluntary Military Training in facilitating Officer-Like Qualities (OLQ) among the youths taking Bangladesh National Cadet Corps (BNCC) as a case. A qualitative research method, primarily an in-depth face to face interview, was conducted to obtain the opinions from former BNCC cadets who had experienced cadetship and were selected in armed forces, or civil services later as an officer. Unearthing the limitations of the program, the study tried to investigate how the OLQ factors are facilitated through the VMT program of BNCC. The findings of the study project BNCC camping as a potential event of VMT which mostly covers all the factors of OLQ. Hence, the study also suggested Human Resource Development interventions to develop the instructional capacity among the BNCC officers and military instructors. BNCC is an apex government organization engaged in transforming the youth into potential leaders. Therefore this organization should be supported to transform it into a center of excellence by facilitating OLQ among the youth generation of Bangladesh.

Replicating our Instructional Capacity: Developing Shared Workshops across Institutions

User communities are asking librarians for support finding non-textual information and data. Given that their instructional capacity is already stretched thin, many librarians are apprehensive about developing classes to support these emerging topics. To overcome these challenges, librarians at the NCSU Libraries and the UNC Health Sciences Library developed a shared suite of instructional materials for bioinformatics workshops that are now offered at both campuses. This presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges of developing instructional materials across institutions, and will share our experiences using tools like Box and Open Science Framework to facilitate this initiative. The presentation will close with a discussion of other topics that may be well-suited for multi-institutional collaboration. [Slides from conference presentation].

The Evolution of Inclusive Practice in Two Elementary Schools: Reforming Teacher Purpose, Instructional Capacity, and Data-Informed Practice

This qualitative case study focuses on the evolution of inclusive school reform in two elementary schools in a large metropolitan district. Four central themes that emerged during data analysis are highlighted: (1) Unifying a vision: Reframing special education; (2) Developing collaborative structures for inclusion; (3) Increasing confidence and capacity: The importance of data-informed practice; and (4) Negotiating district and state constraints on inclusive practice. This article concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for inclusive school reform as well as directions for future research.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, State Efforts to Improve Access to Effective Educators, and the Importance of School Leadership

Purpose: Our primary purpose is to examine the degree to which state equity plans identify the distribution of principals and principal turnover as factors influencing three leadership mechanisms that affect student access to effective teachers—namely, hiring of teachers, building instructional capacity of teachers, and managing teacher turnover. Research Design: This study relies on document analyses of 52 plans (50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico) submitted by states in 2015 to the U.S. Department of Education. These plans included the identification of root causes of the inequitable access to educators within a state as well as proposed solutions to address the inequitable access. Findings: We found that, while 27% of states mentioned the distribution of principals and 48% of states mentioned principal turnover, less than 10% of states connected these two factors to access to effective teachers for each of the three mechanisms. Furthermore, only three states mentioned that principal turnover is associated with teacher turnover and three states discussed that teacher turnover is heavily influenced by the school working conditions created in large part by the principal. Moreover, we found the U.S. Department of Education and most states did not present data on either the inequitable distribution of principals or principal turnover. Finally, we determined that states frequently mention solutions to improving access to effective educators that are unsupported by research under the Every Student Succeeds Act rules of evidence.

Collective trust as a social indicator of the instructional capacity: A qualitative researchÖğretim kapasitesinin sosyal bir göstergesi olarak kolektif güven: Nitel bir araştırma

Instructional capacity at school has two interconnected basic characteristics. These are: resources which enable increase of teaching efficiency at schools and social processes which would enable occupational learning through forming information (Curt, 2012). Collective trust which is in the social step of instructional capacity is the characteristics of a stable group which has rooted perceptions and effected by the reliability of another group or individual (Forsyth, Adams, and Hoy, 2011). It is based on openness, honesty, cooperativeness and competency (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 1999). Collective trust is a social process which increases instructional capacity at school. Schools with high learning capacity aim to learn together. Leadership for everyone, learning for everyone and increasing success for everyone are the basic aims. More permanent and joyful learning is enabled by forming cooperative learning environment at these schools. All the individuals share vision and knows what to do to reach the aim and how to contribute. Communication at school reflects the quality of school. Student makes contribution to the system with his success in the process (Lambert, 2005). The aim of this study in which learning capacity and collective trust terms are discussed is to determine the views of school principals about collective trust. Moreover, within this aim it was determined as sub-aims to analyze factors such as reliability, openness, honesty, helpfulness and competency in the process of school management. The study was carried out within the scope of “phenomenology” pattern which is one of the qualitative research patterns. The study group is composed of 10 school principals who were chosen with simple random sampling method. Data collected were analyzed with content analysis. Suggestions are presented in the light of findings and results. ÖzetOkullarda öğretim kapasitesinin birbirine bağlı iki temel özelliği vardır. Bunlar: okulda öğretim etkinliğini artırmayı sağlayan kaynaklar ve bilgi oluşturma ile mesleki öğrenmeyi sağlayacak olan sosyal süreçlerdir (Curt, 2012). Öğretim kapasitesinin sosyal basamağında yer alan kolektif güven; köklü algıları olan ve başka bir grup ya da bireyin güvenilirliğinden etkilenen durağan bir grup özelliğidir (Forsyth, Adams, and Hoy, 2011). Açıklık, dürüstlük, yardımseverlik, güvenirlik ve yetkinlik temeline dayanmaktadır (Hoy and Tschannen-Moran, 1999). Kolektif güven okullarda öğrenme kapasitesini artıran bir sosyal süreçtir. Öğrenme kapasitesi yüksek olan okullar birlikte öğrenmeyi amaçlar. Herkes için liderlik, herkes için öğrenme ve herkes için başarıyı yükseltmek temel hedeftir. Bu okullarda birlikte öğrenme ortamları oluşturarak daha kalıcı ve neşeli öğrenmeler oluşmaktadır. Müdür okullardaki liderlerden sadece biridir ve dinleme, işbirliği, uyum konusunda rol model olur. Tüm bireyler vizyonu paylaşır, amaçlara ulaşmak için ne yapmak gerektiğini ve nasıl katkı sağlayacağını bilir. Okuldaki iletişim okulun kalitesini yansıtır. Öğrenci süreçteki başarısı ile sisteme katkıda bulunur (Lambert, 2005).Öğrenme kapasitesi ve kolektif güven kavramlarının tartışıldığı bu çalışmada amaç, okul yöneticilerinin kolektif güvenlerine ilişkin görüşlerini belirlemektir. Araştırma, nitel araştırma desenlerinden biri olan “olgu bilim” deseni kapsamında yürütülmüştür. Veri toplamak amacıyla kolektif güven kavramına ilişkin “okul yönetiminde açıklık, dürüstlük, yardımseverlik, sorumluluk ve yetkinlik” gibi faktörlerin incelendiği 10 açık uçlu sorudan oluşan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu hazırlanmıştır. Bu görüşme formundaki sorular on okul yöneticisine yöneltilmiş, veriler içerik analizi tekniği kullanılarak analiz edilerek yorumlanmıştır. Bulgular ve sonuçlar ışığında öneriler sunulmuştur.