Problem-Based Learning

Students learning and understanding is enhanced if the teaching and learning process is authentic. Authentic learning process leads to understanding and meaningful application of concepts learned. One way by which teachers can to provide authentic learning environment is through Problem-Based Learning (PBL). PBL offers opportunity for students to learn about something that is real and beneficial. Teacher education programs, pre-service or in-service, should help teachers to understand how to use PBL to provide students with authentic learning environments. The chapter aims at supporting teachers' understanding and application of PBL so that they can provide students with meaningful learning experiences. Specifically, this chapter is intended to assist teachers have a better understanding of PBL as a strategic approach to meaningful teaching and learning as well as identify effective ways to incorporate this approach into their pedagogical practices.

The Vignette TaBLE

This chapter investigates the research and recommendations regarding the collaborative design of the joint, flipped-instruction micro-learning vignettes for classroom mentors and teacher candidates regarding promising practices of flipped instruction within a mobile learning environment. The focus of the chapter relates to pedagogies that incorporate active learning within mobile technologies that are most likely to enhance meaningful learning. The Vignette Team-based, Blended Learning Experience (TaBLE) will be presented, based upon its research-based rationale, design, preliminary results, and future implications.

Inverted Constructivism to Leverage Mobile-Technology-Based Active Learning

The classroom environment in the 21st century has increasingly utilized many types of technologies as supplemental tools for teaching and learning including instructional design, development, and delivery. The level at which schools are encompassing more technology is often restrained by financial constraints and rapid advances in the static equipment, making the equipment outdated within a short period of time. However, the use of relatively low cost mobile technologies such as tablets and cell phones in the classroom setting have reduced the social and logistical barriers in education and enhanced the creative active learning processes. The primary objective of this chapter is to offer insights into the importance of using mobile technology to educate students in today's connected society and to identify the multi-faceted advantages of mobile technology within an active learning curriculum design to encourage a meaningful learner-centered experience.

Identifying Effective Uses of Mobiles for Encouraging 21st Century Skills

This chapter outlines characteristics of inquiry-oriented projects that blend theories of constructivism with mobile technology. These characteristics capitalize upon 21st Century Skills (P21, 2009) that align with learner-centered instructional practices. We share insights from a multiple case study of four secondary teachers' integration of mobiles to encourage student engagement in 21st century skills and inquiry. These teachers integrated mobiles into inquiry-based lessons to promote student ownership of their learning. Data collection from this study included reflective writings, teacher products and an open-ended question from the Technological and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) survey (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). Findings indicated that participants consistently encourage their students to engage in 21st Century Skills. Communication, Collaboration, Creativity most common 21st Skills encouraged by the participant as they used mobiles.

Innovations in Mobile Photography for Digital-Age Teachers and Learners

This chapter shares research that examined how perspectives about mobile technology integration were cultivated in a required pre-service teacher (PST) education course. Specifically, the camera feature of mobile smartphones was used to design a social-constructivist learning experience. Pre-service teachers were invited to shift from media consumers to technology producers, participating in innovative, student-centered learning. PSTs were positioned to use their prior-knowledge to engage in meaningful learning using their mobile phones in a way that modeled strategies they could use in their future classrooms to meet the learning needs of millennial students. Literature reveals that mobile tools are often used in limiting ways, such as accessing and consuming industry-produced media content. However, they have the potential to be used for active, social-constructivist learning. This chapter has implications for teacher educators and administrators in higher education who are seeking emerging practices for how to prepare PSTs to learn how to innovate using technology by designing learning experiences that focus on students as media makers.

A Model for Mobile Social Media Integration in Constructivist ESL Classrooms

Social media, with its ability to create opportunities for interaction, presents a platform for applying technology into social constructivist learning contexts in innovative and meaningful ways. This chapter proposes a model for integrating mobile social media in a content-based ESL curriculum. Newly-arrived international art students were introduced to popular social media platforms and were trained on how to use these tools to conduct research and document their experiences in the field during a summer intensive program. Results are discussed in terms of effects on students' academic English knowledge and abilities, knowledge of local academic and creative cultures, and technology literacy. Finally, limitations and implications for future studies are explored.

Instructional Technology and Meaningful Learning

The use and importance of technology in teaching and learning processes is well established in teacher training programs and teaching literature; however, integration of technology in meaningful ways remains a challenge. For teacher candidates to be able to effectively integrate technology in the classrooms, they need to experience meaningful technology pedagogical practices during teacher training. This chapter synthesizes well-established and relatively new technology pedagogical strategies that could be used with teacher candidates. The aim is to provide a summary of research-based strategies for teacher educators interested in improving technology integration in their teacher training programs.

Approaches for Addressing Student Barriers to Collaborative Learning Success

Collaborative work can provide a valuable learning experience, especially for those preparing to enter the information systems workforce. There have been numerous papers that discuss various effective means of realizing the benefits of collaborative group learning, but the approach still experiences issues stemming from pragmatic environmental factors such as the non-traditional nature of many students. This chapter has identified a range of problems and reports on a longitudinal Action Research study in two universities in Australia and the United States. Over three semesters problems were identified and methods tested using various approaches. Several promising remedies to the identified problems are suggested, including the use of student profiles, ePortfolios, project milestones, and freely available online collaborative tools.

Mobile-Assisted-Learning Approach in Enhancing the Student Teacher's Vocabulary and Usage of Mobile Phone

Mobile learning facilitates delivery of learning using portable electronic devices. This study investigated the effectiveness of mobile assisted learning in the development of vocabulary and usage of mobile phone. Specifically, the primary objectives of the study were to compare the effectiveness of Mobile Assisted Learning Approach and Conventional Learning Approach with reference to Vocabulary and Usage of Mobile Phone and also to analyze the interaction between treatments with gender and subject background in reference to developing vocabulary and usage of mobile phone. Mobile Assisted Learning Approach was found to be more effective in developing Vocabulary and Usage of Mobile Phone. The study has broad implications for student teachers of the professional colleges. These findings should be taken into consideration educational administrators in secondary and higher education teacher training institutions.

Social Media in Education

Although social media is prevalent among individual use, instructors and students have not fully embraced social media as tool for the classroom. The focus of the chapter is to identify and identify ways in which social media, as a complementary pedagogical tool to traditional techniques, contributes to create an innovative, collaborative educational environment for students. Different categories and themes, as well as best practices have been identified as the ways of improving students' learning as a result of utilizing social media. Social media helps students in their learning through facilitating active learning, promoting affective learning outcomes, inspiring creativity and innovation, supporting team-based work, and creating a community of learners. Social media enhances professional development and increases performance and grades. Finally, the authors identify best practices for implementing social media in educational setting during the different phases of instructional design process.