Adopting a new teaching approach is often a daunting task especially if one is an early adopter in a limited-resource environment. This article describes the challenges encountered and the strategies used in pilot testing a blended instructional method in a large size class within the college of education at a medium-sized university. The main reasons for using the hybrid method were to improve student participation, preparation, and understanding as well as to encourage a more active rather than passive approach to learning which can be particularly difficult in large-sized, undergraduate courses. An action research study was used to document the adoption process and to measure the impact of the blended approach. The results of the action research study and the issues and barriers encountered when implementing a new instructional strategy are discussed as well as ideas for motivating and helping faculty when there is limited funding, training, and support available.

No abstract

No abstract

Research studies are discovering the importance of self-regulation for successful online learning. Self-regulation requires learners to be actively involved in the management of their learning and includes setting, monitoring, and evaluating learning goals, and making any necessary modifications to learning strategies (Zimmerman, 2008). This chapter discusses students' perceptions of the effectiveness of different types of learning supports that the authors used in a blended, flipped undergraduate education course to help students with self-regulation. The perceptions of high and low self-regulated students are compared and recommendations made about what supports to include when designing an online course to ensure successful learning.

The ability of children, adolescents, and adults to analyze the content, formal, and affective dimensions of paintings was determined by asking subjects to describe similarities and differences between paintings. Content or subject matter was an important criterion of similarity for all subjects but was most salient for the preoperational aged children. Content can be regarded as the surface structure of the painting because its perception involves a direct correspondence between physical objects and events and their pictorial representations. Older children, adolescents, and adults operating at higher levels of cognitive development mentioned similarities in formal qualities such as line, shape, style, etc., and in affective or emotional qualities more often than did the younger children. Formal and affective dimensions can be regarded as the deep structure of the painting, since the perception of these elements requires the understanding that paintings also represent ideas, feelings, and experiences about reality. At what age do children begin to become analytical about their visual perceptions? According to Gibson (1970), infants quickly learn to discriminate objects and persons in their environment. The discrimination of written symbols such as letters develops later , around the age of 5 years. When are children able to analyze more complex visual symbols, such as works of art? The present study was designed to investigate developmental changes in children's ability to analyze paintings. Paintings have been analyzed by artists and art historians along several dimensions. Knobler (1967) describes visual art as a representation of perceptual reality, an organization of formal elements, and an expression of the emotions and subjective experiences of the artist. Using Knobler's classification as a basis, we analyzed paintings into content, formal, and affective dimensions. The content dimension of representational paintings refers to the real-world objects and events depicted in the art work. The formal dimension refers to the structural elements and relationships used in the composition of the art work. Structural elements include such qualities as line, texture , shape, and color that the This article evolved from a study that was done by the first author to fulfill the research apprenticeship requirement for the doctoral degree. The authors would like to extend their thanks and appreciation to Patty Williams and Marla Shoemaker, art educators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and to Ruth Fine of the Alverthorpe Gallery in Jenk intown, Pennsylvania, for their valuable assistance in the planning and design of the study. The authors would also like to thank Tessa Lamont and Antonia D'Onofrio for their help in rating the subjects' responses.