Gina Bennett

Paul, I had forgotten that you were an air traffic controller! In a former life I used to fly (private pilot, little planes) so perhaps during some takeoff or landing in the distant past you 'told me where to go'

I know that air traffic control -- and many of the other learning tasks in aviation -- make extensive use of simulations. So besides letting the learner explore 'what if's' (as described in the Cisco article), simulations enable the learner to practise handling situations that are dangerous or too critical to jump right into for real. I get the same nice warm feeling when I watch our nursing students practise giving injections to an orange.

What was the transition like, from air traffic simulations to the air control tower? Which skills (or attitudes?) had to be learned on the job?

PS: did I hear a rumour that it is your birthday today????

A research paper titled Technology in Schools: What the Research Says (Cisco, 2006) found that "the use of simulations and modeling in the natural sciences resulted in increased learning and retention by students." In fact, when a frog dissection simulation was used, Grade 7 "students learned significantly more when only a dissection simulation was used, or when the simulation was used immediately prior to the actual dissection exercises in comparison to dissection only or dissection immediately followed by the simulation." (emphasis added)

The researchers suggest "The power behind the use of simulations in the life sciences is in the opportunity for students to explore “what-ifs” in ways that
enable the student to build schemas of understanding. The visualization of processes and structures reduces the cognitive load, enabling even novice learners to understand academic complexities."

This is a very bold statement: that using a simulation alone can result in a stronger learning experience than the 'real thing'. However, in an earlier post, Estrella pointed out that "simulations or virtual environments just recreate reality following the laws of physics but we should not forget they are NOT reality. They can take into account as much (variables) as the programmer knowledge allows."

So here is the $1000000 questions: At what point does 'real' data become essential to the learning of science?

Hi Dominic, this is a question that keeps coming up at our institution, too. But short of requiring supervision (an invigilated quiz) or some sort of combination of virtual supervision or biometric process, I don't think you can be 100% sure that your quiz-taker isn't cheating somehow. As the other posters above have pointed out, your best approach is to somehow convince the student that they will benefit more from participating honestly in the assessment than by cheating. And for you to be 'sure' that their mark reflects their ability, there is just no substitute for knowing your students, by getting familiar with what they're capable of when participating in a non-assessment situation.

I know of one distance learning institution whose policy it was to phone each student after the first assignment was returned. The tutor would talk to the student about their assignment, ask if there were any areas of confusion etc., but also engage the student in a conversation about their answer to one of the questions. The student would have had to have actually done the work in order to participate in a discussion like that. In this way, they were able to flag students who may be misrepresenting their abilities.

Wow, Sylvia, I am really impressed by the innovation you describe in teaching Biology in the Yukon... We do have similar equipment at our college (i.e. videoconferencing, a document camera, AdobeConnect etc.) but they are NOT used for science lab delivery. It sounds like your Biology instructor was very supportive of trying to deliver a rich science learning experience to students in their home communities. Can you tell me... were there any barriers? Do you have any data that shows how the students who were taught remotely compare with those who are taught on-site?

Judy, I am delighted to see another ETUG member in this discussion! Thanks for joining us.

I have never used Articulate Presenter or Articulate Quizmaker (in fact, today is the first time I've ever heard of it). I wonder if there's anyone else out there using this product? Pros, cons?