Much of the debate surrounding the use of lecture-based classes as a method for teaching science has focused on the passive role assumed by students in lecture (1, 2, 3). The communication channel is primarily instructor-to-student. Numerous studies have shown that student performance in science classes improves with increasing levels of active participation by students in classroom discussions...

Use of in-class concept questions with clickers can transform an instructor-centered "transmissionist" environment to a more learner-centered constructivist classroom. To compare the effectiveness of three different approaches using clickers, pairs of similar questions were used to monitor student understanding in majors' and nonmajors' genetics courses. After answering the first question indiv...

Providing an effective mechanism for an instructor to interact with one or more remote classrooms is a complex problem in synchronous distance learning. Although a human operator at the remote classroom could be used to direct a video camera and hence provide feedback to the instructor as to the state of the class and to coordinate the instructor’s attention to the class as questions are raised...

The Kinect sensor gives computer eyes. It can capture 3D coordinates of human body joints. This provides a convenient way to track human body movement. This paper proposes an on-line physical training system using 3D sensors (Kinect) so that the exercise instructor and the athletes who are not in the same location can collaborate and fulfil training tasks remotely. The system captures the motio...

You are about to teach a course that will probably give students their second exposure to linear algebra. During their first brush with the subject, your students probably worked with Euclidean spaces and matrices. In contrast, this course will emphasize abstract vector spaces and linear maps. The audacious title of this book deserves an explanation. Almost all linear algebra books use determin...

We describe the design of Instructor Rating Markets in which students trade on the ratings that will be received by instructors, with new ratings revealed every two weeks. The markets provide useful dynamic feedback to instructors on the progress of their class, while at the same time enabling the controlled study of prediction markets where traders can affect the outcomes they are trading on. ...