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This study investigated the effectiveness of two methods of instruction, Teacher-Based Instruction (TBI) versus Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), in improving undergraduate Arab learners' English reading ability in the three aspects of speed, comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. The Experimental Pre-test/Post-test Treatment Group Design was implemented in both experiments carried out in this study. Two samples of 100 and 150 students for Experiments I & II, respectively, were randomly chosen from two higher education institutions in the Arab world. Each sample was divided into two groups depending on learners' pre-instruction preferences for TBI or CALL methods. After eight weeks of instruction using one method, the students of the two groups exchanged instructional methods for another period of eight weeks. In both cases the learners attended three 90- minute reading lectures per week. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis showed that CALL was significantly more effective than TBI for improving the learners' reading ability in the three aspects targeted. Results showed that CALL was more effective due to different reasons: learners were more motivated to read and they enjoyed reading; CALL made learners' reading progress visible to them through immediate feedback; it fostered learner autonomy and their desire to be in control of the program and it offered the learners a large number of different reading activities to work on. Learners' suggestions for improving CALL were mainly related to increasing the time they can use CALL programs in learning to read. Findings of the study should encourage higher education institutions especially in the Arab world to take considerable steps towards utilising computers in instruction. Even at school level this utilisation should be considered, but further research should be carried out with learners at different age levels and in different regions in the Arab world.

Trigonometry is a gateway course to higher level mathematics and science courses for students pursuing careers in STEM fields. Unfortunately, many students have found trigonometry to be difficult and trigonometry courses have consistently had high rates of failure (Daines, Troka, & Santiago, 2016; Demir, 2012; Moore, 2010; Samuels, 2010; Urrutia et al., 2019). Two reasons are commonly cited for difficulties in trigonometry: (1) the students’ inability to understand and fluidly move between multiple representations of trigonometric concepts (Marchi, 2012), and (2) the faculty’s challenge to teach a subject that is highly dependent on mental visual imagery (Kadunz & Yerushalmy, 2015). Despite the common difficulties experienced in teaching and learning trigonometry, research in this domain of mathematics is sparse.Current computer technology has the capability of addressing challenges in teaching and learning trigonometry. It allows multiple representations of trigonometric concepts to be illustrated side by side, as well as efficient construction of images needed to help students understand course concepts and to develop their mental visual imagery skills. Additionally, computer technology provides opportunities for students to actively engage in constructivist learning of new concepts while receiving specific and immediate feedback. This dissertation focuses on the impact of interactive computer-aided instruction in teaching and learning of trigonometry. This study hypothesizes that the use of interactive computer-aided instruction will have a positive impact on students’ mastery of trigonometry concepts as well as students’ perceptions of trigonometry. Findings should shed some light on the dynamics of teaching and learning trigonometry for 10th – 12th grade students.

Knowledge bases require a considerable investment of time and money to construct. For many applications the dual use of a knowledge base in an expert system and in a teaching system would be cost effective. This research addresses the issue of whether a single knowledge base that can be used effectively in an expert system can form the basis of a functionally effective teaching system. To understand what is meant by a "functionally effective" teaching system a review of computer-aided instruction and intelligent computer-aided instruction systems has been carried out. From this, a list of twelve functional requirements were identified that should be met by the subject knowledge contained in a teaching system, and therefore by a dual-purpose knowledge base. A review of expert systems was also undertaken, and this resulted in the generation of the hypothesis that the deep knowledge approach to the construction of expert systems could be used for the construction of a dual-purpose knowledge base. A test system, DR MECHO, was constructed from the MECHO program, which solves problems in the domain of statics. This new system included: a deep knowledge base; a meta-interpreter, to provide explanations of the reasoning process of DR MECHO; and a set of actions, referred to as teaching actions, which could replace some of DR MECHO's usual problem solving operations with student input. The performance of DR MECHO as an expert system, and its ability to meet the functional teaching requirements, were evaluated. DR MECHO performed well as an expert system. It also met most of the teaching requirements. The main underlying reasons for the latter were: its performance as an expert system, the explicit structuring of the knowledge base, and the observance of the "no function in structure" principle (the latter two being characteristics of deep knowledge systems

Actively engaging students in the classroom and promoting their interaction, both amongst themselves and with the instructor, is an important aspect to student learning. Research has demonstrated that student learning improves when instructors make use of pedagogical techniques which promote active learning. Equally important is instructor feedback from activities such as in-class assessments. Studies have shown that when instructor feedback is given at the time a new topic is introduced, student performance is improved. The focus of this thesis is the creation of a software program, Virtual Clicker, which addresses the need for active engagement, in-class feedback, and classroom interaction, even in large classrooms. When properly used it will allow for multi-directional feedback; teacher to student, student to teacher, and student to student. It also supports the use of digital ink for Tablet PCs in this interaction environment.

Computers and targeted software are increasingly common in the middle school algebra classroom, but the efficacy of computer-aided instruction on classroom achievement in middle school algebra remains unclear. Participants were 1452 middle-school algebra students who were seldom, occasionally, or often exposed to the algebra modules of Destination Math, an interactive mathematics software designed to be appropriate for in-school use. Data were collected over three years (2002–04) and included the cooperation of the algebra teachers, who were subsequently interviewed. Data were analyzed with ANOVA, ANCOVA, and multiple regression. Statistically significant effects were localized using pairwise tests with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Findings were considered statistically significant at p < .05. Students who received the greatest exposure to Destination Math achieved higher first and second semester algebra grades than participant groups who received less treatment, even when parent education, Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program status, subsidized lunch status, teacher, and grade in which the student took algebra (7th or 8th) were included as covariates. No significant differences were seen in the California Achievement Test (CAT4SS), a standardized statewide test of general mathematics, possibly because of content validity in that the statewide test was not algebra specific. Multiple regression revealed that parent education, gender, exposure to Destination Math, and GATE program status may be predictive of higher first and second semester grades for middle school students in algebra. Interviews with algebra teachers (n=6) generally revealed support, and suggested that improved performance came from improved compliance, specifically because interactive software captures and holds student attention and thereby increases focused time on task. Increased exposure to Destination Math computer software was associated with increased first and second semester classroom achievement in middle school algebra students. These findings provide empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of developmentally appropriate computer-aided instruction on achievement in the middle school algebra classroom.

This thesis provides an introduction to an advance in technology-aided instruction. Most of the research in this area has focused on PowerPoint® based applications or white board-centered electronic ink applications with the capability of broadcasting slides, ink annotations and so forth, used for presentation or classroom lectures. But these tools lack the capability of annotating on any kind of applications with active content playing (a movie or a simulation, for instance) in the background. Additional useful, but currently unavailable functionality would include the capability of broadcasting the presentation information, which can further consist of lecture slides, ink annotations, video of the desktop screen activity, or any other application program that might be used to demonstrate a concept or illuminate an idea. Therefore, the current research attempts to provide these facilities with a new tool, WriteOn. WriteOn improves both the presentation of information and the interactivity in classroom instruction, because it gives the instructor the ability to ink annotate on any application by using a virtual transparency surface, called electronic vellum or simply eVellum, which in effect resides on top of all desktop window applications. The instructor can enable the vellum at any point during the lecture and write on it to draw diagrams, make notes, emphasize points, or otherwise elucidate the presentation content. The instructor can also pierce the eVellum in order to switch to different applications, modify an applications parameters or operating values, or otherwise manipulate an operating program as part of a classroom demonstration or discussion. These features allow the instructor to demonstrate the dynamic operation of any application, which is an improvement on a static PowerPoint display of a program's operation. With WriteOn, the instructor can save the ink annotations along with desktop screen activity over an interval of time as a movie file and later make this file available to students. Alternatively, the instructor can transmit to the students the presentation information along with ink annotations in real-time so that the students can make their own notes on top of information being produced by the instructor. Thus the tool can be used to enhance the interactive lecturing process and help students to develop good note-taking processes and habits. WriteOn is also capable of saving the voice of the instructor, provided there is an audio device attached to the instructor's Tablet PC. However, broadcasting the instructor's voice is not yet fully supported. The WriteOn tool was developed using Microsoft's technologies: Windows Media Encoder® and DirectShow of DirectX®, as well as Microsoft's ConferenceXP API to achieve streaming of the presentation information. The first chapter explains the need for computer tools used for effective teaching purposes. The second chapter presents the architectural and technical details of WriteOn. Chapter three describes the architecture of the WriteOn tool. Chapters four through six explain the major software components of the system and also give the pros and cons of the DirectShow and Windows Media Encoder technologies. The seventh chapter provides an explanation of the usage of the tool by instructors and students. The eighth chapter presents the experiences of the instructors and students using the WriteOn tool in the classroom and concludes with a discussion of future work in this area. The Appendix V provides a developers guide for those who might like to expand on this open source code.

"CellSong" is a computer aided instructional (CAI) science module designed to help students recall information about cellular physiology. The program is designed to teach middle school learners the music mnemonic "Cell's Organelles" (© 1995 Karl Kimmel) in order to facilitate the recall of the targeted biological information. In addition to music, a computer animation is synched to the five minute music file to provide visual reinforcement for the song's lyrics. Two male teachers, from two different rural southern schools (mTeacher and sTeacher) implemented the "CellSong" module in their classes. Students in mTeacher's class consisted of 12 fifth grade biology students. The other group was initially composed of all of sTeacher's sixth grade science classes (n=38). This group was divided into the regular three classes on its second exposure to the program. The students filled out attitude surveys after five exposures to the program. All the sixth grade students took an aided recall tests immediately after the fifth exposure to the program. Thirteen of the sixth graders took the same test (retest) after seven days. Although the test scores were generally low, students who took the retest tended to be able recall the same items that they had recalled the week before. The fifth grade class took one recall test four days after their last exposure to the program and scored higher than the sixth grade from the other school. These students were more favorable in their responses on the attitudinal survey. Students in the fifth grade class (and female students in the sixth grade classes) tended to enjoy the module and music mnemonic strategy. The sixth grade boys reported not enjoying it.

This research sought to determine what relationship exists between time-on-task in computer-aided instruction (CAI) using Destinations courseware and progress in reading ability of developmental reading students as indicated by the reading portion of the Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) test. Time-on-task is the time during which a student actively works on Destinations activities, as recorded by the software management system. TASP, an exam required of all students in Texas public colleges, assesses reading, math, and writing skills. The population was made up of 482 students who took the TASP exam before and after CAI and who used Destinations CAI for remediation of reading skills. Null hypotheses were explored using Pearson correlation and linear multiple regression. The findings for the null hypotheses were the following: Ho1 - Correlation and linear regression correlation showed that time-on-task in Destinations CAI had no significant effect on the TASP scores of the population studied. Ho2 - Correlation and linear regression correlation showed that females made significantly better gains on the TASP test from CAI than males. Ho3 - Correlation and linear regression correlation showed that low-achiever students made no better gains on the TASP test from time-on-task in CAI than high-achiever students. Difference between the two group's gains was not statistically significant. Ho4 - The regression equations predicted the gain in TASP reading scores for less than 1% of the population studied. Only the regression equations for male students and female students separately were statistically significant. The researcher recommends replication of this study each semester to determine the effectiveness of CAI. Regular and systematic evaluation using pretest and posttest data will provide benchmarks so that the value of changes in instructional methods can be measured. This method of research can help to clarify questions that should be answered through other research methods.

Design of computer-aided instruction for basic statistics

The problem of this study concerns the performance of students in computer programming following exposure to a computer-aided instruction (CAI) drill in sequencing and practice exercises. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not student success rates improve in computer programming after completing CAI sequencing drills and practice exercises.