_Effective Teaching and Learning of Writing_ describes the current state of the art in research on the way in which children acquire skills in written text production and defines the features of instruction that can play a part in teaching such skills. The book discusses research by 'reflective practitioners', the use of computers in the solution of educational problems and formal research into effective approaches to the teaching of writing in primary and secondary education. In the (...) concluding section feedback procedures and effective peer-group interaction between pupils and interaction between pupil and teacher are focused upon. (shrink)

The systemic complexity of sustainable development imposes a major cognitive challenge to students’ learning. Faculty can explore new approaches in the classroom to teach the topic successfully, including the use of technology. We conducted an experiment to compare the effectiveness of a simulation vis-à-vis a case-based method to teach sustainable development. We found that both pedagogical methods are effective for teaching this concept, although our results support the idea that simulations are slightly more effective than case studies, (...) particularly to teach its multidimensional and inter-temporal nature. Therefore, our findings suggest the use of both simulations and case studies as pedagogical tools to convey the main ideas associated with sustainable development. (shrink)

Legal ethics, particularly at undergraduate level, should incorporate the expertise and teaching of someone outside traditional legal education and professions. Most appropriately, legal ethics education should involve an applied ethicist. Whilst lawyers are very good at identifying critical legal issues, it is the ethical issues that are of concern here. I therefore propose that because laws often have a deep-rooted ethical foundation and students need to appreciate this to truly understand the aim, nature and objective of the relevant law, (...) legal ethics should be taught in cooperation with an applied ethicist. I begin by creating a foundation for my argument about using an applied ethicist by addressing ethics teaching at undergraduate level. Next, I make a case for ethics teaching beyond professional ethics and teaching to codes of conduct. It is at this juncture, in the third section, where I explain the benefits of involving an applied ethicist in legal education. Finally, I will address possible concerns related to integrating an applied ethicist into Law School teaching. (shrink)

Many factors affect the teaching of massively open online courses. In this study, to explore the factors that influence the effective teaching of MOOCs, a large number of relevant studies are analyzed. Based on grounded theory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 students and teachers who used MOOCs for online teaching. The interview data were subjected to four research processes –open coding, axial coding, selective coding, and saturation testing– to explore the factors influencing MOOCs’ effective (...) teaching and the interactions between them. The results demonstrate that: Effective teachers, effective tuition, effective communication, active online learning, social support guarantees, and online course design have important positive effects on effective teaching, while only certain online learning behaviors will seriously affect the teaching effectiveness of MOOC, resulting in negative effects. Effective communication is essential for effective teaching in MOOCs; effective teachers are the leading factor, thus teachers should take the initiative to study and understand the students to understand their various learning needs and difficulties. Reasonable and effective classroom teaching design is key to improving MOOCs’ teaching efficiency. E-learning is respected, cared for, and valued by society, including cognition, emotion, and learning platform support from family, school, teachers, and classmates, and has an important impact on students’ motivation and the effects of online learning. The results of this study further clarify factors influencing effective teaching of MOOCs, thus helping to enrich and supplement the theory of effective teaching and evaluation and providing theoretical guidance for teachers to effectively implement MOOC teaching. (shrink)

Educational theorists working within the tradition of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas’s thought, posit teaching to be a site of implied ethics, that is, a realm in which non-violent or less violent relations to the other are possible. Derrida links ethics to the realm of friendship, enabling one to understand teaching as a site of the ethics of friendship. I clarify how friendship, as a re-metaphorization of differance, opens us up to a conception of teaching that provides (...) a counterpoint to the current discourse of ‘effective’ teaching. I draw out the implications of the Derridean conception of friendship for the educator in his or her philosophical orientation towards teaching and attempt to show that friendship points the educator towards an orientation that enables a ‘fine tuning’ and opening up of one’s sense of obligation and responsibility to one’s students in ways that cannot be circumscribed to current or institutionally sanctioned ways of understanding the activity of teaching, especially as it is often envisioned in American public education. (shrink)

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between knowledge management systems, particularly emphasizing knowledge acquisition and dissemination, and their impact on academic staff's teaching motivation. By employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), data from 676 academic staff at higher education institutions in Vietnam was analyzed, revealing a complex interplay of factors. Notably, positive associations were found between knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and teaching motivation. However, the interaction effect of knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination appeared to be negatively associated with (...) teaching motivation. This suggests the possible existence of a resource curse of knowledge in improving staff’s teaching motivation. It is recommended that the knowledge systems are refined to reduce complexity and that staff are trained with better knowledge processing methods for reducing resource curse risks. (shrink)

The problem of inadequate professional training for graduate students in teaching and pedagogy has recently come into sharp relief. Pro- viding teacher training for philosophy graduate students through for-credit courses has been recommended as a solution to this problem. This paper provides an overview of the problem, identifies several aims such a course should have, and provides a detailed overview of a course satisfying those aims. By providing a detailed outline of the course, this paper can act as a (...) resource for faculty tasked with teaching such a course. Finally, we justify the pedagogical decisions made in the design of this course to prepare fa- cilitators to more effectively teach it, to allow facilitators to make informed and intentional decisions when adapting the course to their program, and as a demonstration of what we take to be some of the best practices in teach- ing and pedagogy. That is, the design of the course is informed by the very material covered in the course. (shrink)

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common methods of instruction used in business ethics could contribute to the development of higher levels of moral judgment competence for students. To determine the effectiveness of these methods, moral judgment competence levels (...) for undergraduate and graduate students from three institutions were measured and compared based upon the pedagogical method used in a business class. Significant differences were found for moral reasoning and moral competence scores depending on the method used for ethics instruction. Students in classes with more highly integrated ethics coverage scored higher in moral reasoning and moral competence. (shrink)

Using a Solomon four-group design, we investigate the effect of a case-based critical thinking intervention on students’ critical thinking skills. We randomly assign 31 sessions of business classes to four groups and collect data from three sources: in-class performance, university records, and Internet surveys. Our 2 × 2 ANOVA results showed no significant between-subjects differences. Contrary to our expectations, students improve their critical thinking skills, with or without the intervention. Female and Caucasian students improve their critical thinking skills, but males (...) and non-Caucasian do not. Positive performance goals and negative mastery goals enhance and decrease improvements of their CTA scores, respectively. ACT and age are related to pre- and post-test. Gender is related to pre-test. GPA is related to post-test. Results shed light on the Pygmalion effect, the Galatea effect, ability, motivation, and opportunity as signals for human capital, and business ethics. (shrink)

A sensible, workable approach to the teaching of business ethics, based on an understanding of how people actually learn and on the need to start with a clear ...

While the subject matter and conclusions of scholarly meta-ethical debate are of great import, it is quite difficult to convey this material to students in applied ethics courses where the principal teaching goals are an introduction to pressing moral dilemmas and to the critical thinking skills needed to approach them. After a brief discussion of common obstacles to teaching applied ethics, this paper presents two strategies for teaching applied ethics which remain faithful to the complexities of meta-ethical (...) theory. Under the “advocate approach,” the instructor argues for one particular moral theory and teaches rival theories and moral issues with reference to the preferred theory. This allows for specific moral responses to moral questions studied and satisfies student desire for concreteness of answers in a philosophy course. Under the “outfitter approach,” the instructor refrains from committing to one ethical theory and spends more time addressing advantages and drawbacks of each position, thereby showing the limited scope of many moral theories and communicating to students the risk of taking up a moral position too hastily. The author relates both approaches to meta-ethical concerns such as the possibility of moral truths and moral certainty, the relationship between competing moral systems, and the status of a moral theory. (shrink)

Teachers of science-based education in Malaysian secondary schools, especially those in the field of physics, often find their students facing huge difficulties in dealing with conceptual ideas in physics, resulting thus in a lack of interest towards the subject. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the Brain-Based Teaching Approach (henceforth BBTA) in dealing with the issues of the conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics of Form Four students in secondary science schools in the state of (...) Kedah, situated in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia, and also their learning motivation towards the subject of physics. The BBTA is based on the Brain-Based Learning Principles, where detailed attention is given to seven main steps: (1) activation; (2) clarify the outcome and paint big picture of the lesson; (3) making connection; (4) doing the learning activity; (5) demonstrate student understanding; (6) review for student recall and retention/closure; and (7) preview the new topic. The effectiveness of the BBTA within the targeted context was then assessed in a quasi-experimental research approach involving 100 Form Four students from two secondary science schools. Data collected using the Test of Conceptual Understanding of Newtonian Physics and the Questionnaire of Physics Learning Motivation were then analysed descriptively and inferentially. The results obtained revealed that the BBTA was in fact exceedingly effective in dealing with the problems aforementioned. It was found that students who received physics education taught using the BBTA possessed a better conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics and also a higher learning motivation in the subject of physics, compared to students who received physics education taught using conventional teaching methods. (shrink)

On Becoming an Effective Teacher presents the final unpublished writings of Rogers and as such has a unique historical value. It also documents the research results of four highly relevant, related but independent studies which comprise the biggest collection of data ever accumulated to test a person-centred theory in the field of education. This body of comprehensive research on effective teaching was accomplished over a twenty-year period in 42 States in the U.S. and in six other countries (...) including the UK, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Israel, and Mexico, and is highly relevant to the concerns of teachers, psychologists, students, and parents. The principal findings of the research in this book show that teachers and schools can significantly improve their effectiveness through programs focusing on facilitative interpersonal relationships. Teachers who either naturally have, or are trained to have empathy, genuineness (congruence), and who prize their students (positive regard) create an important level of trust in the classroom and exert significant positive effects on student outcomes including achievement scores, interpersonal functioning, self-concept, and attendance. The dialogues between Rogers and Lyon offer a unique and timeless perspective on teaching, counselling and learning. The work of Reinhard Tausch on person-centered teaching to counselors, parents, athletics, and even textbook materials, as well as research on the interactions of teachers and students, is among the most thorough and rigorous research ever accomplished on the significance and potential of a person-centered approach to teaching and learning. (shrink)

The feeling thinking talking intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children who were individually tested using objective tests on grammar, vocabulary (...) and working memory before and after the FTT intervention, and in a follow-up about one year after T1. After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine the development of moral judgement in first-year and senior baccalaureate nursing students. These students were enrolled in three separate nursing programmes, each of which differed significantly in ethical content. The sample totalled 180 students enrolled in three New England programmes. Programme A included an ethics course taught by a professor of ethics. Programme B integrated ethical issues into all nursing theory courses. Programme C did not include ethical content in theory courses. The (...) design was of a developmental cross-sectional study. The dependent variable was the development of moral judgement, as measured by Rest’s Defining Issues Test. The independent variable was the amount of ethics taught in the nursing programmes and the level of academic education. The senior nursing students from programme A scored significantly higher than the other senior groups on the Defining Issues Test. The conclusion is that an ethics course with group participation and a decision-making element significantly facilitated nursing students’ development of moral judgement. (shrink)

Higher education continues to see a shift toward online course delivery. Many professional graduate programs offer online courses when content does not necessarily require face-to-face contact. The use of movies to teach ethics and professionalism to medical students is not a new pedagogical approach. At a university in the United States, a shift in a tracked physical therapy curriculum triggered a course in ethics and professionalism to be delivered earlier in the program, leaving students without prior clinical experience before starting (...) the course. The instructor revised this online course using movies to provide context for the topics covered making them relatable to physical therapy practice. This article describes student reactions to the implementation of movies into this course. Students valued the addition of the movies as they provided context using relevant health care situations, ultimately helping them relate the concepts to the physical therapy profession. (shrink)

ProblemThe question of what factors drive the effectiveness of ethics teaching in medicine has remained largely unanswered in German-speaking countries. Due to the lack of scientifically sound evaluation studies, it is sometimes only possible to assume how effective certain teaching formats and methods actually are in ethics courses. The selection of teaching formats and methods that ethics lecturers use to achieve a specified learning objective is often not made according to evidence-based criteria, but on the basis (...) of positive or negative teaching experiences and direct feedback from students.Methods and argumentsIn this article, after a brief overview of evaluation procedures of ethical competences, findings from selected international effectiveness studies are presented and discussed in terms of their relevance for teaching medical ethics.Results and conclusionAlthough the findings from these evaluation and meta-studies come from other, related fields such as research ethics and other teaching contexts, they can serve as an impetus for discussion and contribute to defining cornerstones in order to design effective ways to teach ethics in medicine in the German-speaking countries. (shrink)

The current study explored the effects of using digital flashcards and mobile devices on learning academic vocabulary. The participants were 86 university students majoring in Psychology in two experimental conditions and one control group. A list of 361 core academic words frequently used in Psychology was taught to the participants using different materials, and the learning outcomes were compared across the three groups. Accordingly, the participants in the experimental group 1 used a DF application, participants in the experimental group 2 (...) used traditional materials, and those in the control group were given a list of target words with their definitions. Receptive knowledge of the target words was tested before and after the treatment, and the learning outcomes were compared across the groups using one-way between-groups ANOVA. The findings of the study indicated that using DFs enhanced students’ engagement with learning their discipline-specific academic vocabulary and that experimental group 1 outperformed those participants in other learning conditions. The findings add to the existing literature on mobile-assisted vocabulary learning and provide empirical support for the effectiveness of such platforms for learning academic vocabulary. The implications of the study were discussed in terms of the affordances provided by DFs on mobile devices and corpus-based word lists for informing vocabulary learning components in teaching English for Academic Purposes. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to implement the teaching personal and social responsibility model in a competitive context analyzing the differences between the intervention and the control group on personal and social responsibility, prosocial behaviors, and self-efficacy in youth soccer players. Participants were 34 youth soccer players between the ages of 14 and 16 years old divided into two different soccer teams of 17 members, corresponding to the control and intervention groups. The implementation of the TPSR model took (...) place during 9 months, including initial and ongoing coach training, program implementation, and a series of expert-led seminars for athletes. The questionnaires used to collect data were the Personal and Social Responsibility Questionnaire, Prosocial Behavior Scale, and two Children’s Self-efficacy Scales. Results indicated that the TPSR intervention group obtained an increase in post-test levels of personal and social responsibility, prosocial behavior, and self-efficacy due to the application of the TPSR model compared with control group that used a conventional sport teaching methodology. The conclusion is that the TPSR model has the potential to be adapted and implemented with flexibility in youth sport competition contexts in order to improve personal and social responsibility, prosocial behavior, and self-efficacy. (shrink)

This study examined the perceived effects of examination special centres on teaching and learning of English language and the quality of education in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey design. All the 123 English language teachers from 31 secondary schools, five secondary school principals, three religious priests and three traditional leaders in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria were sampled for the study. The researchers developed a 15-item-structured questionnaire for data (...) collection from the 31 teachers; while 3 structured interview questions were used to elicit responses from the principals, religious priests and traditional leaders. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the data collected with questionnaire; while the oral interview was analysed qualitatively through thematic analysis. The study revealed that examination special centres have detrimental effect on the teaching and learning of English language in secondary schools and the quality of education in Nsukka Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria. It was recommended among others that private and public secondary schools, and tutorial centres that have been turned into examination special centres should be closed down by Enugu State Ministry of Education. (shrink)

This study aims to achieve the goal of cultivating and reserving emerging professional talents in social security law, improve the curriculum and mechanism of entrepreneurship education, and improve students’ entrepreneurial willingness and entrepreneurial ability. Deep learning technology is used to study the psychological effects of entrepreneurship education for college students majoring in social security law. Firstly, the concept of entrepreneurial psychology is elaborated and summarized. A related model is designed using the theory of proactive personality and planned behavior through questionnaire (...) survey and regression analysis to explore the relationship between students’ entrepreneurial psychology and entrepreneurial intention. Secondly, an entrepreneurship education method based on deep learning is proposed, and a teaching model of multi-dimensional collaborative entrepreneurship education practice is constructed. On this basis, the deep learning algorithm combines the characteristics of the personalized recommendation algorithm to construct an efficient Problem-Based Learning learning resource recommendation algorithm. Finally, the proposed method is tested. The results show that the Significant value of students who have participated in PBL deep learning courses is less than 0.05, indicating that PBL significantly improves students’ learning ability and the ability to deal with entrepreneurial environments. The results verify the impact of entrepreneurial learning on entrepreneurial intentions. The research on PBL online learning recommendation system shows that the proposed recommendation algorithm is superior to the traditional recommendation algorithm in both roots mean square error value and mean absolute error value on both datasets. The proposed method provides a new idea of reform and innovation to cultivate social security law professionals and the cultivation of the reserve model. (shrink)

To determine the effectiveness of current ethical teaching and to suggest ways to reform the current ethical curriculum in light of students’ perspectives and experiences. Students of Dow Medical College were selected for this cross-sectional study conducted between the year 2020 till 2023. The sample size was 387, calculated by OpenEpi. A questionnaire consisting of 17 close-ended questions was used to collect data from participants selected via stratified random sampling. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part included (...) the demographics. While the second contained 15 questions designed to assess the participants’ current teaching of ethics and effective ways to further improve it. The data obtained were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistics 26. Out of the 376 students who gave consent, the majority of the respondents (64.6%) encountered situations where they felt that their current teaching of ethics was insufficient and (54%) believed that the current teaching of ethics could be improved and made further effective. Practical sessions, PBLs (problem-based learning), case analysis, and ward visits were some of the ways the participants believed could help improve the teaching of medical ethics. Most students (92.8%) agreed that external factors like burnout and excessive workload have an impact on medical professionals’ ethical practices. In light of our study, a refined curriculum with a focus on ethical teaching must be established, with input from students to ensure that the medical students have the necessary expertise to manage an ethical dilemma. (shrink)

In this article I explore the pedagogical value of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s philosophical concepts for helping make an ‘event’ of thought, with a view towards fostering deep learning in Chinese students' learning theory and criticism in a second language. Paying attention to the qualitative role of bodies, humour and creativity alongside an expanded trans-personal concept of ‘educational life forms’ that stretches out to include an affective assemblage of inhuman elements (such as art and technology), I explore how Deleuze (...) and Guattari’s philosophical models provide a ethical alternative to corporate, Confucian and Cartesian models otherwise inhibiting students and teachers in the modern Sino-international university context. (shrink)

In this study, the impacts of two different “methods” for teaching ethics as part of the religious education in the Swedish upper secondary school were compared by means of a non-randomized controlled trial in two parts, involving 542 students. The question was which “method” had the greatest capacity to generate long-term ethical awareness in the students. The intervention condition consisted of students whose teachers were instructed to teach according to the Three Step Model, a teaching method influenced by (...) research concerning how moral autonomy and ethical awareness could be increased by means of instruction and training. The control condition consisted of students whose teachers were instructed to teach basically as usual but with some added guidelines. During the trial, all students were given a pre-test before the ethics section had started and a post-test 10–12 weeks after it was finished. When quantified and summarized, the results showed an advantage of the intervention condition in measure B but an advantage of the control condition in measure A ; however, the advantage of the intervention condition was clearer and stronger. Even though the intervention students did not experience a stronger development, they appeared to have learned significantly more, not least in terms of procedural knowledge in ethical problem solving. The tentative conclusion is therefore that the Three Step Model is a more effective method for increasing ethical awareness, at least if one defines ethical awareness and measures it the way it was done in this study. (shrink)

This user-friendly guide offers pragmatic recommendations on teaching various elements of algebra, including trigonometry, finite mathematics, and statistics to nontraditional students.

The decline of the Liberal Arts in the 21st century is rooted in late 20th century trends, including grade inflation, the decline of rational authority, the rise of anonymous authority, and consumerism, which abets the tendency to elevate the pursuit of students' "self-esteem" above scholarly rigor. While the Left and the Right are apt to blame their ideological opponents, both share some responsibility for this state of affairs, which can only be remedied if they own up to their own erroneous (...) oversights, and agree to work together. (shrink)

The aim was to investigate and assess the acceptance of virtual classes among Arabic language student teachers during and beyond covid-19. Quantitative research is carried out with the aim to assess the acceptance of virtual classes among Arabic language student teachers during and beyond covid-19. It uses a survey-based methodology to obtain data from the respondents. An online questionnaire was used to collect data via Facebook and WhatsApp groups. 450 questionnaire responses were received. They were 300 males, and 150 females. (...) Results indicated that the student behavioral intention to use educational technology is positively affected by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use. PU, PEOU yielded a coefficient of multiple regression of 0. 450 and a multiple correlation square of 0. 435. This shows that 43.5% of the total variance in student behavioral intention to use educational technology is accounted for by the combination of PU, PEOU. Efforts to integrate educational technology into teacher education and Arabic language student teachers education programs are necessary. (shrink)

This paper presents findings from qualitative research on teachers’ experiences of practising philosophy in Icelandic schools and its effects on their work and students. The research question is: What are the teachers’ experiences of teaching philosophy in compulsory education, and how do these experiences shape their practices and affect their students? Nine philosophy teachers from South-West Iceland were interviewed from January to June 2021. Findings show both opportunities and challenges of practising philosophy with students. Opportunities consist of students’ training (...) in democratic living, reflective thinking, and a better understanding of various subject matters if the tools of philosophy are used. For teachers, the main challenge of doing philosophy is the uncertainty in the classroom when teaching through dialogue. (shrink)

With the post-pandemic situation, digitalization has revolutionized physical teaching into online teaching and has become a common practice. The engagement of students has been essential for their good academic performance which can be ensured by the active participation of the students and this is a real challenge for the teachers. However, sometimes in online and physical teaching, teachers are also involved in rationalized knowledge hiding, which leads to the disengagement of the students, and this ultimately affects their (...) academic performance. Therefore, the present study aims at measuring the students’ disengagement in the teaching classes, both physical and online. The population of the present study is the students from the universities of China belonging to different fields of study. The sample size for this study is 246. The data are obtained through the Questionnaire surveys. The existing study has assessed the role of teachers’ rationalized knowledge hiding behaviors in the disengagement of students and their lesser grades. It has been found that rationalized knowledge hiding in online teaching does not affect students’ performance; however, it makes students disengage from their studies in physical classes. Interestingly, the rationalized knowledge hiding in physical teaching has negatively affected the performance of the students. Furthermore, the mediating role of the students’ disengagement has been found significant in this study. Organizations, especially universities, can ensure maximum knowledge sharing by motivating the instructors through positive reinforcements. This study will be useful for the curriculum coordinators of different departments in ensuring the maximum outcome of the teaching classes, workshops, and seminars conducted either physically or online to avoid the rationalized knowledge hiding of the teachers. (shrink)

Physicians, nurses, and healthcare professional students openly participated in the medical atrocities of the Shoah. In this paper, a physician-bioethicist and nurse-bioethicist examine the role of hierarchical power imbalances in medical education, which often occur because trainees are instructed ‘to do so’ by their superiors during medical education and clinical care. We will first examine the nature of medical and nursing education under National Socialism: were there cultural, educational, moral and legal pressures which entrenched professional hierarchies and thereby commanded obedience (...) in the face of an ever-diminishing individual and collective conscience? We will then outline relevant parallel features in modern medical education, including the effects of hierarchy in shaping ethical decision making and conscience formation. We then propose several solutions for the prevention of the negative effects of hierarchical power imbalances in medical education: universal Holocaust education in medical and nursing schools; formative and experiential ethics instruction, which teaches students to ‘speak up’ when ethical issues arise; acceptance of, and adherence to, a personalistic philosophical anthropology in healthcare; support for rigorous conscience protection laws for minority ethical views that respect the role of integrity without compromising patient care. (shrink)

Can video games teach students about the history and philosophy of science? This paper reports the results of a study investigating the effects of playing an educational video game on students’ knowledge of Galileo’s life and times, the nature of scientific evidence, and Aristotle’s and Galileo’s views of the cosmos. In the game, students were immersed in a computer simulation of 16th century Venice where they interacted with an avatar of Galileo and other characters. Over a period of two weeks, (...) 71 undergraduates were exposed to lectures about Galileo and the Copernican revolution in a traditional classroom setting. However, only half of the students also played the game. The other half were only exposed to lectures. The knowledge of both groups was assessed at the beginning and end of the two-week period. The results demonstrated objective improvements in knowledge for the experimental group while the control group showed virtually no change. Implications of these findings for teaching and learning the history and philosophy of science are discussed. (shrink)