Message from the Editor

Abstract

Dear Members:

With the Fall semester cranking up, it's been a time of personal reflection on the content and method of instruction for our introductory graphics course.  Regardless of how many years I've taught this course, I always see it as a living entity that evolves with the changing technologies, student demographics, and my own experiences.  What I bring to this living course is a combination of my experiences in the classroom, my discussions with my colleagues, and what I'm reading in the literature.  Needless to say, the Journal is an important source for inspiration for this last element.  If there is a primary goal I have as editor, it's that the articles contained in this Journal has influenced how we teach our students - for the better.

While it may not seem immediately practical, it is crucial that we build our research in graphics instruction on a solid theoretical base.  The opening article by Hartman and Branoff continues a series of articles exploring both the nature of constraint-based modeling and how the learning theory might apply to designing effective instruction.  Harris and Sadowski's article also looks at theory, but from a pragmatic, organizational standpoint; how does a teacher-scholar in graphics learning and instruction gather the resources to do their research and get tenure in the contemporary institute of higher education?

The article by Elrod and Stewart, coming from the other end, discusses the equally important issue of implementation.  That is, how do you implement a course revision that better meets the identified goals for student understanding?  Finally, the article by Seth, et al. drills down even closer to the classroom experience.  In another in a series of articles, the authors look at implementation issues of bringing VR technology to the graphics classroom.