This study explored community college and university instructors' and students' perceptions of online welcome messages in college courses. Based on survey responses from 417 participants (72 instructors and 345 students), instructors and students agreed that a welcome message helps students get to know their instructor and how the course is set…

Previous research has indicated that students' academic engagement is related to their emotional support from teachers. However, there is scarce evidence on how teacher emotional support relates to students' academic engagement. Given the potential role of positive academic emotions in learning, this study investigated the mediating role of…

Supporting instructors through large-scale curricular changes to cross-disciplinary programs such as general education is a complex challenge. In this case-based narrative, we describe how one large R1 university in the Southwest United States developed and implemented an instructor support program during a large-scale general education program…

This study used critical discourse analysis to explore how higher education administrators in the United States talk about how they assess and support online programmes. Specifically, we hoped to analyse administrators' perceptions of their responsibilities over online programmes, faculty and students, to attain where they may need more training.…

Educational research has emphasized the importance of help-seeking in learning and engagement. However, little is known about the impact that help-giving may potentially have on student engagement and academic achievement. There is also a lack of knowledge about the environmental factors that might facilitate help-giving. This study investigated…

Evidence points to the existence of several stressors and resources that contribute to students' engagement in teacher education, but more research is needed to integrate both kinds of factors within a common analytical framework. This study proposes such integration by testing a stress process model, in which stressors and resources combine with…

Higher education institutions must prepare students for success in the dynamic knowledge economy by providing a high-quality educational experience. As the world and our understanding of learning processes continually evolve, educators face the challenge of developing innovative strategies to engage and motivate students in their own learning.…

In higher education teaching, a leadership lens is used to conceptualize teaching quality as 'instructor-leadership'. Instructor-leadership research has largely focused on transactional and transformational leadership. But, increasing student distress along with the existence of mediocrity and abusiveness in higher education teaching warrants the…

The authors' scholarly reflective narrative addresses the rewards and challenges of an immersive experiential active learning pedagogy. They ask, "was it worth it?" for students and for themselves. Although research evidence makes it clear that active learning benefits student learning and engagement, designing a course to incorporate…

It is no secret when COVID-19 surfaced, students found themselves learning online as well as tending to other life disruptions simultaneously. Due to the pandemic stressors, it seems reasonable to believe that the COVID-19 lockdown has negatively impacted student engagement in higher education. Knowing student engagement has positive implications…

High-Impact Practices (HIPs), as adopted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), are teaching and learning practices in higher education that promote student engagement and learning as measured on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This study replicated a previous study conducted by the authors…

This project seeks to understand the emergence of mathematical meanings mediated by learners' interactions with multiple artifacts. Extending our prior work which took an enactivist approach and revealed the dynamics of embodied interactions fundamental to understanding fraction division, we now employ a semiotic lens to illuminate how learners…

Traditional commercial textbooks used in postsecondary courses are often problematic due to their rigidity, tendency to mirror the dominant culture, and the substantial cost imposed upon students (Junkala et al., 2022; Lambert & Funk, 2022; Wu, 2022). Although replacing these texts with open educational resources (OER) can facilitate more…

Formative assessment is a powerful approach to inform, direct, and enhance teaching and learning. To deploy it in classrooms, teachers are expected to be assessment-capable. However, few studies have explored the extent to which teachers are literate in formative assessment applications and their levels of literacy, especially in Chinese tertiary…

Engaged learning seeks to cultivate integrative approaches that require students to use multiple points of view or approaches in their coursework. Similarly, civically engaged courses ask students to consider public problems that involve multiple stakeholders, institutions, and policies. We are interested in whether courses designed to meet civic…