Institutions across the U.S. have designed and implemented first-year experience programs that have gone a long way toward affecting student success. Retention rates have increased at some institutions as a result of these interventions, and first-year students often get the support they need to negotiate the transition into college. Now many…

The two case studies presented explore the potential offered by in-depth qualitative analysis of students' online discussion to enhance our understanding of how students learn. Both cases are used to illustrate how the monitoring and moderation of online student group communication can open up a "window into learning", providing us with…

The development of critical thinking skills is a fundamental educational objective and is regarded as an essential component of the general education of college students. To further this objective, this study investigates instructional strategies for improving the thinking skills of college students engaged in collaborative learning endeavors.…

This study is the seventh in a series of investigations on the effectiveness of the Student Teams Achievement Division (STAD) approach to cooperative learning among college students. The STAD approach features heterogeneous teams of four to six students who tutor each other on course materials and prepare each other for weekly quizzes. Students…

In many advertising programs, students spend a great deal of time coming up with creative strategies, writing copy, and preparing layouts based on objectives provided by a client (or professor) and directed to an already established target market. Seldom, however, do students learn firsthand about the advertising decision making on the part of…

On-line collaboration is becoming increasingly common in education and with organisations. It is believed that this can in itself cause stress for collaborators. We believe that in some ways stress can be designed out of on line collaborative exercises through management of the on-line working processes. This paper investigates methods of reducing…

Feminist pedagogy is characterized by a sustained effort to acknowledge the dialectical relationship between the learner and that which is to be learned. In a feminist classroom the teacher insists upon the integration of personal experience and affective response with subject matter, discourages students from being passive recipients of…

Enrollment in a foreign language course increasingly is becoming an essential part of college students' programs of study. As a result, there has been an influx of students with diverse backgrounds, interests, and aspirations enrolling in foreign language courses in order to fulfill degree requirements. Unfortunately, many students underachieve in…

Examines whether computer networks can empower second-language learners, focusing on three aspects: autonomy, equality, and learning skills. The article concludes that these networks, appropriately used, can empower students, and provides pedagogical suggestions for effective computer networking in the second- and foreign-language classroom. (66…

Used computer-mediated communication (CMC) to support postgraduate students in distance-education contexts, examining how CMC could reduce transactional distance and noting the construction of learning communities within an online environment and the socioacademic nature of such communities. Results indicate that CMC can support the construction…

This article describes how second language learners become more autonomous in the language learning process, how the cooperative learning strategy helps improve the learning outcome, and how second language learners apply learning strategies to learning tasks both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. Three activities were offered:…

In a unique class of combined elementary and secondary teacher education majors, this triangulated qualitative study investigated how cooperative structures affect student attitudes and motivation. In particular, the study examined students' preferences for instruction, students' attitudes and motivation related to their preference for cooperative…

This paper describes one course offered in the Economics Department at the Drexel University (DU), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that uses directed learning and focuses on public sector problems. As the opening notes, the course is titled "Learn by DU-ing" ("DU" is a reference to Drexel University) and offers a menu of…

Asynchronous discussion allows students to read and respond "out-of-time." This form of online discussion, as experienced in a college literacy course, creates a text of talk that has the potential to be reflective given the freedom participants have in their response time. However, students often struggle with reflection. Instructors…

A course at De Montfort University (Great Britain) in industrial analysis with 111 students was taught using small student teams to research specific industries. It emphasized the relationship between theory, research, and industrial applications. The experiment provided students with insight into effective research methods and cooperative work.…