Much research has shown that discussion boards (DBs) in online learning can be as useful as any physical discussion (Prenksy, 2003; Ransdell, 2013). Prenksy was one of the first researchers to emphasize that online learning had to be motivating, just like any other type of learning. Students will only do what they believe will help them learn.…

Increasingly postgraduate courses are delivered online to meet professionals' demands for life-long learning. The research examined the efficacy of students critiquing each other's seminal work, by either direct exchange or via online fora, as a structured part of their formal assessments. A total of 377 students across three experimental and two…

Discussion forums provide students with accessible platforms for group discussions in e-learning environments. They also help lecturers to track and check student discussions. To improve student learning, it is important for lecturers to identify students' cognitive engagement in discussion forums. Therefore, this study aims to investigate…

The purpose of the present study was to elaborate the effect of providing the constructive feedback to open and distant students who enrolled in the online learning program. The participants were 30 students who studied in eight sessions of the online course. They had to discuss course content in available chat forum of the Learning LMS and…

Discussion forums are important components of online courses because of the collaboration and community they foster, and the language used within the discussion forums may be influential in this development. In particular, studying the gendered language patterns of discussion forums can help gain insight into students' state of mind and propensity…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of theoretically-guided, instructional design strategies in an online learning module that was implemented in four undergraduate sport management and recreation courses. The study was framed within Social Cognitive Theory, a well-studied model for adult learning, and several instructional design…

To combat high failure and student drop-out rates, universities have developed strategies to monitor online student engagement through measurable activities. In this study, we explore if and how these monitoring activities accurately measure online engagement. We interviewed nine highly engaged online third-year students throughout a semester to…

This paper demonstrated the use of the supervised Machine Learning (ML) for text classification to predict students' final course grades in a hybrid Advanced Statistics course and exhibited the potential of using ML classified messages to identify students at risk of course failure. We built three classification models with training data of 76,936…

Support of students' social and emotional learning plays an important role in a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS). The study by Schumacher (2014) summarized in this research to practice brief, "Talking Circles for Adolescent Girls in an Urban High School: A Restorative Practices Program for Building Friendships and Developing Emotional…

For three months, Japanese university learners (N=40) utilized the YoTeach! application by Pedagogic and Active Learning Mobile Solutions (PALMS) Project, PolyU as a part of their English discussion class. Researchers re-purposed the application, which originally was designed to be an online classroom backchannel, as an asynchronous, pre-task…

This article is a reflection on the National Further Education and Training (FET) Learner Forum (NFLF). It uses the NFLF as an example of learner voice in practice, retracing the history of the NFLF as a means of reflecting on some of the benefits and challenges of bringing learner voice into public policy. The article outlines educational debates…

Students today are increasingly engaged in the use of digital information and communication technologies. The Internet continues to grow and more and more young people are using it worldwide. Educational practices, however, have been slow to adapt to the corresponding developments. For example, Internet forums are generally ignored in most…

Because Journal Clubs (JClubs) represent valued educational tools, we often assume optimality of Journal Club practices. We analyze here JClubs records from a research group to identify factors that modify how much attendants benefit from discussing a paper. We demonstrate that attendants benefit most from papers focusing on systems similar to…

Adolescents increasingly use online, peer-to-peer platforms as a site of identity exploration and development. Prior research suggests that experiences online can foster feelings of connection and belonging, as well as promote a willingness to engage in self-disclosure during a critical developmental period; however, only recently has research…

A large literature establishes the benefits of discussions for stimulating student engagement and critical thinking skills. However, we know considerably less about the differential effects of various discussion environments on student learning. In this study, we assess student perceptions concerning the benefits of discussions in an upper-level…