As faculty members in an instructional design and technology (IDT) program, we wanted to help our graduate students better understand and experience how designers design in the real world. We aimed to design a reflective and collaborative learning environment where we sparked students to engage in reflection, ideation, and the iterative process of…

The cultivation of language literacy has been one of the main goals of the educational process. However, students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SLD) are usually unable to keep up with the rest of their class as they face difficulties in their reading and later in their written speech skills. The aim of this paper is to present a brief…

Using tools to support learning design has been proven feasible in improving the integration of technology into the curriculum. However, novice teachers are faced with two major issues, including their limited experience in learning design and limited ability in using new technologies. Learning map is explored and developed in e-Textbooks to…

With the advancement of digital technology, software and applications are overwhelmingly accessible to teachers and students. Digital designs for teaching and learning are highly encouraged by scholars as they prepare students of today for the demands of the future workforce. Thus, many educators use available social networks for their classrooms.…

Learning-by-teaching has been identified as one of the more effective approaches to learning. Recently, educational researchers have investigated virtual environments in order to utilize the learning-by-teaching pedagogy. In a face-to-face learning-by-teaching situation, the role of the learners is to teach their peers or instructors. In virtual…

Previous studies have shown that students often ignore molecular mechanisms when describing genetic phenomena. Specifically, students tend to directly link genes to their encoded traits, ignoring the role of proteins as mediators in this process. We tested the ability of 10th grade students to connect genes to traits through proteins, using…

After spending a year working on the development of a new online Master's programme in higher education, members of the development team were interviewed to reveal their thoughts about the nature of the programme. The dialogue of each interview was summarised as a concept map. Analysis of the resulting maps included a modified Bernsteinian…

This study aimed at exploring the quality of teaching materials developed by prospective mathematics teachers and their viewpoints on developing teaching materials. It was carried out with 170 prospective teachers from 4 classes in the Fall Semester of 2014-2015 Academic Year. During the first 8 weeks of the 14-week-long study, the theoretical…

There is growing interest in the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) in a variety of contexts. Continuing professional development (CPD) among practitioners in the effective adoption of OER and OEP is critical in this scenario. Massive open online courses (MOOCs), which also grew as part of the open…

Effective reading strategies, including using graphic organizers, question answering, and considering story structures, can help students improve reading comprehension. However, these reading strategies are not fully supported by both printed books and e-books. Students who master these reading strategies can learn effectively. By contrast,…

The use of external representations has a potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially in hypothesis generation and scientific reasoning, which are typical difficulties encountered by students. This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three-dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image,…

Group discussions are critical for students constructing new understanding and knowledge in both classroom and distance education. Tagclouds can provide an intuitive overview about the group's collective knowledge and could potentially be used as an anchor for group discussions. The effect of using tagclouds as anchors for group discussions was…

This book provides an archival forum for researchers, academics, practitioners, and industry professionals interested and/or engaged in the reform of the ways of teaching and learning through advancing current learning environments towards smart learning environments. It facilitates opportunities for discussions and constructive dialogue among…

Effective online teaching requires instructors to develop knowledge and new skills conducive to creating meaningful and successful learning experiences for online students. This exploratory case study examined 34 prospective online instructors' reflections on their development of online teaching expertise at the end of a graduate course. We…

In this article, we analyze the production of learner-generated playgrids. Playgrids are produced when learners knit together social media tools to participate across settings and scales, accomplish their goals, pursue interests, and make their learning more enjoyable and personally meaningful. Through case study methodology we examine how two…