Students often play a passive role in large-scale lectures in undergraduate mathematics courses: they observe the lecturer demonstrate mathematical procedures, but they rarely engage in authentic mathematical activity themselves. This study uses semi-structured interviews of undergraduate students to investigate the implicit and explicit social…

As qualitative research methodologies continue to evolve and develop, both students and experienced researchers are showing greater interest in learning about and developing new approaches. To meet this need, faculty at the University of Manitoba created the Qualitative Research Group (QRG), a community of practice that utilizes experiential…

Participation is a complex process, engaging the whole person, implying cognitive, emotional and relational aspects. In online open and distant learning, group work is a commonly used strategy, given its collaborative nature and constructivist framework ([Bates and Poole, 2003], [Garrison and Anderson, 2003] and [Jonassen, 2005]). In this context,…

The authors examine GirlPOWER! an innovative program that uses structure and group-based activities to enhance one-to-one mentoring relationships for young adolescent girls from the perspective of the focus, purpose, and authorship dimensions of mentoring relationships that Karcher and Nakkula described. The discussion draws on several sources of…

This research study investigated the behaviour and interactions of university students as they engaged with ill-structured and well-structured assessment tasks. Twenty students participated in a one-semester intensive design study in a course on "Vietnamese traditional culture". The students worked in five-person groups that were…

A formative experiment investigated how two strategies aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of language interactions could be integrated into a preschool classroom. Strategies for enriching language interactions were introduced during book sharing, semi-structured group activities, and mealtimes. Mixed methods revealed factors that…

The purpose of this study was to provide a rich description of what spiritual experiences look like in children in a kindergarten classroom, in which typically, spirituality is not considered a part of the philosophy or curriculum of the school. This study sought to first describe what constitutes a spiritual experience, to then describe how…

This study investigated the effects of modes of personalisation of instruction crossed with two levels each of verbal ability and cognitive style as moderator variables on the mathematical word problems achievement of 450 junior secondary Nigerian students. Personalisation was accomplished by incorporating selected information with students'…

Ten experienced online faculty were interviewed to elicit examples of how they improved student learning productivity in their online courses. The ten faculty represented nine different states, 13 different fields or disciplines, and all were tenured or tenure-track at master's or doctoral level higher education institutions. Based on a thematic…

The purpose of this action research study was to determine how peer-assisted learning (PAL) could be implemented to support improved academic achievement, persistence, and attitudes toward math for community college students in an intermediate developmental algebra course. Students in two sections of an intermediate algebra course, with an…

In this study, we have investigated developmental patterns of virtual groups in the e-learning environment. Our findings suggest that for virtual groups formed for the purpose of e-learning, dependency and inclusion characterize the initial stage of group development, as such characteristics reinforce cooperative relationships and help to build a…

This study examines online mentor roles and effects with the online mentoring process in computer-supported collaborative learning environments in communities of in-service teachers. Interest in the online mentors' activity encompassed their participation in the online interactions, the influence of their activity on participants' patterns of…

This article considers how students might work together in small groups, from two to eight, in either a primary or secondary science classroom. The nature of group work can vary widely and could include, for example, a pair carrying out an illustrative experiment, a trio or quad debating climate change, or six or seven rehearsing how they will…

Evidence exists that children's understanding can be facilitated through collaborative group work with peers, but little is known about the underlying processes. When processes are discussed, they are typically assumed to involve the assimilation of superior ideas that are constructed jointly. However, the assimilation of joint constructions…

The purpose of this study was to test a model for predicting preschool-age children's behaviors with peers from dimensions of the classroom and teacher-child relationship quality when the children were from diverse race, ethnic, and home language backgrounds. Eight hundred children, (M=age 63 months, SD=8.1 months), part of the National Evaluation…