Gamification offers potential for improving students' online discussion quantity and the depth of discussion content. However, very few studies have examined the social network patterns when students are posting and providing peer-feedback to each other in gamification-based environments. In response to those gaps, this study used a learning…

The ubiquity of online programs in higher education requires continued focus on designing instructional environments that improve students' learning. We examine students' perceptions of sense of community and learning, as well as academic achievement, using grades obtained from a final project and participation in asynchronous discussion forums.…

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between students' perceptions of online discussions, participation and e-moderation behaviours in peer-moderated asynchronous online discussions. Using survey data, the learning system's activity log and discussion transcripts, the authors analysed how 84 learners' perceptions of online…

In the context of distance language learning, speaking is frequently perceived as the most challenging skill; this paper reports on a 12 week summer language exchange programme providing students with new ways of practising their oral abilities. Students who completed an undergraduate beginners' language module took part in regular online,…

This project introduces the idea of "flipped lecturing" to a group of second-year undergraduate students. The aim of flipped lecturing is to provide much of the "content delivery" of the lecture in advance, so that the lecture hour can be devoted to more in-depth discussion, problem solving, and so on. As well as development of…

The authors present findings from the first stage of research into a "home-grown" connectivist MOOC, Rhizomatic Learning: The Community is the Curriculum (Rhizo14). We compare the surface view of the MOOC that has been presented in a range of open blog posts and articles with the view from beneath the surface that we have found in data…

With large student enrollment, MOOC instructors face the unique challenge in deciding when to intervene in forum discussions with their limited bandwidth. We study this problem of "instructor intervention." Using a large sample of forum data culled from 61 courses, we design a binary classifier to predict whether an instructor should…

This paper presents two interactive visualization tools for learning management systems (LMS) in order to improve learning and teaching in online courses. The first tool was developed at the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory (IISLab) at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The tool is used to analyse students' activity from…

Dean of Math, Science, and Health at Washtenaw Community College, Kristin Brandemuehl describes what it was like taking her first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). As a teacher, Brandemuehl was intrigued with what a MOOC was and what quality of an educational modality it might be. She also figured that participating in this MOOC would not only…

This study reports on a qualitative small-scale exploratory study which examined the factors influencing 32 Iranian pre-service language teachers' participation in online asynchronous text-based discussion forums. By adopting a multiple case study design and analysing data gathered through semi-structured interviews and participants' online…

This paper examines learner attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs, and anxiety in a beginners' Spanish Language Massive Open Online Course (LMOOC) by answering three research questions: (1) how do learners feel about acquiring speaking skills on an LMOOC?; (2) do they experience anxiety with regards to speaking?; and (3) do their self-efficacy beliefs…

This study examines primary grades teachers' instructional decisions in their mathematics classroom during their participation in a year-long professional development program on formative assessment. Teachers participated in 40 h of face-to-face workshops followed by 40 h of classroom-embedded activities that were facilitated in an asynchronous…

This application brief describes a "Module Discussant" activity assigned in an online graduate-level leadership theory course. The assignment was designed to stimulate higher-level thinking, apply leadership theory to practice, and foster extensive communication among students in the online learning environment using a common learning…

All course activities should be aimed at moving students towards the learning outcomes, including class introductions. This article provides detailed instructions for implementing an online Class Session Introductions (CSI) activity that immediately engages students with their peers, the content and the instructor. The activity may be useful to…

In massive open online courses (MOOCs), learners can interact with each other using discussion boards. Automatically inferring the states or needs of learners from their posts is of interest to instructors, who are faced with a high attrition in MOOCs. Machine learning has previously been successfully used to identify states such as confusion or…