Facilitation strategies play a critical role in helping instructors teach effectively in an online environment. However, there is a lack of research on how different facilitation strategies impact the online learning experience. To address this gap, our study surveyed 5980 college students from two universities in China and analysed the…

Providing foreign language students with opportunities to engage in meaningful and purposeful communication and culturally authentic interaction with peers and native speakers is critical to successful second language acquisition and the development of intercultural competence . This paper describes research that investigated how selected native…

This study examines the effects of technology-enhanced interventions in hospitality curricula using an overarching research hypothesis -- Does a course that features multi-model inputs, web-based learning opportunities and interactive communications prepare students well for their internships? Through an exploration of various influences within…

This article describes two Socratic Seminar discussions, one focused on questioning just war and the other offering a perspective on how to end war. These discussions are the focus of this article because they show the complex and nuanced thinking and questioning students engaged in about what might constitute a just war (if anything) and how war…

This study explored students' perceived metacognition (self-regulation and co-regulation) in relation to the online presence within the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in an online case-based instruction (CBI) course. Forty-seven online graduate students enrolled in an instructional design course participated in the study. Data were collected…

Distance learning is becoming increasingly prevalent. If education is a community affair, how do we digitally design the conditions for learning at a distance for our students? This research examines a distance learning environment within a Master's Degree course created using online discussion forums, based upon the Community of Inquiry model…

Engaging students in research can take many forms and such research-based learning is widely perceived as beneficial for student engagement and learning outcomes. Here, we report on our experience with organizing a cross-institutional seminar series dedicated to the question of where on Mars to land a coming NASA Mars mission. The seminar series…

Literature circles are student-led, small-group discussions that promote active learning and engagement with literary texts. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of literature circles on student engagement and learning outcomes in a pedology course. For various reading assignments throughout the semester, students either…

Instructors face challenges in facilitating higher levels of shared cognition in large enrolment classes. One strategy to foster shared cognition is the use of asynchronous discussions; however, these can be difficult to support with large numbers of students. Online protocols have been found to help students take more ownership of the discussion,…

We studied the impact of introducing first-year computer science (CS) students to ethical thinking about the social justice impacts of data collection, tracking, bias, internet privacy, and competitive "real world" system design and critique activities. While basic content was consistent for all, one group was involved throughout the…

Creating an engaging online course where students feel part of an online community can be challenging even for the most experienced online educator. Online discussions are a common tool used to connect students in online courses, but it is often limited to text-based posts. This international research study compared the use of text-based versus…

Teaching physiology can be challenging as students are initially required to understand basic and abstract concepts. Thus students typically view physiology as a "difficult" subject and place an emphasis on rote learning and memorization. Here, we attempted to address this knowledge gap by introducing a pedagogical intervention into the…

Flipped classrooms serve as a new pedagogical approach for teaching and learning, which involves switching from the traditional teacher-centred academic agenda. Unlike the traditional classroom model, the flipped classroom enables students to understand the lesson better while learning at their own pace and enhancing their communication skills…

Background: Education is increasingly a bureaucratized, standardized and regulated service in which everything is decided by the 'experts'. There is an abandonment of the concept of education centred on the subject, social progress and collective transformation. Thus, education in general and teacher-training in particular, need innovative…

Formative assessments (FA), which can occur in or out of class, are a way for students to demonstrate their understanding of the material, to see progress, and to receive feedback from instructors related to their learning process. Examples of in-class FAs include clicker questions with peer discussion, while homework assignments are an example of…