Many post-secondary common book programs purport to increase a sense of community on campus. This study explored whether a common book program at a Canadian university was able to create a sense of community among students. Results indicate that in-class discussions about the book, liking the Facebook page, attending the author lecture, and…

A large proportion of students in higher education report feeling bored during lectures, for example, Mann and Robinson (2009) put this figure at 60 per cent. This short article reviews our experiences of using a simple, free Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, Skype, to enhance the interest and engagement of students by holding a…

What happens when children come across texts that push the boundaries of what they expect to encounter when they pick up a picture book? There exists a genre of nontraditional picture books, commonly referred to as "postmodern picture books," which is characterized by a variety of alternative literary and illustrative devices. Given that…

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that influenced the oral classroom participation of six Korean students attending graduate school in the US, and how these factors impacted their oral interaction in class discussions. Data came from formal and informal interviews and class observations over the course of the semester.…

Students' questions play an important role in meaningful learning and scientific inquiry. They are a potential resource for both teaching and learning science. Despite the capacity of students' questions for enhancing learning, much of this potential still remains untapped. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine and review the…

Although images are often used in the classroom to communicate difficult concepts, students have little input into their selection and application. This approach can create a passive experience for students and represents a missed opportunity for instructors to engage participation. By applying concepts found in visual sociology to techniques…

A survey asked medical students studying the basic sciences to identify effective learning strategies. The purposes of the survey were three-fold: firstly, to identify learning strategies that students prefer; secondly, to encourage students to evaluate their learning strategies; and thirdly, to inform faculty about their students' learning…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of video and group discussion in problem-based video instruction on learner perceptions of learning and knowledge transfer. To achieve this purpose, this study compared learner perceptions of learning and knowledge transfer in problem-based video instruction (PBVI) with those in two other…

This study aimed to evaluate how peer-to-peer interactions through writing impact student learning in introductory-level massive open online courses (MOOCs) across disciplines. This article presents the results of a qualitative coding analysis of peer-to-peer interactions in two introductory level MOOCs: English Composition I: Achieving Expertise…

The increasing number of external students enrolling at Charles Darwin University has led to the university investing in new technologies to provide better support for students studying online. Many students, however, come from non-traditional backgrounds and lack some of the skills and confidence to participate successfully in an e-learning…

The 11th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2018) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Templeton Landing in Buffalo, New York. This year's EDM conference was highly competitive, with 145 long and short paper submissions. Of these, 23 were accepted as full papers and 37…

Despite the fact that foreign language speaking anxiety is a common phenomenon in the teaching of English as a foreign language in Greece, teachers do not always identify anxious students, and often attribute their unwillingness to participate in speaking tasks to factors such as lack of motivation, or low performance. This article aims to…

Research shows that some non-traditional students find the university environment alienating, impersonal and unsupportive. The "Quickstart' project combines traditional lectures and seminars with a sequence of carefully designed online tasks, aimed at lessening the impact of the start of year uncertainties for new students. One thousand students…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the role of teacher knowledge in the instructional methods of a community college developmental literacy instructor and determine in what ways that knowledge may have impacted the perceptions of the student participants regarding their authority over their academic progress in the class. Therefore,…

The present study investigated the effectiveness of integrating RCampus in EFL freshman classrooms on EFL students' reading and writing skills development. Forty-three freshman students majoring in translation participated in the study. Before instruction, the students were pretested. Then they received traditional in-class instruction that…