This action research dissertation provides an overview of inquiry based learning in online general chemistry course. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many science course have been converted to an online format. In order to increase student learning and attitudes in online chemistry class, two inquiry based learning activities were developed and…

There have been recent pushes for more active learning in mathematics classrooms, especially at the undergraduate level. To incorporate more active learning, there is a need for tasks that explicitly support this type of instruction, attention to student reasoning and whose ideas are publicly acknowledged, and awareness of differences in students'…

Guided authentic scientific inquiry activities can give students a clear picture of the nature of science and how its fields operate in practice, but such activities are difficult to do well. Too much structure negates the benefit of open-ended activities and student-led investigation, while too little can result in frustration or unproductive…

Having discussions and working together in groups with other learners is the indicator of the collaboration aspect of engagement. Collaborative engagement can be fostered through active learning approaches, since they provide more opportunities for interaction among learners. In Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) classrooms, small…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the role of social presence in a professional online conference. This study explored how presenters and attendees convey social presence and how might it influence their conference experience. The participants were presenters and attendees registered for the 21st Annual Teaching Colleges and…

A decade of research utilizing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has unveiled the priority of teaching presence in effective models of online education. The data for this finding are significant, as is the momentum of the CoI in suggesting theoretical and practical implications for implementing contemporary online education. However,…

This study continues the exploration of the Community of Inquiry framework and how collaborative technologies, specifically wikis, can be used to impact student perception of social presence. The subjects were 78 graduate education students in three differently contrived sections of the same online course. Participants completed the Community of…

This qualitative study explored the experiences of an online learner at a community college. The purpose of the study was to investigate community college students' perception of online courses through an examination of their experiences with online learning. The community of inquiry theory was used as a guide to better understand the importance…

The use of audio technology by online nursing educators is a recent phenomenon. Research has been conducted in the area of audio technology in different domains and populations, but very few researchers have focused on nursing. Preliminary results have indicated that using audio in place of text can increase student cognition and socialization.…

An important goal of nursing education is to produce graduates who are problem solvers and competent clinical practitioners able to practice in a very complicated health care environment; reflection and inquiry are two ways to accomplish this goal. This qualitative study explored how eight senior baccalaureate nursing students developed in their…

Citizen Science projects offer opportunities for non-scientists to take part in scientific research. Scientific results from these projects have been well documented. However, there is limited research about how these projects affect their volunteer participants. In this study, I investigate how participation in an online, collaborative…

My exploratory case study examined the use of a learning platform to facilitate constructivist teaching strategies by pre-service teachers during their student teaching and field experiences in elementary science classes. Constructivist teaching strategies include inquiry lessons and active learning techniques. Dialogue, interviews and online…

Various formats of online discussion have proven valuable for enhancing learning and collaboration in distance and blended learning contexts. However, despite their capacity to reveal essential processes in collaborative inquiry, current mainstream analytical frameworks, such as the cognitive presence framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer,…

Teacher professional development is a complex enterprise (Sprinthall, Reiman, and Thies-Sprinthall, 1996). While many online professional development programs have been introduced over the past several years that provide continuous, job-embedded support, empirical evidence relating what works and what does not has been limited (Whitehouse, Breit,…