Societal shifts increasingly demand that people work across social and geographic borders, often virtually, to solve complex problems in the areas of education, environment, healthcare, poverty, technology innovation and ethics, and more. This collaboration requires critical and emancipatory dialogue and problem-solving. This qualitative multiple…

This applied dissertation was designed to determine if cooperative learning strategies increased student engagement in a virtual elementary classroom. The purposes of this study were (a) to determine whether the implementation of cooperative learning strategies increased student engagement and (b) to explore student perceptions of engagement. In…

Previous research has shown the importance of regulating learning and collaboration in instructional design. Moreover, learners often struggle to regulate their learning and collaborate effectively, which can hinder knowledge acquisition and academic achievements. To address these challenges, the Understand, Plan, Monitor, and Reflect (UPMR)…

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop a virtual, collaborative parent education program for parents of school-age children. Although parenting websites and online discussion forums have been around since the world wide web became widely available in the early 1990s (Lupton, Pedersen & Thomas, 2016), a rise in the use and necessity of…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to understand the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and teachers' attitudes and perceptions towards cooperative learning strategies in an online setting. This study also intended to understand the relationship between teachers' attitudes and perceptions towards cooperative learning strategies…

This qualitative research study examined the design of collaborative learning experiences in an online graduate course in educational leadership. Based on principles of design-based research, this single case study analyzed the design process among the faculty member and learning design team who created the course. Data were also gathered from the…

Online executive education courses are a specialized mode of learning used by organizational leaders to develop knowledge in discrete subjects. Universities that offer these courses may lack the technology skills to develop such courses with supportive artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Instructors of such courses serve as adjuncts who are…

Contemporary education research seeks causal inferences in order to guide policy and practice. Often well-controlled quasi-experimental and experimental designs are used as they are very useful for supporting and contextualizing causal inferences. Nevertheless, individual studies, even high-quality, resource-intensive randomized controlled trials,…

Problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability to in-person and virtual environments are critical for success today. Therefore, brick-and-mortar and online instructional models have shifted to ensure that K-12 students are prepared with these skills for 21st-century challenges. Grounded in systems theory, the study examined the inputs,…

America's fire departments are busier than ever, responding to both emergency and non-emergency calls that have dramatically increased over the last several decades (National Fire Protection Association [NFPA], 2021b). This dissertation in practice analyzed the on-duty training model of a mid-sized fire department in the northwestern United…

Reading and writing go hand in hand, students who struggle in reading are likely to struggle in writing. Yet, when we research interventions for students with reading difficulties and writing difficulties, we rarely combine the two. In a study by Puranik et al. (2017, 2018) investigating the feasibility and promise of a whole-class peer-assisted…

With the widespread use of technology in education, the nature and role of technology in the process of learning are becoming increasingly difficult to understand. There is a need to shift the focus of education technology from innovating around tools to innovating around designing new digital learning environments. Designing digital learning…

Social Annotation (SA) is a learning technology that allows people to read, highlight, and comment on specific parts of text. SA tools like Hypothes.is enable users to highlight and annotate texts and documents online and respond to others' annotations via text, sharing links of documents, audio, or video. Research on SA in higher education online…

This qualitative descriptive study explored how teachers perceive the significance of their leadership and digital pedagogy in fostering students' self-directed learning skills in a digital learning environment. Grounded in transformational leadership theory, Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems theory and ISTE standards, the study answered three…

Online learning is increasingly prevalent in higher education. The current study explores how learning takes place in online discussions; an activity often found in online courses. Activity Theory is used to understand the contributions of individuals to the process of socially constructing knowledge within small groups. The Community of Inquiry…