The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the decision-making process of a group of core elementary teachers in Illinois Metro East districts around attending professional development. 10 teachers from two Metro East districts were interviewed about their motivations, choices, and factors when considering what professional development to…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the impact of the rapid shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic on a community college. This study focused on examining the attitudes of the faculty towards online teaching and their teaching practices. Additionally, the study aimed to understand the impact of the rapid shift to…

This qualitative study examines the perspectives of K-12 school principals in urban settings on the strengths and weaknesses of various professional development program modalities. The research involved interviews with 10 urban K-12 school administrators to explore their views on in-person, online synchronous, and online asynchronous professional…

The focus of this study is to explore graduate students' understanding of time management in online learning environments. The study also explores how the graduate students perceive and prefer to receive regularity of learning feedback. Specifically, an exploratory study was conducted following a sequential mixed methods design, dominated by a…

As the pedagogy of online instruction in higher learning institutions and universities continues to grow, academic leaders must determine the needs and ambitions of online faculty and staff to facilitate workplace satisfaction, personal growth, faculty retention, and professional progress. The problem is that, as the pedagogy of online instruction…

This study examined adult learners' satisfaction, motivation, and engagement in online academic writing courses. Utilizing a mixed method, causal-comparative design, the study investigated the experiences of adult learners, who have distinctive characteristics from traditional learners. The findings revealed that adult learners are highly…

Online instructors utilize instructional strategies to mitigate challenges that arise from transactional distance. These strategies can also facilitate establishing instructor social presence and identity, which is a common concern in online learning contexts. Effective online course introductions provide an opportunity for instructors to…

This study sought to understand factors influencing student satisfaction with online learning technologies in U.S. higher education institutions after the spring semester of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced all higher education to an online format. Understanding these factors can help universities acknowledge student preferences and improve…

This study employed qualitative research methods to conduct an in-depth learner needs analysis of the learning motivations, needs, and preferences of first-time fathers in the perinatal period. Occurring within the informed exploration phase of a Design-Based Research approach, the study aimed to understand the unique learning experiences of…

Multimedia technologies allow instructional designers to transform interpersonal interactions into interactions between learners and content. These learner-content interactions are more scalable in online, asynchronous distance education (DE) than interactions between learners and the instructor or interactions among learners. Additionally,…

In this qualitative study, the researcher analyzed how secondary educators perceived virtual professional development (PD) during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Furthermore, the researcher explored educators' viewpoints on mental health and whether there were additional implications as it pertained to in-person PD. When school districts…

Quantitative data was collected from 926 traditional-aged postsecondary students, of which most (69%) respondents were upperclassmen in their junior or senior year of college. The findings from this overall research indicate that there has been a shift in how today's Generation Z learners view online and hybrid learning and their ideal way to take…

Supporting online faculty at the "community college" level to prepare them to "teach online" can be a complex matter. Faculty who are first entering the online teaching environment often start with training to help them prepare to teach online. Supporting faculty who are teaching online means understanding faculty and their…

We introduce an online learning platform that scales collaborative learning. We study the impact of team formation and the team formation process in massive open online classes. We observe that learners prefers team members with similar location, age range and education level. We also observe that team members in more successful teams have diverse…

This qualitative exploratory case study looked at the challenges of perceived accessibility that needed to be addressed for visually impaired students to succeed in degree completion within the online learning environment. The biopsychosocial model of disability examined how human and environmental factors (social, biological, and psychological)…