Instructor participation plays a crucial role in asynchronous online discussions, as the approach taken can potentially impact student performance. This study compared two instructor participation approaches: replying to student posts on public discussion boards and commenting on student posts on private grade pages. It examined the impact on both…

Many universities implemented blended and hybrid delivery for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such, the use of terms that relate to various manifestations and implementations of blended learning has increased significantly by all higher education stakeholders. However, the meaning ascribed to these terms is often inconsistent…

Weaknesses in instructor communicative behaviors negatively affect online learning. The purpose of this study was to understand how instructor clarity and computer-mediated immediate communicative behaviors influence student dissent in the asynchronous online classroom. Distance learning is not new to career and technical education; however, the…

In recent years, the world of education has become increasingly hybrid (online/on location) and flexible (synchronous/asynchronous), frequently referred to as HyFlex. One of the risks of these mixed environments is the distance between teacher and students that can make interaction, a crucial component of the teaching/learning process, more…

Introduction: This study evaluated a Virtual Exchange (VE) project based on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) to connect students and faculty across five universities from the USA, Brazil, Honduras, and Algeria. Methods: A four-week program combined synchronous and asynchronous activities, allowing for flexible, self-selected…

Understanding best practices in online learning environments has become an important area of research in recent years, both before and during the pandemic. Video feedback has been studied as a way to enhance instructor social presence and create classroom community, though more research is needed to understand these constructs in various contexts.…

Technology has become a fundamental aspect of learning, yet many course instructors are hesitant to incorporate various forms of technology into their instructional design. This study sought to determine how course instructors can be assisted and supported to incorporate various asynchronous and synchronous technologies and strategies to course…

Grounded on cognitive elaboration theory, this study aims to investigate how students' dyadic conceptual elaboration changed with different group compositions, namely presence/absence of instructor and unfamiliar students in online asynchronous discussion. Adopting a repeated measure experimental design, data were collected from third-year…

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…

Students perceive care as a quality of highly effective faculty, and building positive relationships is essential to a successful college experience. However, many college students report never having developed caring relationships with faculty. We propose faculty have an opportunity to use technology to help build caring relationships in an…

The number of postsecondary students taking online classes increased in the last 2 decades and grew substantially in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. Online learning offers opportunities for postsecondary students who cannot or do not want to attend face-to-face classes but presents a challenge with some students feeling disconnected. Positive…

Incivility in the college classroom distracts from the learning process. Students who are uncivil to their peers often shame and embarrass them in front of others, and uncivil students distract from learning opportunities by arguing with professors and coercing them for grades that were not earned. Incivility by students is counterintuitive to the…

Effective employment of information and communication technology (ICT) in foreign language teaching and learning has become imperative as a means to support second language development when traditional face-to-face instruction and interaction is not possible. Using a design-based research approach and a theoretical framework that integrates…

Online instruction in higher education continues to gain popularity leading to a rise in demand for online course seats. This increase in enrollments has required universities to develop strategies to maintain quality instruction while accommodating larger numbers of online students. With best practices in online instruction suggesting smaller…

The current study aimed to examine the perspectives of EFL students regarding the types of pedagogical activities they found engaging while using asynchronous discussion forums (ADF), as well as the practices of educators in encouraging the participation of their students. An interview with ten university students who were enrolled in an English…