Research about online learning suggests that instructor feedback is essential for student learning, especially when the feedback is personalized, specific, and timely. Feedback enhances instructor presence in online learning and has been shown to positively affect student outcomes. However, even with the technical ability to receive feedback at…

University programs for preparing preservice teachers of languages for teaching in schools generally involve generic pedagogy, methodology, curriculum, programming and issues foci, that provide a bridge between the study of languages (or recognition of existing language proficiency) and the teaching of languages. There is much territory to cover…

In this study, the participation of 119 students in an online asynchronous forum as part of an academic course on statistical methods was evaluated. The pattern of accesses during the course was analyzed by means of the cumulative mean function. Taking into account the times (hours) at which accesses occurred, it is possible to achieve more…

Asynchronous online discussion environments are important platforms to support learning. Research suggests, however, threaded forums, one of the most popular asynchronous discussion environments, do not often foster productive online discussions naturally. This paper explores how certain properties of threaded forums have affected or constrained…

This small study examines how one group (n = 59) of first-year undergraduate students developed their knowledge through co-construction using an online forum as a platform as part of a three-year Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programme. Professional dialogue at the online interface supported them to cope with the challenges they faced during…

This research project explores the effects of altering the structure of discussion board formats to increase students' engagement and participation. This paper will present the findings of a two-university, two-class research project in which asynchronous discussion board entries were analyzed for substance. By using oral discourse analysis…

The purposes of this study were to determine what asynchronous electronic discussion (AED) best practices were implemented by first semester online instructors and to determine if there was a difference in AED best practice implementation between AED best practice trained and untrained online instructors during their second semester of online…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been argued to cause (mis)communication issues. Research and practice suggest a range of tactics and strategies for educators focused on how to encourage and foster communication in a virtual learning environment (VLE) (eg, Salmon). However, while frameworks such as Salmon's support the effective…

The following commentary presents an overview of earlier studies of discourse functions and syntactic complexity as well as recent investigations that focus on interaction and measures of syntactic and lexical complexity in learners' output in traditional classrooms and computer-mediated environments. Recent studies emphasize the need for better…

Sustained discourse is critical to the learning potential of online courses. And, while research has surfaced many factors that mediate interaction, it further suggests that sustained interaction remains elusive. In this paper, I propose that student facilitation may have an impact on the quality of facilitators' interactions following a week of…

This paper seeks to add to the emerging literature related to online student engagement with additional suggestions for instructional strategies. Student engagement is one of the tenets of effective online instruction; as such, particular attention to how it adds value to student learning is crucial and worth the time and effort to enhance…

Fostering a strong sense of community among students within online courses is essential to supporting their learning experience. However, there is little consensus about how different facilitation methods influence students' sense of community or behaviors. This lack of understanding means instructors do not have the information they need to…

Learners are becoming increasingly divers. They may have much personal, social, cultural, psychological, and cognitive diversity. Forming suitable learning groups represents, therefore, a hard and time-consuming task. In Mobile Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (MCSCL) environments, this task is more difficult. Instructors need to consider…

This paper centers on student perceptions of a fully-online course that was designed to enhance their intercultural learning during study abroad. By way of a post-course questionnaire survey and interview, 22 international exchange students from a Hong Kong university divulged their views about this mode of learning. Although many lamented the…

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning literature relates high levels of collaboration to enhanced learning outcomes. However, an agreement on what is considered a high level of collaboration is unclear, especially if a qualitative approach is taken. This study describes how methods of Social Network Analysis were used to design a collaboration…