Creating an online learning environment that engages learners beyond the given course period is challenging. Open, participant-driven discussion forums, where participants are provided with greater agency on what to learn, how to learn, and whom to learn with, have a unique potential to help learners engage in learning experiences based on their…

A discussion forum is an indispensable part of a massive open online course (MOOC) environment as it enables knowledge construction through learner-to-learner interaction such as discussion of solutions to assigned problems among learners. In this paper, a machine prediction model is built based on the data from the MOOC forum and the depth of…

Online learning environments and activities via learning management systems have become the new normal in most educational institutions after the COVID-19 pandemic. An online discussion forum is ideal for online and hybrid courses to enhance collaborative participation between learners and instructors. The problem addressed in this study is the…

Facilitating students' learning in a massive open online context is challenging for instructors in online teaching. The instructors should enact their professional (epistemic) feedback-giving skills to understand when, how, and why to address learning problems. In this study, we address this issue in terms of agency and suggest strategies that…

Online collaborative discussion (OCD) focuses on promoting individual knowledge inquiry and group knowledge construction through active peer interactions and communications. In practice, it is necessary to explore how different modes of OCD come into play, in which student engagement can function as an evaluating indicator. To identify student…

Researchers emphasize that learning presence is an important component Community of Inquiry (CoI) for understanding the process of knowledge construction through participants' meaningful engagement in an online environment. Assigning roles in learning environments helps to distribute responsibility among group members and gives learners the…

Discussion boards are a common component of asynchronous online courses. While many teacher preparation courses utilize traditional text-based discussion boards, university faculty are increasingly designing innovative approaches to asynchronous online discussions. There is significant research regarding the effectiveness of varied discussion…

There appears to be an increasing acceptance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across society. As people become more comfortable with AI's use in advertising, basic services and other areas of day-to-day life, the question arises will students also be willing to accept AI in learning situations. Furthermore, what are the impacts on both the student…

Research finds that engaging students in online deliberations requires three components: (1) designing a space specifically for deliberations, (2) a structured pattern that requires consistent interactions, and (3) a process guided by academically guided outcomes. Using these three components, deliberations become a routine where students share…

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…

Authentic dialogue, in which citizens engage with different perspectives using evidence, is integral to participation in a democratic, literate society. Yet participants in classroom conversations and in public forums often talk past each other rather than taking up what others have written or said. How might the design of alternative online…

Many different factors influence students' sense of belonging in an online learning. One area of the learning experience in which a sense of "belonging" is critical is in online asynchronous discussions, and the degree to which students feel that their contributions to those discussions are valued. Unfortunately, the structure of…

Background: A lack of student 'buy-in' and engagement are often major obstacles in academic literacy courses. To create a dialogic learning environment which encourages student investment and challenges traditional student-lecturer hierarchies of power, the curriculum of a first-year academic literacy course at a South African university was…

Project-based Learning (PBL) provides an effective environment for collaborative engineering design education. However, it is difficult to assess students' engagement and provide process-oriented feedback on their collaboration due to limited resources and scalability challenges. This paper presents an empirical study examining the application of…

Online discussion boards are a standard learning management system (LMS) instructional tool used in the emerging online learning pedagogy. This pilot study examined an innovative approach that differs from how discussion boards have been commonly used. Using a retrospective, cross-sectional design, we evaluated the effect of shifting from…