Online instructors have identified several issues that must be addressed to facilitate better online learning experiences, including authentic experiential education, building community, technology for remote learning, and supporting learners. Online forums are often used by users to express their frustrations, feelings, jokes, and even…

Many undergraduate and graduate courses have been recently converted to fully remote offerings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even within the remote structure, courses vary in their frequency of synchronous and asynchronous meetings. Fostering collaboration through students' idea-sharing and supporting their learning is especially challenging in…

In the COVID-19 era, "Yellowdig" (an online discussion board with social media-like features) has increasingly risen to prominence in higher education. Reflecting on a multi-year experiment involving 14 international business and marketing courses, I argue that Yellowdig remains a valuable tool for learning even after returning to…

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has ignited debates regarding its potential benefits and detriments for education. Despite widespread discussions, insights into GenAI's impact on education have been limited because early studies have often been narrow in scope and focused on specific contexts. Therefore, the purpose of…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)--in part, because of their free, flexible, and relatively anonymous nature--may provide a means for helping overcome the large gender gap in Computer Science (CS). This study examines why women and men chose to enroll in a CS MOOC and how this is related to successful behavior in the course by (a) using k-means…

With increasing class sizes, faculty have increasingly been using online homework software (OHS) and in-person discussion groups as the classroom evolves. We sought to determine the effect of online homework software and in-person discussion groups on student engagement. Specifically, we posited that expectations influence this relationship, and…

Human sexuality courses are common across many college/university campuses. The methods of instruction typically encourage discussion to increase knowledge and critical thinking about self, relationships, and professional pathways. However, often the pedagogical practices do not include methods to draw out students with a range of personalities,…

CoBackground: Research has shown the importance of careful teacher support during collaborative group work to promote productive discourse between students (Webb, 2009). However, this research has traditionally focused on face-to-face communication. The role of online teacher guidance of small-group computer-mediated discussions has received…

Evaluation of "e-Learning", or arguably "e-Delivery", is difficult. One reason is that comparisons are often made between different courses delivered using various delivery modes, making such comparisons hard to justify. The Business School at a university in the United Kingdom reportedly delivers the same postgraduate course…

In this study we explored questioning behaviors among elementary students engaging in inquiry science using the "Knowledge Forum", a computer-supported collaborative learning tool. Adapting the theory of systemic functional linguistics, we developed the Ideational Function of Question (IFQ) analytical framework by means of inductive analysis of…

We have developed a set of tools for improving online collaborative learning including an automated expert that monitors and moderates discussions, and additional tools to evaluate contributions, semantically search all posted comments, access a library of hundreds of digital books and provide reports to instructors. The technology behind these…

This qualitative research study is an exploration of the merit and shortcomings of using a combination of the music software GarageBand[TM] and an electronic bulletin board to facilitate musical and peer learning in a 3-month elementary music methods curriculum and instruction course. A pedagogical objective of this assignment was to increase the…

With the rise of e-Learning in engineering education, understanding the impact of individual differences on the ways students communicate and collaborate on-line has become increasingly important. The research described here investigates the influence of cognitive style on the interactions within student social networks in an on-line learning…

This paper presents a pre-orientation program for incoming college students, Active Citizenship through Technology (ACT), that engaged students in civic dialogue early in their academic experience while fostering a long-term peer support network. It leveraged youth's interest in Internet technologies to engage them in civic discussions and…

Net-based collaborative learning discourses often suffer from deficiencies such as lack of coherence and coordination. It is suggested that the provision of two functionalities, referencing and typing, which learners may optionally use to ground their contributions during a chat-based discourse, can improve collaborative learning. In particular,…