Online discussion boards are commonly used to help students collaborate and engage in interpersonal and social behavior. However, students often report dissatisfaction with discussion boards which can have a negative impact on course dissatisfaction due to the students' lack of motivation to complete the learning activity. Based on…

Previous research applied an affordance approach to the literature in instruction and pedagogy. Because of the continued trend in online instruction and course management, there exists a need to study the impact of technological affordances and communication in learning management systems. The current study replicates and extends research…

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…

Online discussions tend to be more effective when they are purposefully structured. In this article, we describe how the design of a photo-based protocol influenced community interactions within an online discussion in an undergraduate course. Students were asked to take and share a photo related to a course concept, respond to a peer's photo, and…

In this study, we examine the design process for a visual learning analytics (VLA) approach in addition to its effect on developing students' epistemic understanding of discourse and relationships to promote knowledge-building inquiry. Over a 3-month period, an experimental class of secondary school students took a visual arts course using a…

The growth in online education has prompted a focus on ensuring students are engaged, persistent, and successful in their studies. A recognized challenge with online learning is developing a community of learners, where students feel connected to their peers and instructor and experience a sense of belonging. In this article, we highlight using…

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…

This qualitative study aims to improve accessibility and equity in digital spaces by identifying the prevalent mismatch between online course design, student culture, and its connection to instructional design for teacher preparation programs. Utilizing feminist theory, we explore the intersection between community, identity, and learning within…

The question posed in this analysis is: What is the relationship between text-centered dialogue and reading comprehension? This article examines one student's behaviors while reading challenging texts. This qualitative case study explored the verbal behaviors of Robert (pseudonym), a seventh-grade student receiving reading intervention. As his…

In an attempt to maintain social connection with a large lecture-style class, this teaching case describes how we used the Zoom Break-out Room function to run live discussion groups during fall 2020. Using a combination of Google Docs, Canvas, and Zoom one instructor and one TA describe how they managed to run discussions on contemporary tourism…

Online discussion boards are in frequent use these days in both face-to-face and online courses. While "discussion" is in the name, it's not uncommon to see students struggle to have meaningful conversations in these digital spaces. One Quick Fix to this predicament is to require students to post a discussion question at the end of their…

Online discussion forums are highly valued by instructors due to their affordance for understanding class activities and learning. However, a discussion forum with a great number of posts requires a large amount of time to view, and help requests are easily overlooked. Various machine-learning--based tools have been developed to help instructors…

The relationship between quantity of instructor to student interactions in online, asynchronous, course-specific courses at the community college level is under-researched. This quantitative, correlational study examined the relationship between the weekly number of instructor-generated posts and two course outcomes within fully online history…

Discussion board forums have become commonplace within online learning environments (OLEs). With student enrollment in online classes continuing to rise and the emergence of COVID-19, more students will be utilizing discussion forums within OLEs than ever before. Positive pedagogical support for the use of discussion forums abounds, but studies on…

Discussion forums provide students with accessible platforms for group discussions in e-learning environments. They also help lecturers to track and check student discussions. To improve student learning, it is important for lecturers to identify students' cognitive engagement in discussion forums. Therefore, this study aims to investigate…