With the increasing advocacy for Computational Thinking (CT) integration in K-12 education, it is important to consider how teacher education programs could better prepare teacher candidates (TCs). At the Faculty of Education at Western University, CT has been included in the curriculum as part of the teacher education program through the course…

Contribution: This paper employs the automatic scoring of short essays as a novel way to determine pre-service teachers' knowledge of and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT) from their written reflections. Implications about designing CT courses for pre-service teachers are discussed. Background: CT is an essential 21st-century competency…

Making and maker spaces have attracted increasing attention as potential sites for supporting K-12 student learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and as a means of competency development for computational and design thinking as well as technological literacy. While interest in making and maker spaces is high, little…

White Canadian teacher candidates are brought into direct dialogue with urban high school students through a yearlong immersion in a high school with a "demonized" image in the broader community. Interviews with students reveal experiences of school as "my safe space" and the predominance of a student culture not characterized…

This article explores how a reading group of pre-service teachers responded to the endings of three contemporary young adult texts and what such responses may imply about the interpretive preferences of teacher education. Set in the context of a Faculty of Education at a Canadian university, and using the lens of psychoanalytic theory, this…

Research on hazing in higher education has primarily focused on Greek-letter organizations and athletes, with little research beyond these two subsets of college students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the attitudes of students from the general student population at a Canadian university with regard to hazing and identify…

Fostering a strong sense of community among students in online courses is the goal of many instructors because it is seen as being essential in supporting students' learning experiences. However, high dropout rates in online learning suggest that students feel disconnected and isolated from their course, feelings which have been attributed to the…

Study abroad programs typically reveal issues that are not commonly found in classes on the home campus. At University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College (UCBA), a 2-year regional campus of University of Cincinnati, we offer three short-term summer study abroad programs each year. Students in these programs have traditionally participated in social…

As computational thinking (CT) is increasing in focus in K-12 education, it is important to consider how teacher education programs may better prepare teacher candidates (TCs). Previous studies have found that TCs do not always have a firm understanding of what CT involves, and they might not have clear ideas about how to develop CT in their…

Knowing that motivation is at the crux of learning, we examined students' motivation to engage--or not--in courses which include the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although many college instructors use ICTs, there are no studies on the perspectives of professors identified as exemplary users of technology. This is why we…

A teacher-training program was introduced in Southern Alberta, Canada, to enable intern teachers to integrate career education projects into their mainstream elementary school courses. This non-experimental, descriptive evaluation used content analysis to examine the effectiveness of 25 career education projects and their corresponding 56 types of…

This study examines the effectiveness of flipped classrooms in chemistry, and identifies relationships as a major factor impacting the success of flipped instruction methods. Examination of student interview data reveals factors that affect the development of peer-peer, peer-peer leader, and peer-expert relationships in firstyear general chemistry…

This qualitative study explored the educational journeys of five postsecondary students with learning disabilities (LD) from the perspective of the students and their families. Using a resilience lens, it examined the challenges that they faced and the capacities and resources that facilitated their resilience and helped them achieve their current…

We examined first-year psychology majors' (N = 195) beliefs about the relevance of two types of university assignments (individual essay and group wiki) and their connection to the development of career-related skills. Students reported that assignments were only somewhat relevant to their career goals, and relevance ratings were typically…

The flipped classroom is a relatively new approach to undergraduate teaching in science. This approach repurposes class time to focus on application and discussion; the acquisition of basic concepts and principles is done on the students' own time before class. While current flipped classroom research has focused on student preferences and…