Language learning programs had been affected by declining school budgets and state support well before COVID-19, but the pandemic exacerbated the already declining learning outcomes of students. Duolingo, a free language-learning app, provides a platform for users to learn language skills using activities and exercises for over 38 languages.…

In this exercise, participants create a fictional business based on a set of randomly generated words. This challenge requires participants to exercise creativity, while reinforcing the business concepts learned in class. The exercise has four steps: (1) generating a prompt of three random words, (2) designing a fictional business based on this…

Teaching physics in real-life contexts continues to be a challenge for teachers at different educational levels. In this article, three context-rich problems are proposed to be implemented in the classroom for higher education, using the explosion that occurred in Beirut as a case study. These problems require the search and analysis of real data,…

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed profound changes on the way we think about undergraduate physics education. Online courses became mainstream. Exam formats were reimagined. Digital whiteboards replaced face-to-face discussions. Laboratory classes were outfitted with home-delivered supply kits. And all of us developed a more intimate knowledge of…

The current study examined the development of early adolescents' social perspective taking (SPT) through collaborative small-group discussions. A total of 250 fifth-graders were assigned to three conditions, Collaborative Social Reasoning (CSR) discussions, Read-Aloud (RA) and Regular Instruction (RI). SPT was assessed before and after the…

This study created instructor-made videos (IMVs) for online courses with the goal of increasing student-instructor connection, student engagement, overall course/instructor perceptions, and ultimately student satisfaction. IMVs were made for course introductions to outline instructor expectations, and weekly updates. The rapid increase to online…

This pilot study explores and documents online students' and their lecturer's debut experiences of utilising VoiceThread (VT), a digital multimodal platform, as an alternative discussion space via Open Universities Australia (OUA). Feedback from the lecturer's teaching log and interview was corroborated with his OUA students' survey responses, and…

Over the past two centuries, lesson study has been applied in different countries with different participant profiles. Lesson study is defined as a dynamic research-learning cycle of planning, applying, observing, and analyzing a lesson. Although the participants' discussions in lesson study practices were examined from different perspectives,…

Growing demands and expectations on the side of policy makers and the public have changed the conditions for academics' engagement in public discussions. At the same time, risks related to this engagement for the professional and even private lives of academics have become apparent. Conducting a survey experiment among 4091 tenured professors in…

Online postgraduate courses for professionals often use discussion forums to promote engagement and interaction. Equivalency theorem suggests that student-student interaction may increase satisfaction but is not necessary for achieving desired learning outcomes. Therefore, costs, as well as benefits, should be ascertained. We used data from…

This paper presents the concept of silent discussions and offers insight into how the method can support linguistic autonomy, accessibility, and student accountability. It also outlines techniques used to improve discussion outcomes in secondary and other classrooms. Silence, while seemingly counterintuitive in classrooms and other spaces where…

Researchers correlate a teacher's skills with teaching longevity, teacher stress, and student outcomes. Most preservice teachers lack the fundamental teaching skills necessary to succeed within a classroom of students. Educators attempt to solve this teaching skill deficiency by implementing practice-based teacher education. Educators have used…

This study concerns preservice teachers' knowledge of student thinking at the secondary level. In particular, it examines in what ways a three-week unit integrating content and student thinking was beneficial in developing preservice teachers' knowledge of student thinking associated with big ideas in algebra--such as variation, Cartesian…

Classrooms are typically organized around the expectation that students' voices should be used primarily for reciting answers elicited by teachers. Numerous studies show that moving away from this recitation model towards more dialogic practices has the potential to make literacy learning more effective and inclusive. Yet, dialogic classrooms in…

Asynchronous online discussion (AOD) can provide an interactive educational experience through formation of learning communities that enable students to develop professional knowledge and critical thinking skills as they engage with colleagues and instructors. We find significant differences between undergraduate and graduate student perceptions…