Most research on Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988) has uncovered many instructional design considerations for learning complex tasks. Additionally, the Community of Inquiry (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) framework describes many of the learning experiences in online education. A gap existed in the literature for investigating…

Using Lave and Wenger's framework of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice, this case study explores the experiences of three novice teachers engaged with more experienced teachers in a teacher study group during their first year of teaching. The study illustrates how, over time, the novices moved from more peripheral to…

To increase the number of students who read the text before class and to promote student interaction centering on text material, I developed an online discussion assignment as a required component of a cognitive psychology course. Across 2 studies, this assignment had a limited effect on examination performance, but students completing online…

There has been much attention given to the use of technology in education; mostly concentrating on physical artifacts of technology to facilitate teaching delivery but little mentioning technology as a cultural resource to organize the learning environment promoting social interaction among students and between teacher and students. This paper…

This article is based on the author's doctoral thesis on the dynamics of interpersonal relations in the onsite classroom. Drawing on positioning theory (Davies & Harre´, 1999; Harre´, 2015), Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978; Lantolf & Thorne, 2007) and informed by the focus on interaction in Douglas Fir Group's seminal paper (Douglas…

Elementary teachers can help students develop a critical literacy lens and learn how to question, analyze, and challenge assumptions. In turn, this can develop an inclusive classroom. My teacher action research looks at how critical literacy impacts both me, the teacher, and my fifth-grade students, in a predominantly White suburban public school…

The barriers to school attendance that affect young Aboriginal people in Australia are diverse, immense and well documented; however, except for a handful of studies, Aboriginal students' voices receive no platform for policy makers to hear them. In this paper, we present results from yarning circles about barriers to school attendance conducted…

Project-based learning (PBL) instructional methods attempt to make connections between students and their ability to solve real problems. We framed our qualitative study within sociocultural theory and used the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) model to define the positive and negative factors occurring during a PBL…

This classroom action research aims to investigate the development of collaborative problem-solving competencies using STEM-based learning through dietary plan lessons. The participants included 77 twelfth-grade students in the 2018 academic year in the science-technology program in a public school under the supervision of the Ministry of…

The paper explores how postgraduate students make course selection decisions in the digital era. An exploratory study with seven postgraduate student focus groups (UK, EU and International) gained a detailed insight into this important change. The availability of information, from an increased use of digital media had a significant impact on…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perception of EFL teachers and learners on the fundamental principles and constructs of critical thinking, the main characteristics of a critical thinker, and strategies for reinforcing critical thinking ability. Semi-structured interviews with eight EFL teachers and ten learners, who…

Supporting students' engagement in meaningful mathematics discussions can be challenging. It involves, for example, choosing tasks that are worth discussing (e.g., Stein and Lane 1996), negotiating norms for how students engage with one another's ideas (Kazemi and Stipek 2001; Horn 2012), eliciting students' thinking, and pressing students to…

Learning in computer-mediated setting represents a complex, multidimensional process. This complexity calls for a comprehensive analytical approach that would allow for understanding of various dimensions of learner generated discourse and the structure of the underlying social interactions. Current research, however, primarily focuses on manual…

This study explored how 26 Chinese EFL teachers perceived community-based, technology-supported professional development practices. The methods of data collection in this study blend quantitative and qualitative techniques: (1) questionnaire survey of teachers' satisfaction about community-based technology-supported professional development…

Purpose: Nondominant youth faces complex structural inequalities and injustices that have a direct impact on their academic learning outcomes and psychosocial well-being. Research suggests that supporting the development of students' critical consciousness not only improves their educational and career trajectories but also provides students with…