Despite the recognized importance of emotion in learning (Kim and Pekrun in Handbook of research on educational communications and technology, 4th ed., Springer, pp. 65-75, 2014), instructional material design research primarily focuses on cognition, tending to ignore the affective dimension (Brom et al. in Educ Res Rev 25:100-119, 2018). To…

Visual scaffolding, a type of scaffolding provided in a visual format, is considered to have potential in web-based learning environments as it naturally includes tacit information, highlights the critical features of tasks and promotes learning through the spatial organization of tasks. However, systematic approaches to visual scaffolding design…

Using language adequately within technology tasks is part of technological literacy. However, this can be challenging for students, and a teacher may need to help students to master aspects of domain specific language that matter for the task at hand. In this study, a curricular design was developed through a series of trials, with the aim to…

Throughout the development of online courses within higher education, subject matter expert (SME) faculty often rely on an instructional designer's (IDs) expertise and leadership to produce high-quality learning experiences for their students. Although IDs guide the creation of online courses and programs, instructional design is a profession that…

As postsecondary online programs increase, the accessibility of online course content becomes a serious issue in higher education. There is currently little information about how postsecondary institutions address online course accessibility. This exploratory mixed-methods study examined the degree to which university online course checklists…

Adults learn when they actively engage in meaningful activities. Meaningfulness is an extremely subjective factor, which depends on experiences, values, attitudes and much more. "The ways in which adults learn in and through the workplace are rooted in educational trajectories and their complex intertwining with social institutions (of labour…

The pandemic of COVID-19 has affected the education sector. All school access is restricted, transforming education into distance learning. This encourages educators to explore alternative methods for improving students' understanding. Interactive multimedia is a method of learning media that can promote efficiency, motivation, and student…

Contribution: This article presents an innovative course sequence to integrate Electrical Engineering (EE) Fundamentals into the Mechanical Engineering (ME) Instrumentation and Data Acquisition (DAQ) course and reports students' experience relevant to the sequence's intended outcomes of helping students learn and connect EE concepts with ME…

The online instructor plays a prominent role in influencing how students respond to an online course, from designing the course structure, course activities, and assignments to encouraging interaction. Therefore, to develop effective online courses, instructors need robust feedback on their design strategies. Student evaluation of teaching (SET)…

Guiding teachers to customize curriculum has shown to improve science instruction when guided effectively. We explore how teachers use student data to customize a web-based science unit on plate tectonics. We study the implications for teacher learning along with the impact on student self-directed learning. During a professional development…

In order to help students become scientifically literate citizens, science education should allow them to gain a more concrete understanding of the potential social and ethical impacts of scientific and technological change. Using Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an imaginative tool, we designed simple hands-on activities and a digital narrative…

The ever-changing nature of online learning foregrounds the limits of separating research from design. In this article, we take the difficulty of making generalizable conclusions about designed environments as a core challenge of studying the educational psychology of online learning environments. We argue that both research and design can…

In this "Reflection on Practice" paper we reflect on an early childhood Work Integrated Learning course redesign that explored new ways of developing and applying playfulness theory to higher education instructional approaches. Our experience was that the higher education students required more support to deepen their understanding of…

In South African higher education, institutions are exploring pedagogical practices of dealing with a multiple number of emerging technologies. Though the use of educational technologies is an established practice in higher education institutions, its uptake seems to be varied. This chapter draws on a study of educational technologies (EdTechs) in…

Purpose: There is pressure to transform graduate education in ways that better prepare and socialize students for academic careers that require entrepreneurial activities and/or professional pathways outside of academia. The inclusion of entrepreneurial learning in graduate curricula and programs is one strategy for responding to such calls. Yet,…