As demands for accountability continue and increase, higher education administrators require tools for evaluating campus programs. Learning communities, as a course design strategy, have proven successful in confronting challenges associated with attrition and retention. Because high attrition is associated with online distance education,…

This paper explores cultural production in online internationalised education. The analysis samples interactions in a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) unit offered online by an Australian university to a student group including enrolments through a Malaysian institution. Part of the curricular content was a consideration of how different…

This article reports on an investigation of students learning of physics during group discussions around context-rich problems in introductory physics courses at university level. We present the results from video recordings of student groups solving three different problems. We found that group discussions around physics problems can lead to…

Pre-service teachers from Texas and Indiana in the United States and from Queensland, Australia, observed the Moon for a semester and compared and contrasted their findings in asynchronous Internet discussion groups. The 188 pre-service teachers were required to conduct inquiry investigations for their methods coursework which included an initial…

In many literacy classrooms, teachers provide instruction in comprehension by helping students to practice explicit comprehension strategy use when they encounter difficult texts. In many of those same literacy classrooms, students are placed in peer-led groups to discuss literary texts as a way to increase their engagement with difficult reading.…

This study aimed to develop a set of evaluation criteria for English learning websites. These criteria can assist English teachers/web designers in designing effective websites for their English courses and can also guide English learners in screening for appropriate and reliable websites to use in increasing their English ability. To fulfill our…

Preparing "highly qualified" special educators that can effectively partner with the parents of students with disabilities is proving to be a daunting task, though widely acknowledged as essential in special education. This descriptive study examines the experience of instructors co-teaching a special education course focused on…

The authors argue that conceptual and methodological limitations in existing research approaches severely hamper theory building and empirical exploration of teacher learning and collaboration through cyber-enabled networks. They conclude that new frameworks, tools, and techniques are needed to understand and maximize the benefits of teacher…

With rapid emergence to the birth of the knowledge era, an active and interactive learning environment is fundamental to any teaching and learning process. Over time, negative implications of traditional learning environment are mounting, and measures must be taken to challenge it. With extensive research on available learning tools, it has become…

Discussion boards as tools in blended "English language" learning programs have unique characteristics when compared to other synchronous and asynchronous communication tools that are different. Therefore, it is important to investigate the way they operate, their role within a given program and the students', teachers' and tutors'…

The Community of Inquiry Framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) has been an important contribution to the online distance education field and has been useful in providing researchers with the construct of "teaching presence". Teaching presence as described by the framework provides insight into the types of interactions…

This paper reports on an empirical research on the Interaction Equivalency Theorem posited by Anderson (2003a), consisting of the three elements of teacher-student-content interaction. Using an author-developed survey, the paper reports the priority order of interaction elements to assure learning quality with two parameters of learning modes and…

This study describes the characteristics of pre-service teachers' discourse on a WebCT Bulletin Board in their investigations of local streams in an integrated mathematics and science course. A qualitative analysis of data revealed that the pre-service teachers conducted collaborative discourse in framing their research questions, conducting…

We report about an active learning demonstration designed to use a virtual class to present computer-mediated group communication course concepts to show that students can learn about these concepts in a virtual class. We designated 1 class period as a virtual rather than face-to-face class, when class members "attended" virtually using…

Deep cognitive thinking refers to a learner's purposeful and conscious manipulation of ideas toward meaningful learning. Strategies such as journaling/blogging and peer feedback have been found to promote deep thinking. This article reports a research study about the effects of two different blog leader styles on students' deep thinking as…