Those who do not learn history, even educational technology history, are doomed to repeat it. Every windshield has a rear-view mirror: using historical trends can yield lessons and guidance as we navigate the future. Take for instance MOOCs and their relatively rapid rise to popularity and fame in practice, predictions, and scholarship. Existing…

In a technology-enhanced learning environment and underpinned by a unique hybrid pedagogic model that borrows from gamification, constructivism, and experiential learning approaches, badges were purposefully used to foster engagement. This approach promoted the development of a mindset that identifies and appreciates the worth of a portfolio of…

The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China resulted in the sudden closure of schools, interrupting teaching plans. To prevent the virus from spreading across campuses and ensure the safety of teachers and students, China's Ministry of Education (MOE) closed all educational facilities. However, the MOE mandated that…

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a well-known academic support model to address retention and student performance in higher education. However, in studies reporting the effect of SI, the number of attendees at SI sessions are seldom mentioned or reflected upon. This study investigates whether there is a lower, optimal, and upper number of SI…

Education in frugality is less important for young people in the climate emergency than pressurising governments to act. Schools can help in this directly, as well as indirectly by passing on the necessary understanding. This understanding is interdisciplinary as well as disciplinary, but schools in England at least have always been too attached…

Physiology students grapple with large amounts of subject content and hence memorize facts to pass examinations. In parallel, students display limited critical-thinking and creative skills, integration abilities, and/or a deeper engagement with subject content. This study aimed to assess the feasibility of introducing active learning methods…

One of the virtues of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is that, because of their scalability, temporal flexibility and digital mediation, they have the potential to increase learner numbers in higher education, boosting their general level of social inclusion. Whether a MOOC actually succeeds in enhancing students' social inclusion, however, is…

This article analyses the pilot of an anonymous question and answer mobile application with a large cohort of undergraduate students (460) enrolled on an Operations Strategy Management module. The mobile application allowed students to pose anonymous questions to both peers and staff, create replies and vote on questions posted by other users. The…

Shanghai International Studies University has hosted an intercultural Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) course for several years. Course facilitators, mentors, and learners from all over the world are invited to enroll in the class. However, conversations between mentors and learners revealed that most were superficial. Thus, a pilot study was…

In this article, the developers of seven Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs), Icelandic Online (IOL, https://icelandiconline.com/), describe the technological and pedagogical principles that have contributed to the program's longevity. Development began in 2001 with a courseware system later upgraded to a multiplatform app. Over 80,000…

Captured under the umbrella term Open Education, a wide range of educational initiatives has been popping up in the educational landscape. This study aims to offer empirical ground for understanding how Open Education introduces new forms of education. It does so by focusing on one initiative, namely the Interactive Open Online Courses included in…

Over the last decade, policy makers have urged universities to innovate their teaching methodologies. Although educational research has shown that active methods lead to improvements in learners' performance more than traditional lectures in small classes, some factors impede active methods from spreading in large size classes. In this paper we…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have invigorated a large push towards the expectation that students should engage in science as scientists do. This requires teachers to have the skills necessary to able to hear and engage with their students' science ideas. The current study draws from two constructs, teacher professional noticing and…

Large undergraduate courses make it difficult for students to achieve learning outcomes, in part due to the lack of resources available to course instructors to support student learning in these intimidating and often impersonal settings. One way to support instructor teaching and student learning is the implementation of undergraduate peer…

In Cell Biology, a sophomore/junior undergraduate-level high-enrollment core course, students areexpected to develop a broad and detailed understanding of the functioning of eukaryotic cells. Forexample, some of the more challenging biological concepts include machinery involved in thereplication and translational processes, protein…