To promote graduate students' active learning, deep reading of high quality papers was done by graduate students enrolled in biochemistry and microbiology pharmacy curriculum offered by college of life science, Jiangxi Normal University from 2013 to 2015. The number of graduate students, who participated in the course in 2013, 2014, and 2015 were…

This study examines student teachers' collaborative learning by focusing on socio-cognitive and socio-emotional monitoring processes during more and less active script discussions as well as the near transfer of monitoring activities in the subsequent task work. The participants of this study were teacher education students whose collaborative…

In this study we report the findings of a two-year professional development study using scaffolded lesson-study to encourage and support four teachers' desire to use discussion with increased frequency and quality. We joined a collaborative community of practice made up of one university researcher, two classroom teachers, and a political science…

A pilot study was conducted on a multimodal educational tool, Peruvian Food Chain Jenga (PFCJ), with 5th-grade students (N = 54) at a public charter school. The goal was to compare the effectiveness of the multimodal tool to a more traditional presentation of the same materials (food chain) using an experimental/control design. Data collection…

We adopted Facebook as part of a large enrollment science discussion class in a bid to exploit students' time on this social networking site and tested the effectiveness of this "co-option" strategy of creating education-related activity on Facebook for our students. We used a "Facebook Group" to create an online avenue for…

In their transition to college, students often struggle to identify and make connections between the main arguments, evidence, and empirical findings of articles from academic journals commonly assigned on political science syllabi. Which active learning techniques are most effective for teaching students to recognize and evaluate social science…

The present study examined the social dynamics of interpersonal immediacy, a manifestation of social support, during collaborative small-group discussions. The temporal sequence of three forms of immediacy behaviors identified from 24 discussions in two fifth-grade classrooms were analyzed using statistical discourse analysis. The preliminary…

This essay questions the place that conversations about 'race' hold in the English classroom. I hope to reveal the problems that may come with easily dismissing tense and racially charged dialogues about language and identity. I also explore the way classroom talk opens up an opportunity for students to create and contest different meanings and…

While training social work students to become culturally competent practitioners is at the forefront of multicultural higher education, courses on diversity issues present great challenges for both students and faculty. Building on previous research, this study presents an instructional approach to promote social work graduate student learning via…

We have developed a set of tools for improving online collaborative learning including an automated expert that monitors and moderates discussions, and additional tools to evaluate contributions, semantically search all posted comments, access a library of hundreds of digital books and provide reports to instructors. The technology behind these…

The impact of the Internet on our lives has been pervasive. People are increasingly turning to the social interaction available on the Internet to satisfy their needs, whether these are professional or personal. The Internet offers users fast access to social contacts such as online chat groups and discussion lists, helping us to make connections…

The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if instructors' use of mini audio presentations (MAPs) in online discussions serves as an effective facilitation method, particularly when the content contains specific facilitation markers including reinforcement, recognition, and reward (three Rs). Instructors posted MAPs as audio file attachments…

This study discusses the representation of (the) literacy (myth) in popular movies and a teaching and research project on cinematic literacy narratives. It attempts to reveal the existence of a powerful 'Pygmalion template' in contemporary movie culture. Focusing on a discourse or culture clash 'Pygmalion movies' simultaneously contribute to the…

This article presents an investigation based on in-depth interviews with 33 university students and eight discussion groups, aimed at finding out which discourses and positions mobilize college students in terms of social networking practices. It analyses how they construct meanings and question or legitimize their own actions or those of others,…

This article discusses some key findings about secondary schools from a mapping study of Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education in England. The secondary school elements of the study combined a nationally representative survey of 617 secondary schools with follow-up in-depth case studies in five of these schools. These case studies…