Presents strategies for coaxing students into insightful book discussions. The strategies include creating a comfortable environment, choosing groups that work together, being a good leader, picking meaningful books, following the students' leads, spinning conversational threads, lighting the conversational fire, and examining different angles on…

Shares insights into how literature study circles helped group members make connections between their lives and themes in books and influenced students' perceptions of themselves as readers in a culturally diverse world. (MG)

This article documents how second language (L2) Spanish learners in an American high school formulated explicit grammar rules during three inductive lessons on the pronominal clitic "se." Following Adair-Hauck "et al." (2010), each lesson first presented a property of "se" within a narrative text, and then had learners inductively "Co-construct"…

A lack of knowledge in registered nurses about geriatric conditions is one of the major factors that contribute to these conditions being overlooked in hospitalized older people. In China, an innovative geriatric continuing nursing education program aimed at developing registered nurses' understanding of the complex care needs of hospitalized…

When patients need information, they may visit a doctor, ask a nurse, or look online. But these are not the only sources of information used by patients. This paper examines discussion threads in online renal support groups to describe how people living with kidney failure conceive of help, information and support. I use Actor Network Theory to…

Recent advances in ubiquitous computing technologies have brought reality augmentation of traditional objects to context-aware and social supports. Although a significant proportion of students prefer poring over traditional paper textbooks over electronic books, few studies have enhanced reading practice of traditional books with ubiquitous…

As asynchronous discussion forums become more prevalent in online and flexible-delivery modes of teaching, understanding the role that instructors play in student learning in these forums becomes an important issue. Whether the instructor chooses to lead discussions or to keep a low profile can affect student participation in surprising ways. In…

This paper discusses an innovative blended learning strategy which incorporates online discussion in both in-class face to face, and off-classroom settings. Online discussion in a face to face class is compared with its two counterparts, off-class online discussion as well as in-class, face to face oral discussion, to examine the advantages and…

In support of online discussions research, this review classifies and describes instructional interventions and learner characteristics that affect the quality of discussions. The review will help educators better understand factors such as group structure, mentoring, argumentation, and learner characteristics that play a role in shaping online…

This paper explores the use of learning management systems (LMS) at colleges and universities in the United States of America. The study explores which systems are in use including both commercial and self-developed systems. The findings are based upon a random sample of 100 of the approximately 2,000 institutions of higher learning in the United…

Punking is a practice of verbal and physical violence, humiliation, and shaming usually done in public by males to other males. This definition is based on interviews and discussion groups with 32 adolescent boys and on media sources within which adolescent males are embedded. Discourse analysis findings reveal that punking terminology and…

This dissertation is a qualitative practitioner research study in which I explore how my students and I engage in critical literacy using sociopolitical Articles of the Week (AoWs). Critical literacy is the ability to read, write, and speak about texts in a reflective manner to better understand power, inequality, and injustice that prevails in…

There is a dearth of research into teaching strategies and learning approaches for units involving sensitive topics that can provoke an emotional response in students. In a business ethics unit, attempts to strike a balance between conceptual knowledge and theory and skills training can be challenging because the unit can involve personal,…

This study introduces photomontage as a task to facilitate talking in English as a Foreign Language classrooms. Thirty-three undergraduate English major students studying at the University of Guilan were assigned to design a composite photographic image by combining images from separate photographic sources, and use it as the stimulus to initiate…

Matriculation a pre-tertiary program offered by Ministry of Education for students who have completed their "Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia's" (SPM) examinations successfully. These excellent students will be required to sit for the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) before pursuing their studies in local colleges and universities. MUET…