Emergent learning describes learning that occurs when participants interact and distribute knowledge, where learning is self-directed, and where the learning destination of the participants is largely unpredictable (Williams, Karousou, & Mackness, 2011). These notions of learning arise from the topologies of social networks and can be applied to…

The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of instruction using WebQuest activities with the influence of an instruction using spreadsheet activities on the motivation of pre-service elementary school teachers in mathematics teaching course. There were a total of 70 pre-service elementary school teachers involved in this study. Thirty…

Adopting a new teaching approach is often a daunting task especially if one is an early adopter in a limited-resource environment. This article describes the challenges encountered and the strategies used in pilot testing a blended instructional method in a large size class within the college of education at a medium-sized university. The main…

Education traditionally has been defined as a one-way relationship between teacher and learner. However, new technologies are dramatically changing that relationship in a multitude of ways. In this article, the authors describe some of these changes and explore one example of the intersection between technology and pedagogy, describing a college…

Lack of connectivity and sustainability are two common problems in asynchronous online discussions. In this paper, the author proposes that the two problems may have to do with the structure of threaded forums, that is, the design of threaded forums may constrain participants from having well-connected and sustained discussions. A new discussion…

The study was a quantitative, causal-comparative, ex post facto study that compared the college algebra and freshman English outcomes for three groups of developmental learners based on where they completed their developmental English and mathematics courses. The study also examined the effectiveness of developmental education courses within the…

The purpose of this study was to examine teacher dispositions within an undergraduate and graduate education course aimed at helping students gain a better appreciation for lifelong multicultural education. Education majors (N = 202) from a Midwestern metropolitan university were asked to rate the viability of 13 dispositions as a training and…

The present study investigated University of Swaziland Bachelor of Education degree (B.Ed) (Primary and secondary) students' conception of the current trends in writing instruction. The extent of their conception of these trends was examined on only four selected writing ideas namely collaborative writing, the process approach to writing, teacher…

In an effort to get elementary teachers to teach more science in the classroom, a required preservice science education course was designed to promote the use of hands-on teaching techniques. This paper describes course content and activities for an innovative, student-centered, Earth science class. However, any science-content course could be…

The National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges (2006) specifies that writing-across-the-curriculum programs (including post-secondary coursework) should be well supported. The National Writing Project (NWP) is a group that understands this issue, believing that teachers must be comfortable and confident with…

The author's book on integrated course design was published in 2003, and two years later he retired from the University of Oklahoma, in part to free himself up to respond to the requests that started coming from other campuses to do faculty workshops on this topic. However, one of the carry-over commitments at Oklahoma was to teach a graduate…

In this paper we discuss the foundations and process of design of a research-informed instructional unit aimed for pre-service science teacher education. The unit covers some key ideas on the nature of science (around methodology, theory change, scientific inference and explanation, values, gender issues) anchoring them in a well-known episode…

Two reasons may be responsible for the poor grasp of the linguistic concepts related to literacy acquisition by preservice and in-service teachers: a lack of attention given to such concepts by teacher educators (college faculty members) and a lack of relevant information provided in the textbooks used in college courses. In an earlier study, the…

This paper presents a study carried out at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU with the aim of evaluating the CM-ED (concept map editor) with social education students. Concept mapping is a widely accepted technique that promotes meaningful learning. Graphically representing concepts of the learning domain and relationships between them…

Until recently, spirituality within a university setting was associated with religious studies faculties. Today, it has spilled over into other faculties, such as nursing, business, social work and education. Conferences, research and courses within these professional faculties are increasing as professors and students seek to make meaningful…