The purpose of the present study was to explore ESL students' interactions in task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in Second Life, a virtual environment by which users can interact through representational figures. I investigated Low-Intermediate and High-Intermediate ESL students' interaction patterns before, during, and…

The following article is an introspection into my childhood and early youth memories in relation to language acquisition and learning of foreign languages. This analysis will help me determine to what extent these experiences, positive and negative ones, may have influenced my teaching methods and style to the present day. (Contains…

With the general practice of online teaching still in relative infancy, nuanced approaches for teaching target populations such as black students are especially scarce. This article submits a theoretical framework for approaching the activity of teaching black students online using a transformative, postmodern pedagogy that is sensitive to black…

In an attempt to increase college history majors' ability to analyze primary sources, the author set up a unique research project designed to tap into his students' personal interests, and which would utilize a specific method requiring them to grapple with primary source materials in an unfamiliar, though hopefully more profitable fashion. The…

Affect has been the subject of increasing attention in cognitive accounts of learning. Many intelligent tutoring systems now seek to adapt pedagogy to student affective and motivational processes in an effort to increase the effectiveness of tutorial interaction and improve learning outcomes. To this end, recent work has begun to investigate the…

This paper discusses an exploration of the working lives of musicians working in a range of musical genres in the North East of England, revealing the factors that contribute to their ability to obtain a musical livelihood. These factors can be understood in terms of various forms of social, cultural and symbolic "capital" (Bourdieu,…

The preponderance of the evidence from the engineering education literature demonstrates that inductive teaching methods are more effective than deductive approaches. When students are already familiar with the fundamentals of a topic, however, deductive approaches may make more sense. This paper discusses the implementation of a combination of…

For some time there has been a focus in higher education research towards understanding the student experience of learning. This article presents a narrative analysis of the experience of a teacher who re-entered the learning world of undergraduate students by enrolling in a challenging chemical engineering course. The analysis identifies multiple…

Mature learners often invest a great deal of emotional energy in starting a higher education qualification. They have complex needs which are often less to do with their ability to learn and more to do with aspects of confidence and levels of self-belief about achieving or feeling "good enough" to participate. This article explores the…

The purpose of this case study was to examine one learner's (Keira) personal trajectory in an online, transnational telecollaborative learning environment, focusing on how she negotiated (1) her own sense of identity,(2) her perspective on French and American cultures, and (3) the possibility of a transcultural dialogue. The data (observations,…

This study examined the development of two Distance Learning (DL) courses and their effect on students' perceptions and learning experiences. Our study included about 260 science and engineering graduate students. Among them, 105 students were divided into two research groups: on-campus students (N=70) and DL students (N=35). These two groups…

This study explored how the learners-as-ethnographers (LAE) approach facilitated intercultural learning among American students learning Chinese as a foreign language. Two research questions addressed the effectiveness of the LAE approach and students' learning experiences in a non-immersion context. I designed six ethnographic tasks for the…

To ensure a modern bioscience curriculum that responds to the current needs of stakeholders, there is a need to embed a range of generic capabilities that enables graduates to succeed in and contribute to a rapidly changing world, as well as building strong bioscience skills and knowledge. The curriculum must also prepare students for a rapidly…

Higher education institutions are currently undertaking a challenging process in moving from teacher-orientated to student-focused approaches. Students' ability to asking questions is fundamental to developing critical reasoning, and to the process of scientific enquiry itself. Our premise is that questioning competences should become a central…

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill undertook faculty development activities to increase awareness of community-engaged scholarship through campus dialogue and by assisting faculty members in acquiring skills for community-engaged scholarship. This article presents a case report describing activities and their impact. The activities…