It is argued that online discussion is a useful tool for creating opportunities for learning in teacher education. In a project designed to improve the practicum in rural areas, researchers placed pre-service teachers (PSTs) in two different moderated online discussion forums: an unstructured personal blog space and a structured threaded…

Social presence (represented by salience of instructor and fellow students) in an online teaching environment has been shown to influence perceptions of course activity and self-estimates of learning. An experiment is described here in which teacher presence is manipulated via personalized messages from the teaching assistant throughout the…

This paper proposes and discusses how to use an assignment based on "Freakonomics" as a way to foster critical thinking and statistical literacy skills within the classroom.

The focus of this article is the reliability of content analysis of students' computer conference communication. Content analysis is often used when researching the relationship between learning and the use of information and communications technology in educational settings. A number of studies where content analysis is used and classification…

This study investigated the process by which shared understanding develops in a chat learning space. It used a practical inquiry model to assess the development of cognitive presence. The study also explored how the pattern of conversation in synchronous discussion supports cognitive presence and how cognitive presence changes over time. Results…

This study focused on the effects of peer moderation on meaningful interactions in online discussions. A meaningful interaction was defined as a message relating to a discussion topic, responding to a previous message, and adding substance to the discussion. A randomized-subject, posttest-only control group design was used to test the first…

In this study over the course of one school year, I set out to look closely at what the diverse fifth-grade students in Ms. Jean's urban class were learning from the social justice curriculum. As a former kindergarten teacher at Gonzales myself, in this project I wanted to know what children said, thought, and did when they were asked to read…

P. L. Thomas provides a framework for discussing plagiarism and calls on us to avoid overly simplified policies. After considering various perspectives on intent and the purposes of documentation, Thomas advocates developing standard definitions and guidelines for plagiarism in the department or the classroom. We should also offer professional…

This article describes a study which was designed to explore how sentence openers supported students' construction of arguments in an online learning environment. The study involved a group of students from a teacher training institute in Singapore. As part of the overall teacher training program, the students attended a course that equipped them…

Life Skills Education (LSE) is a novel promotional program that teaches generic life skills through participatory learning methods of games, debates, role-plays, and group discussion. Conceptual understanding and practicing of the skills occurs through experiential learning in a non-threatening setting. Such initiatives provide the adolescent with…

This study examines the use of wireless laptop technology to support the application of problem-based learning (PBL) in a special education methods course. This field based course used a progressive disclosure process in weekly seminars to address issues posed in a case study. Eight scenarios, all related to the case, were presented to upper level…

Experienced managers know that perceptions matter greatly when it comes to working effectively with employees. The task for organizational behavior (OB) instructors, especially in the undergraduate classroom, is to make the perceptions topic come alive for students who may not appreciate at first the application and significance of this subject…

If education is an inalienable right for children and young people with disabilities, securing employment plays a key role in their inclusion into adult life. A broad study was conducted to analyse the transition between the end of compulsory education and the beginning of employment in young people with disabilities in the Autonomous Community of…

Assessment of students' learning in school is deeply implicated in teaching for social justice. Yet classroom assessment is neglected relative to other aspects of curriculum and pedagogy in the literature on teaching for social justice. Some books have a relatively clear theory of anti-oppression education at their core but do not provide details…

What does it take to convince an education professor with leadership potential to seriously consider becoming a dean? In this article, the authors highlight what was learned at a conference where deans and mid-career faculty members discussed ways to tap and prepare future leaders. Funded by the Spencer Foundation, the conference was held in June…