Studies show the important role of the home learning environment in early childhood for later school success. This article focuses on a particular aspect of the home learning environment: visits to cultural learning places (e.g. museums) as a component of the quality of the home learning environment. Therefore the educational concept of…

This paper reports outcomes of a study focused on discovering qualitatively different ways students experience problem-based learning in virtual space. A well-accepted and documented qualitative research method was adopted for this study. Five qualitatively different conceptions are described, each revealing characteristics of increasingly complex…

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Student Survey is administered each year to measure students' perceptions about their learning experiences. In 2014-15, the content of the survey, as well as the grades to which it was administered, were changed to better capture measures of engagement and grit during students' transition years. Over…

Neuroanatomy is a difficult subject in medical education, with students often feeling worried and anxious before they have even started, potentially decreasing their engagement with the subject. At the University of Southampton, we incorporated the use of Twitter as a way of supporting students' learning on a neuroanatomy module to evaluate how it…

This study reports on the differences in motivation, vocabulary gain, and perceptions on using or the Google Docs between individual and collaborative learning at a tertiary level. Two classes of English-as-a-Foreign Language (EFL) students were recruited and each class was randomly assigned into one of the two groups--individuals or…

Educational webcasts or video lectures as a teaching tool and a form of visual aid have become widely used with the rising prevalence of online and blended courses and with the increase of web-based video materials. Thus, research pertaining to factors enhancing the effectiveness of video lectures, such as number of visual aids, is critical. This…

This article reports on pre-service teachers' experience of the Real-Time Coaching model, an innovative technology-based approach to teacher training. The Real-Time Coaching model uses multiple feedback cycles via wireless technology to develop within pre-service teachers the specific skills and mindset toward continual improvement. Results of…

This article explores the quality of the online learning experience based on the Sloan-C framework and the Online Learning Consortium's (OLC) quality scorecard. The OLC index has been implemented to evaluate quality in online programs from different perspectives. Despite this, the opinions of learners are ignored, and it is built using feedback…

A systematic approach to the training of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) is required to meet the challenges posed by growing numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. At University College Dublin, educational developers and academic staff across six schools collaborated on the design and phased implementation of context-specific GTA…

This paper documents how a unit of student-designed games can create a more meaningful version of physical education (PE) for disengaged students, a version that enhances the educational legitimacy of the subject matter by affording it worth in and of itself rather than being justified for other, extrinsic or instrumental reasons. Furthermore, it…

Teachers assume several key roles in the language classroom. Because any one teacher is unlikely to possess the full range of characteristics suggested in the literature, it is vital to explore what individual class groups of learners believe are the characteristics most beneficial to their language learning. This study therefore explored their…

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants'…

As tertiary music educators across the Tasman we argue that music, particularly song, is an effective medium for teaching and learning about non-western music when preparing generalist primary Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs). Using "voice" as a portable and accessible vehicle to transmit cultural understandings, we draw on the Zimbabwean…

As the learning paradigms are shifting to include various forms of digital technologies such as synchronous, asynchronous, and interactive methods, social networking technologies have been introduced to the educational settings in order to increase the quality of learning environments. The literature suggests that effective application of these…

Traditionally, a large lecture hall course follows a teacher-centered approach to instruction. This was the case for the "gateway" course in the undergraduate Information Technology and Informatics (ITI) major in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This paper describes the journey…