England and Australia have introduced new learning areas, teaching computer science to children from the first year of school. This is a significant milestone that also raises a number of big challenges: the preparation of teachers and the development of resources" at a national scale." Curriculum change is not easy for teachers, in any…

In 1970, education theorist Paulo Freire (1970) sharply critiqued dominant pedagogy--or what he called the banking model of education--for stripping students of their agency. In the banking model, he wrote, instructors are empowered as narrating subjects as students who become alienated as passive listening objects. In the decades since, research…

This paper explores how to teach English writing to big classes in China from the task-based perspective. Based on a comparison between the traditional 3Ps approach and the tasked-based approach, the paper proposes a practical linear procedure as to how to teach English writing in the task-based classroom to big classes. An empirical study is…

Research on teaching from a student learning perspective has identified two qualitatively different approaches to university teaching. They are an information transmission and teacher-focused approach, and a conceptual change and student-focused approach. The fundamental difference being in the former the intention is to transfer information to…

In this article I examine the role of the contemporary university in light of the mass increase in class sizes that has occurred on an international scale. While we may look nostalgically back to a time when lectures numbered a few hundred students and tutorials had as few as ten, massification at undergraduate level is an inescapable fact of…

The techniques used in massive open online courses (MOOCs) are compared with supersizing in the fast food industry. Similarities include the profit motives, marketing techniques, criticisms, industry defences, and evolution of the two controversies. While fast food restaurants strategically increase the size of their meal courses and consumer…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) represent a potentially exciting opportunity to use technology to realise many of the long-promised benefits of universal higher education. While there are many positive aspects to the MOOCs on offer and in development, there are also significant ethical concerns arising from various initiatives. These include…

The six articles in this edition are fascinating, both in terms of their content, but even more so in their diversity. In most of the literature and discussion about MOOCs, there is a tendency to talk about instructionist MOOCs (i.e., xMOOCs) or connectivist MOOCs (i.e., cMOOCs; see Daniel, 2012). Although this is still a useful distinction,…

One major challenge of developing problem-based learning (PBL) curricula in medical schools in China is to meet the requirements of sufficient qualified PBL tutors. Since 2011, we have developed a modified group teaching approach where an experienced faculty tutor facilitates several small PBL student groups in a large class. Although our study…

For many decades, English language educators across the world have been locked in a paradigm of ESL/EFL/ESD methods that have circumvented the growth of any pedagogical will for Immersion in English (IE) or the Sustained Use of English (SUE) in speech environments where other languages challenge English-in-use and the preparation of teachers of…

This study examines a MOOC instructor's use of social presence, teaching presence, and dissonance for attitudinal change in a MOOC on Human Trafficking, designed to promote attitudinal change. Researchers explored the MOOC instructor's use of social presence and teaching presence, using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework as a lens, and…

Self-determination theory (SDT) is one of the most well-known approaches to achievement motivation. However, the three basic psychological needs of SDT have not received equivalent attention in the literature: priority has been given to autonomy, followed by the need for competence, with research into relatedness lacking (Bachman and Stewart in…

This paper reports preliminary findings on students enrolled in a massive open online course, who were also assigned to work in groups. Part of a larger study on the effect of groups on retention and completion in MOOCs, the paper provides students' demographics (i.e., location, gender, education level, and employment status), and motivation for…

This paper presents a model for teaching large classes that facilitates a "small class feel" to counteract the distance, anonymity, and formality that often characterize large lecture-style courses in higher education. One author (E. P.) has been teaching a 300-student general education critical thinking course for ten years, and the…

This study examines the effect of Moodle-enhanced instruction on Jordanian EFL students' reading comprehension and grammar performance. The study uses a quasi-experimental, pre- /post-test design. A purposeful sample of 32 students, enrolled in a language requirement course at a Jordanian state university, was randomly divided into an experimental…