Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is well known for enhancing students' problem solving skills and teamwork, while the role of PBL tutors is to facilitate discussion rather than teach. This study used four focus groups to explore PBL tutors' motivation, challenges and support mechanisms, and the relationship between these. The study found that there…

This exploratory study examines ethno-cultural diversity in youth's narratives regarding their "online" learning experiences while also investigating how these narratives can be understood from the analysis of their online network structure and composition. Based on ego-network data of 79 respondents this study compared the…

A collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation allowed the first two authors to provide students at primarily undergraduate institutions with a multi-faculty, multi-institution team research experience. Teams of undergraduate students at Western Carolina University and Washington and Lee University collaborated with one…

There is a paucity of research in the area of teaching group counseling within an African context. In this article we describe and reflect on our experiences teaching group counseling at an institution of higher learning in the country of Botswana. We discuss cultural traditions and strengths that support an environment of group work in Botswana,…

Being situated within a course at the applied end of the spectrum of maths degrees, the pure mathematics modules at Sheffield Hallam University have an applied spin. Pure topics are taught through consideration of practical examples such as knots, cryptography and automata. Rubik's cubes are used to teach group theory within a final year pure…

Belonging is emerging as an important concept for early childhood education and care. However, it is one that requires further theorisation beyond everyday or romanticised understandings. The politics of belonging provides a potentially productive focus for thinking about belonging in early childhood education and care because of its attention to…

Interdisciplinary research teams and departments are seen by some as a way of addressing problems that cannot be understood using a traditionally narrow and uniform approach rooted in a particular discipline. This paper presents a postgraduate perspective by discussing the positive and negative impacts on Ph.D. research of this type of work and…

This paper explores the evolving perceptions of community sentiments, for three teachers and 36 AS-level students on a week-long residential fieldtrip. For this in-depth study I adopted an ethnographic methodology in which I participated in, observed and recounted some of the complex and fluid spatial arrangements and processes, analysing their…

Transnational higher education is the term that is most commonly used to describe programmes that allow students to obtain a degree from an overseas university in their local context. Such programmes are often marketed on their similarity with those offered at home by the overseas university. Perhaps as a consequence, the related literature…

This qualitative study investigated the complex social aspects of communication required for students to participate effectively in Problem-Based Learning and explored how these dynamics are managed. The longitudinal study of a group of first-year undergraduates examined interactions using Rapport Management as a framework to analyse communication…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the gender composition of university physics laboratory groups on student self-efficacy and quiz performance. Students from a Chinese university was chosen and subdivided into two groups, which were assigned either same-sex or coed laboratory teams while executing identical laboratory…

Experience working in multidisciplinary teams is important both to prepare Computer Science (CS) students for industry and to improve their communication with teammates from disciplines other than their own. This article describes the evolution and results of collaborations among three courses: an undergraduate CS course about user interface…

Building relationships is the essence of the community college. Higher education administrators learned long ago that building rapport with businesses, state and local government, and constituents is the best way to represent the interests of the community. But that does not make it easy. Board members come and go and the shifting dynamics of…

The therapeutic workplace is an employment-based abstinence reinforcement intervention for unemployed drug users where trainees receive on-the-job employment skills training in a classroom setting. The study is an extension of prior therapeutic workplace research, which suggested that trainees frequently violated noise standards. Participants…

This paper presents a small group computing environment in which four students each control a different point in a geometric space, such that as a group they collectively manipulate the vertices of a quadrilateral. Prior research has revealed that students have considerable difficulty in learning about the interrelationships among quadrilaterals…