Internet-mediated intercultural discussions have been adopted for intercultural and second-language learning. However, the notion of community development in this context has received less attention. This study employs exchange structure (ES) analysis (Stubbs, M. (1983). "Discourse analysis." Oxford: Basil Blackwell) to investigate the…

In this work, the phenomenon of student enthusiasm was explored in a population of 47 students of Touro Graduate School of Education who took the author's online psychology course. The purpose of the study was to find how students-enthusiasts differ from classmates in their communication style(s) reflected in group discussions on the Discussion…

Play is considered an important activity of the early childhood years. Research supports the contribution of play to children's development, learning, and well-being. In spite of this, time for play is being pushed out in many early childhood programs by greater time allotted to formal instruction in narrow academic skills to be tested eventually…

The inclusion of new digital literacies in the ESL classroom has been growing lately. This study presents information about how beneficial it can be for emergent bilinguals to use an online platform, Blackboard, to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussion boards. Findings from this qualitative case study show that such online discussion…

In this follow-up article, the authors explain that when technology is integrated in an equitable manner and with due regard for professional learning, the affordances of Web 2.0 technology and interactive devices allow teachers to not only promote procedural fluency but also to develop students' conceptual understanding, reasoning and…

It is known that parent involvement contributes to children's overall educational achievement as well as their literacy development. Home literacy, in particular, is critical in helping children who read below grade level. Studies also found that the quality of the interaction between the child and parent is as important as interactive…

Purpose: Despite the well-known health benefits of physical activity (PA), disadvantaged populations usually have lower PA levels than the rest of the population. Some intra- and interpersonal factors such as different types of barriers to PA may influence PA levels, particularly among disadvantaged adult women. The first aim of this qualitative…

We report on one teachers' efforts to re-design an entire instructional unit as a coherent storyline about forces and motion as a part of a multiyear professional development (PD) project around the NGSS. Designing coherent storylines demands that teachers create opportunities for students to meaningfully engage in science practices in order to…

The purpose of this study is to examine how fifth grade students were impacted by the infusion of multiple writing tasks in mathematics. In this study, writing tasks provided opportunities for students to communicate prior knowledge, share ideas to construct and justify arguments, for reflection, and assessment. In this deductive qualitative…

This paper investigates an institutional practice of the educational conversation that is a part of the undergraduate kindergarten teacher education program at a Norwegian university. The formal goal connected to this practice is to facilitate students coping with their courses of study. Thus, this paper reconstructs the perspectives of the…

Secondary literacy instruction often happens "to" adolescents rather than "with" them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade "literacy mentors" to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a)…

Today's technology allows easier understanding of course activity and increasing motivation to learn. The Six Thinking Hats model, combined with the use of social media to enhance critical thinking abilities of learners. This framework is considered to be effective in promoting motivation and encouraging interaction between learners and teachers…

School examinations of student responses to literature often present poetry blind or "unseen", inviting decontextualised close reading consistent with the orientation-to-text associated with Practical Criticism (originating in the UK) and New Criticism (originating in the USA). The approach survives in the UK after curricular reforms and…

This study aims to investigate and analyze the attitudes and opinions of computer science students at two academic colleges of education with regards to the use of structured and unstructured discussion forums in computer science courses conducted entirely online. Fifty-two students participated in two online courses. The students in each course…

An ego network is an individual's social network relationships with core members. In this study, the ego network parameters in online discussion spaces of high- and low-performing students were compared. The extent to which students' ego networks changed over the course were also analyzed. Participation in 7 weeks of online discussions were…