When students are motivated, engaged, and have opportunities to practice and develop discussion skills taught during literacy time, they can deepen their understanding of science concepts. Communication is an important tool for the development of scientific knowledge; group discussions such as the one portrayed in this article are critical to the…

This study extends the research on asynchronous online discussion (AOD) by providing a perspective on: (1) the growth patterns of discussion threads and (2) the influence of peer- or student-facilitation techniques on thread development. Using the Pointing, Questioning, Resolving and Summarizing (PQRS) facilitation techniques framework, the…

The purpose of the study reported on in this paper was to identify performance criteria and ratings in rubrics designed for the evaluation of learning in online asynchronous discussions (OADs) in post-secondary contexts. We analysed rubrics collected from Internet sources. Using purposive sampling, we reached saturation with the selection of 50…

Online learning has been burgeoning over the past decade with one of the more popular modes of conducting online learning being the asynchronous online courses. Within the asynchronous online course, the asynchronous discussion forum replaces the face-to-face interaction of the traditional classroom, but is this form of discussion able to enhance…

This paper discusses the Team Boat Exercise, which was developed to provide students with a mechanism for addressing team problems and enhancing team communication midsemester. The inspiration for the exercise came from a video by Prentice Hall, Inc. (2001). Part III of the video, entitled "Corporate Coaching," shows senior staff members from the…

The primary aim of this study was to determine perceptions of three cohorts of third year undergraduate students (n = 65) on in-class reflective group discussion as a critical reflective approach for evolving professionals. Reflective group discussions were embedded into a final year course within the University of Queensland Bachelor of Oral…

This study examines the use of formulaic language in an intercultural communication encounter. It focuses particularly on phatic expressions used in an online discussion about gender stereotypes in English among 167 undergraduate university students in Taiwan, Israel, and the US. Content analysis methodology was used to examine whether there are…

Using an apparently simple problem, ''Design a cylindrical can that will hold a liter of milk,'' this paper demonstrates how engineering design may facilitate the teaching of the following ideas to secondary students: linear and non-linear relationships; basic geometry of circles, rectangles, and cylinders; unit measures of area and volume;…

Dental hygiene education has evolved over the years from dental hygiene professions who provide patient education on oral health care to assuming the responsibility for the assimilation of knowledge that requires judgment, decision making and critical thinking skills. Given that the dental hygiene professions has moved toward evidence-based,…

As institutional and market pressures move more faculty into the online teaching space, renewed discussions are occurring about how to best teach online, and what features of online courses are best to employ. A distance learning staple, the online discussion, or asynchronous discussion forum (ADF) is an easy strategy for faculty to employ in an…

This qualitative research study is an exploration of the merit and shortcomings of using a combination of the music software GarageBand[TM] and an electronic bulletin board to facilitate musical and peer learning in a 3-month elementary music methods curriculum and instruction course. A pedagogical objective of this assignment was to increase the…

This contribution outlines a strategy to counteract literature lethargy and train beginning and continuing undergraduate and graduate researchers in a professor's research group to efficiently learn from and critique archival journal articles. Journal Club is a weekly one-credit-hour class where a research article related to each research…

Nineteen pre-service and in-service teachers taking a chemistry teaching methods course at a university in Hong Kong were asked to take a diagnostic assessment. It consisted of seven multiple-choice questions about the chemistry of the lead-acid battery. Analysis of the teachers' responses to the questions indicated that they had difficulty in…

In the new European higher education space, Universities in Europe are exhorted to cultivate and develop multilingualism. The European Commission's 2004-2006 action plan for promoting language learning and diversity speaks of the need to build an environment which is favourable to languages. Yet reality indicates that it is English which reigns…

This paper seeks to contribute new insight to the process of learning during idea generation (i.e., brainstorming) by proposing and evaluating two alternative operationalizations for learning, which we refer to as connection-based learning and multi-perspective learning, during a carefully designed idea-generation task in the earth-sciences…