This paper focuses on the implications of two emerging digital technologies on the act of field birding, and the implications of these objects for thinking about wild birds. While the adoption of new immaterial technologies promises to improve the ease with which birding is practiced, their use leads to new ethical considerations. Using the…

The purpose of this action research study was to investigate undergraduate preservice student-teachers' interpretations of written reflections and how these written reflections impacted their thoughts about teaching practices. A second question was to investigate how preservice teachers talked about their processes of reflection beyond the…

This study investigated the effect of peer leadership on students' cognitive achievement in online asynchronous discussions. Undergraduate students from a large online course were randomly assigned into groups for four asynchronous discussions, with each group having two to three peer leaders. Results of the mixed-method analysis revealed that the…

Competence in discussion ability cannot be assumed. Discussions will only be facilitated in a style that is exciting, learning-oriented, and useful, when teachers and students are prepared and competent. This article was designed to acquaint teachers with six significant aspects of the discussion facilitation process. (Author/RK)

Presents a brief history of the National Contest in Public Discussion from 1951 through 1963 as evidence of the importance of the contest in the area of forensics. (JMF)

Article describes a new technique in reporting the results of discussion groups to the plenary session of a small conference. Instead of one person from each group writing a report, each group restaged its discussion for 15 minutes before the whole conference, concentrating on major points and conclusions. (PD)

Web 2.0 technologies, open source software platforms, and mobile applications have transformed teaching and learning of second and foreign languages. Language teaching has transitioned from a teacher-centered approach to a student-centered approach through the use of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and new teaching approaches.…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived differences between asynchronous online discussions and face-to-face discussions in a classroom setting. The students' reflections were analysed by following a qualitative research approach. The results showed that atmosphere, response, efficiency, interactivity and communication were the…

While focusing on Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," the author came up with the Interpretation Game, a game that had a simple set of rules designed to promote engaged academic discussion and, at the same time, to overcome problems that students have in class discussion about literature. In this article, the author narrates a few instances of…

Intellectual, social, managerial and technical are four commonly reported categories of facilitation in online discussions. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether these four broad categories of facilitation were equally applied in online discussions and which specific skills were perceived to be more important. In this study,…

Medical students are often faced with an ethical dilemma within the clinical setting--to learn from as many patients as possible but to learn only with consenting patients. Although studies have examined patients' and students' views about informed consent, none have examined how medical students talk about consent-related behaviours in…

This paper draws on research into teachers' and pupils' perceptions of talk in school. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives, it shows that expectations of talk are grounded in particular sociocultural values that represent hegemonic interpretations of the quality of talk and classroom discourse. Although much has been written about classroom…

Purpose: This study examined age-related differences in speaker similarity judgments, in which acoustic cues known to be important in speaker and speech recognition and identification were varied. Method: Four groups of listeners of 5- to 6-, 8- to 9-, 10- to 11-, and 25- to 30-year-olds were asked to judge the similarity between an original…

Teachers want and need students to excel in the classroom. Cooperative learning is one method recognized to address this. Numerous researchers have shown that cooperative learning leads to improved skills in teamwork and communication in other fields (Johnson and Johnson, 2007; Slavin, 1995). Cooperative learning used in this study showed that the…

It has been reported (Lei, Barlett, Gorney, & Herschbach, 2010; Sikorski et al., 2002) that only a minority of college students actually read the course textbook or other assigned readings in preparation for examinations. Suggested strategies to remedy this situation include quizzes (Ruscio, 2001; Ryan, 2006), study worksheets (Aagaard &…