In recent years a combination of ever more flexible and sophisticated Web technologies and an explosion in the quantity of online content has sparked learning technologists around the world to pursue the promise of the "reusable learning object" or RLO with the idea that RLOs could be reused in different educational contexts, thereby…

Since independent study groups can be important in providing spaces for students in creative disciplines to develop a critically reflexive approach to their creative practice, tutors in an Australian university introduced independent group learning to students studying in creative disciplines. However, student responses to the experience of…

This study examines students' views on a blended learning module developed and offered at the University of Aveiro. The paper presents the module and the strategies, tools, activities and assessment. In order to examine the effectiveness of the module, data were collected from reflections, postings and questionnaires. Findings document students'…

This paper describes the delivery of action learning sets to students on the peer educator course provided by the Dementia Studies Department at University of Bradford. Our understanding of action learning sets is laid out together with our rationale for their use on this course. Feedback is presented that described a conflicted, even confused…

In this article, the author talks about a diary project that arose from a situation that was both an opportunity and a challenge. While teaching in Vietnam in the spring of 2004, the author received an invitation from the national university in Hanoi. The letter asked him to teach there and specifically to develop a postgraduate course called…

Blogs have the potential to increase reflection, sense of community and collaboration in undergraduate classrooms. Studies of their effectiveness are still limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of blogs in a large lecture class would enhance students' perceived learning. Students in an undergraduate nutrition course…

In this study, the authors explore a Canadian field experience model in a bachelor of education program that focuses on mentor-based relationships between teacher candidates and students at risk of dropping out of high school. They examine teacher candidates' and at-risk students' attitudinal approaches. The model emphasizes praxis and social…

Networks aiming for fundamental changes bring together a variety of actors who are part and parcel of a problematic context. These system innovation projects need to be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation approach that supports and maintains reflexivity to be able to deal with uncertainties and conflicts while challenging current practices…

State and national leaders have focused on the role of the teacher, and the teacher's impact on student achievement. This qualitative study examined narratively the stories of effective teachers of 5th grade students to determine the methods and strategies that they use to foster improved student achievement. Narrative techniques were utilized to…

Two papers in the "European Physical Education Review" by Colwell (1999) and Mansfield (this issue) have argued respectively against, and in favour of, a potential synthesis between feminism and figurational sociology as a vehicle for making more adequate sense of physical education and sport. This paper offers both selective summaries and…

Given the centennial of the publication of the first two textbooks in social psychology, the one by William McDougall and the other by Edward Alsworth Ross, the author stresses that it is an auspicious time for reflection. It is a time to reconsider the movements into which these volumes were secreted, and the resulting trajectories of…

This article presents an analysis of higher education students' retrospective meaning making of their experiences of personal development planning (PDP). An earlier study of first year students had indicated that students rarely reflected on their own meta-cognitive processes and were preoccupied with practical study skill matters, particularly…

Reflective practice, or reflection, is considered such a vital component of the learning process that strategies and supporting tools warrant continued research in the learning sciences. Reflection has been defined as "deliberating on experience" (Pennington, 1995, p. 47), "an activity or process in which experience is recalled,…

Phenomenological research investigates the meaning of lived experiences for participants, as well as the implications of those experiences. This chapter presents brief biographical sketches of 12 youth workers who participated in a phenomenological investigation of the experience of self in moments of not-knowing what to do. Each participant's…

Students majoring in university studies are not unlike students majoring in English--both groups of students are graduating with a degree that is often hard to sell. Colleges try to recruit first year composition students--to join them in reading great books as well as writing the next great American novel. Students are told they will be qualified…