Academic development is often seen as a compliance activity, divorced from the teaching context and what teachers are trying to achieve in their classroom. In this case study, we researched Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) as a reflective, non-judgmental approach to help tutors identify coherence between their teaching intentions and practice.…

This study investigated the tutoring practices of mathematics tutors working in one university tutoring center and the corresponding rationale exhibited by the mathematics tutors. This study illustrates how the tutoring practices of mathematics tutors align with the Eight Mathematics Teaching Practices outlined in NCTM's recent publication…

Unisa has embraced the use of online learning and e-tutoring as a new approach to teaching and learning in an ODeL environment. According to the Community of Inquiry Theory, a learning community is important to enhance the social, cognitive and teaching presences for online learning to achieve student success. Online e-tutor and student…

Educational chatbots promise many benefits for teaching and learning. Although chatbot use cases in this research field are rapidly growing, most studies focus on individual users rather than on collaborative group settings. To address this issue, this paper investigates how chatbot-mediated learning can be designed to foster middle school…

The great majority of teacher training programmes incorporate reflective practice as a fundamental professional competence since reflection is considered to be a key element in professional development. However, in the literature reflection is conceptualised in multiple ways, making it difficult to determine what types of contexts facilitate the…

Recently, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning researchers have become interested in the notion of scripting and assigning roles to students enrolled in online courses, in order to increase their engagement in collaborative activities. This study aimed to investigate whether assigning a role called "social tutor" to a student…

The facilitation of learning by tutors is a worldwide phenomenon that is supported by most open and distance learning (ODL) institutions. It is a strategy employed to achieve academic success. This qualitative intrinsic case study explored the views of tutors at the University of South Africa (Unisa) about the implementation of the Integrated…

Genuine engagement by academic staff and students in reflective practice in a time of great institutional pressure and a neo-liberal agenda for more metrics driven practice has become increasingly difficult to set time aside for. While more and more feedback is being requested on teaching practice, the quality, validity or reliability of this…

This study explored the perceptions of 51 graduates of a distance learning health and social care programme, identifying what factors contributed to students continuing for the duration of their distance learning studies and completing their degree. An appreciative inquiry approach was used to identify the positive aspects of the students'…

There is an ongoing need to support students' learning of linear functions, and the study of slope makes up a foundational component of this learning. We applied techniques from systemic functional linguistics to document the meanings that were established through spoken interaction between a student and her tutors during discussions of slope. We…

In March, our on-campus tutoring program for credential candidates and local students was shut down by the pandemic. This signature program had served families and the community for many years and provided essential fieldwork experience for credential candidates in our elementary and secondary reading methods courses. Most importantly, it provided…

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of an educational innovation, here Personal Development Planning (PDP), on student attitudes to learning when located within tutorial processes across a range of departmental and institutional settings at a single UK university. Departments were purposively chosen in accordance with previously…

Traditionally, universities of technology (UoTs) have focussed on education to prepare students for the workplace. The Durban University of Technology (DUT) is currently undergoing a pedagogical transformation with the inclusion of a general education curriculum that aims to prepare students for an increasingly complex globalised work environment.…

An evaluation of the use of blogging for developing educational affordances that enhance characteristics of social interaction and reflective dialogue within learning communities. The findings emerge from a study investigating the implementation of course blogs on a media practice programme at a UK university. Literature on the use of course blogs…

According to the annual report of the EF EPI (Education First - English Proficiency Index), the level of fluency in English by Italians is among the lowest in Europe. It is important that young people acquire language skills at school, especially during secondary schools, so as not to be penalized at university or when looking for work. However,…