Online and Distance Education Commons^™

The Influence Of Student Characteristics On The Preferred Ways Of Learning Of Online College Students: An Examination Of Cultural Constructs, Linda Barril

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The ongoing popularity and increased availability of online college courses and programs has attracted a greater diversity of students. Along with continued female-majority enrollment, increasing numbers of students of traditional college age and students from a variety of ethnicity groups are taking online courses. The prevailing guiding assumptions that have informed much of the online pedagogical and instructional practices have primarily come from theories of adult learning, particularly andragogy, which has been heavily criticized for not acknowledging student diversity. As online education becomes ever more established in higher education, it is vital to examine the diversity of contemporary student populations …

Electronic Apprenticeship In The Social Construction Of Teacher Knowledge: An Ethnographic Case Study Of Online Learning, Michelle Anne Elliott

Theses and Dissertations

This ethnographic case study sought to understand the complex social phenomena of reflective practice for increasing teacher knowledge through an online learning community. This study adapted the cognitive apprenticeship model for use in the design of online professional development for teachers. The activity system engaged 13 veteran reading teachers from three different school districts participating in weekly online focused discussion and reflection. These activities served as the core of the 12-week online intervention for inquiry teaching. Three research questions framed the study: 1) How do teachers perceive the effectiveness of participating in an online activity system toward professional reflection? 2) …

Digital Poetry Practicum: Preservice English Language Arts Teachers’ Dispositions Of New Literacies, Katie Dredger Ph.D., Susanne Nobles Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study investigated how graduate preservice teachers (PSTs) engaged in a digital practicum experience with a geographically distant secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. The graduate PSTs, enrolled in a Masters of Arts, English Education program at a university in the mid-Atlantic United States, mentored the 9th-grade students in the online spaces of a course wiki and video conferencing. In this portion of a larger study, PSTs mentored the students during a poetry unit organized by the ELA cooperating teacher and housed in the ELA classroom. A goal of this practicum was building PSTs’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Shulman, 1986) …

April 2017, Marci Grant

The CETL Correspondent

No abstract provided.

Asynchronous Video And The Development Of Instructor Social Presence And Student Engagement, Kayla E. Collins

Student Dissertations

Enrollment in online learning continues to grow in the higher education sector, along with persistent goals dedicated to achieving better student outcomes and lowering attrition rates. Improved student engagement has been shown to possibly reduce attrition rates through a greater sense of connectedness and decreased feelings of isolation among online learners. Through the development of a classroom community, the online learner may feel supported and engage more often in the learning process.

The instructor plays a major role in the development of the classroom community. Instructor social presence may be the most important factor in building the relationships that foster …

The Effect Of Blended Learning On Math And Reading Achievement In A Charter School Context, Terry Chaney

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In spite of its growing popularity, researchers have focused little attention on the effectiveness of combining traditional classroom instruction and online learning, a practice generally referred to as blended learning. The modest research on blended learning to date has tended to focus on higher education, leaving a significant gap in the research regarding K-12 education. Even less attention has been given to blended learning in charter school K-12 education. Framed within Vygotsky’s theory of social development, the purpose of this causal-comparative research study was to determine if there were any significant differences when comparing charter school students who participated in …

The Impact Of Blended Learning On Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, Teaching Presence, And Perceived Learning, Kyleigh Harrell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The quantitative study examined how blended learning influences high school learners’ social presence, cognitive presence, teacher presence, and perceived learning in comparison to online instruction. The study answered the following research questions: (a) Do differences exist among the social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence of high school students enrolled in a blended course as compared to those enrolled in an online course? (b) Does a difference exist between perceived learning of high school students enrolled in a blended course as compared to that of those enrolled in an online course? The researcher used a causal-comparative research design and tested …

2017 Ijbe Front Matter, Tamra Connor

International Journal for Business Education

1. Editorial Board
2. President's Letter
3. SIEC-ISBE International

Scholastic Journalism Adviser's Guide, Mark Hilburn

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

With a passion for scholastic (high school) journalism, I want my professional project to tailor to that. I hold multiple degrees and certifications in journalism, which have no doubt helped me in the classroom, but not all high school journalism teachers do. Instead, many are taking teaching positions and are told at the time of their interview, or later, that journalism classes (mainly yearbook and newspaper) are part of their teaching schedule. Wanting a job in such a competitive market, these teachers are agreeing and then left scrambling to teach themselves the curriculum before they can teach it to students. …

The Effect Of Device When Using Smartphones And Computers To Answer Multiple-Choice And Open-Response Questions In Distance Education, Thomas Royce Wilson

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Traditionally in higher education, online courses have been designed for computer users. However, the advent of mobile learning (m-learning) and the proliferation of smartphones have created two challenges for online students and instructional designers. First, instruction designed for a larger computer screen often loses its effectiveness when displayed on a smaller smartphone screen. Second, requiring students to write remains a hallmark of higher education, but miniature keyboards might restrict how thoroughly smartphone users respond to open- response test questions. The present study addressed both challenges by featuring m-learning’s greatest strength (multimedia) and by investigating its greatest weakness (text input).

The …

Facilitating Higher Levels Of Thinking And Deeper Cognitive Processing Of Course Texts Using Reciprocal Teaching Strategies In Asynchronous Discussion Forums, Jenifer R. Marquis

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Reciprocal teaching is an interactive instructional procedure that improves students’ text comprehension skills through instruction that utilizes scaffolds of four comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing (Palincsar & Brown, 1984, 1986; Palincsar, Brown, & Martin, 1987). Reciprocal teaching involves student-led instruction, modeling, practice, and feedback in metacognitive self-monitoring and evaluating strategies (Brown, Campione, & Day, 1981). The purpose of this study was to determine the potential of reciprocal teaching to facilitate deeper cognitive processing and higher levels of thinking related to course texts in an online, asynchronous community college course. The strategies and peer teaching were incorporated …

Learning Analytics: Shifting From Theory To Practice., Courtney Stewart

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

As online and blended learning continues to increase in higher education, so does the amount of data that is housed within Learning Management Systems that can be analyzed and processed within the framework of Learning Analytics. Learning Analytics is a new and developing field. As with many new fields of study, a gap between theory and practice is evident. Some attribute this gap to the lack of situating learning analytics within learning theory. In order for Learning Analytics to find interest and usability among educators, a shift is needed from the technical use to practical application. In this theoretical paper …

Technology In Ivc Classes, Piotr Runge

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

One of the biggest challenges of the interactive broadcast method of delivering math courses are the lack of whiteboards on which students can show their written work visible in real time to the instructor and other students and hardship in facilitating student group work. With the use of technology, including appropriate hardware and software, these challenges can be faced to give the students participating in IVC classes a feeling of being in a face to face classroom with most of its functionalities, including ways of participating in collaborative work and easiness of verbal and written communication with classmates and the …

Engaging Students In A Synchronous Distance Setting: Asking Online Questions, Christopher J. Hartwell

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

One major challenge in higher education is engaging student in the learning process, and this challenge is of particular concern in synchronous broadcast classes, where students are geographically dispersed. This paper argues that the use of online questions, that students can respond to using their electronic devices, is an effective way to increase student participation and engagement in such settings. Personal experience with one particular online question platform – Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com) – is used to illustrate potential capabilities, question types. Both advantages and challenges of using online questions are discussed.

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 1, Issue 1

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

For our inaugural issue, we reviewed the feedback from our 2016 ETE faculty conference—an event for USU faculty hosted every August on the USU main campus. We identified several of the presenters who received high marks in post-session surveys and invited them to submit a proceedings paper for their presentation. Many responded, and their papers now comprise the majority of this issue. Because most of the articles began as stand-up presentations for a conference, several adopt a first-person narrative style in which the authors share examples of things they have tried in their teaching that have worked. In the process …

The Relationship Between Online Students' Use Of Services And Their Feelings Of Mattering, Tracy L. Hart

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The purpose of this single case study was to examine the relationship between online students’ use of support services and their feelings of mattering using a convergent parallel research design to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Students enrolled exclusively in online classes during the academic year 2015-2016 at the University of New Mexico (UNM) were invited to participate. The survey was based on the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for comprehensive services and mattering theory. Responses provided descriptive statistics and correlation analysis with stories that added to the description of students’ service experiences.

Service-to-service correlations showed correlation strength of moderate, strong, …

Strategies For Teaching Online: Perspectives From Across Disciplines, Kimarie Whetstone, Kim Brazzell, Thomas Cornelius, Jill Stout

Winthrop Conference on Teaching and Learning

With the growth of online learning on the horizon at Winthrop University, faculty members can be best served in learning strategies for teaching online by participating in a dialogue with colleagues who are currently teaching in this modality.

This panel session will provide strategies for teaching online from the perspective of Winthrop University faculty currently teaching online across a variety of disciplines. Panelists will share their experiences with respect to common pitfalls and lessons learned; skills needed to be a successful online facilitator; roles and responsibilities; cognitive, social, and teaching presence; engagement; accessible online content; and providing the Winthrop experience. …

Adaptive Learning: A Tale Of Two Contexts, Charles Dziuban, Patsy Moskal, Constance Johnson, Duncan Evans

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

This paper presents the results of student reactions to adaptive learning at two universities with considerably different contexts: a large public institution and a for-profit, professional university. A student response protocol developed by and administered at the University of Central Florida (UCF) was also distributed to students at Colorado Technical University (CTU). Demographic comparisons of the two responding sample groups indicated considerable differences in student characteristics, especially with respect to age and work status. However, a factor invariance comparison revealed that students at both universities evaluated the adaptive climate similarly though the lens of learning environment, guidance path and progression. …

Teaching Languages Online: Innovations And Challenges, Mayu Miyamoto, Natsumi Suzuki, Atsushi Fukada, Yuhan Huang, Siyan Hou, Wei Hong

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

Language professionals long resisted teaching online mainly because it was unthinkable to teach speaking in the online environment. Recent advances in technology, however, have made it conceivable. This chapter presents the design and implementation of online courses in Japanese and Chinese recently developed and being offered at Purdue University. We will highlight not only technologies involved, but also pedagogical innovations that helped resolve difficult issues. The efficacy of online teaching will also be touched upon. Reactions from enrolled students and the instructors that have taught the courses will also be shared.

Social, Cognitive, And Teaching Presence: Impact On Hybrid And Online Graduate-Level Educational Experience And Retention, Kristi Wheaton

Doctor of Education (EdD)

This study sought to explore the relationship between the elements of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and graduate-level students’ perceived educational experience. Further, it sought to determine if these elements, which include social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence, could be used to determine the likelihood of program retention. The quantitative study surveyed 384 graduate-level students from 10 programs at a small, Christian university. Using the CoI framework as a theoretical basis, this study used factor analysis to validate the CoI survey designed by Arbaugh et al. (2008), multiple regression to determine the relationship between social presence, cognitive presence, …