Education Commons^™

“What’S Happening?” Assessing The Sustainability Of Virtual Professional Learning Communities On Social Media: A Quantitative Study Of ‘Sense Of Community’, Matthew Hensley

Doctoral Dissertations

While research has highlighted the multifaceted benefits of Twitter as an informal professional learning resource, there remains a lack of literature that adequately teases apart the dynamic underpinnings of these types of informal professional learning communities (Thacker, 2017; Visser et al., 2014). Greenhow & Gleason (2012) posited that there is a need to better understand Twitter’s place within the education profession, as well as “how participants understand their experiences and place within the Twitter community and beyond” (p. 473).

Grounded in ‘sense of community’ theory, this study examined ‘sense of community’ as a construct supporting the #SSChat community’s sustainability. Additionally, …

Teacher Practices With Adaptive Math Technology: Sitting In The Driver’S Seat Of A Self-Driving Car, Jennifer Longnecker

Doctoral Dissertations

The 21^st century has seen adaptive math technology (AMT), often formatted as digital game-based learning, integrated into a greater number of elementary classrooms as students have more access to devices than ever before. This study explores the practices of power users, teachers who are highly effective users and integrators of that technology. Specifically, the top ten percent of users of the adaptive math program, DreamBox, were surveyed (n = 117) about their practices and routines when integrating the AMT. The results of this study contribute to teacher practices for integrating this technology into the K-5 classroom. The findings …

Perceived Obstacles By Esl Instructors And Required Support For The Integration Of Educational Technology, Xiaotian Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Nowadays, the use of technology has become a significant part of the language learning process inside and outside of the classroom. Many previous studies and surveys, most language educators hold a relatively positive attitude to the usage of technology in language teaching and learning. But many other studies also found that language teachers were not really using technology in their classrooms, or only for very low-level learning and teaching. The integration of technology in second language learning and teaching is still a problem that has not been fully researched.This descriptive study was designed to explore the obstacles that prevent ESL …

The Effectiveness Of Using Multimedia For Teaching Phrasal Verbs In Community-College Esl Classes, Guohua Fu

Doctoral Dissertations

This mixed-methods study investigated the effectiveness of multimedia instruction for phrasal-verb education with community-college English as a second-language learners (ESL) in Northern California. Previous researchers have found that ESL learners have difficulties and barriers in learning phrasal verbs, and other researchers have found that how using multimedia teaching techniques in different fields of education have been effective, but no studies have investigated using multimedia instruction with community-college ESL students in learning phrasal verbs for second-language acquisition. In this mixed-methods research, there were 35 community-college ESL students, including 22 students in the multimedia-treatment group and 13 students in the text-based-comparison group, …