The recent pandemic compelled educational institutions all over the world to shift to online instruction. And now institutions find themselves trying to answer questions like how should we proceed when we come back to normal? Which online instructional innovations should we keep? This research attempts to answer those questions by comparing three…

A sense of community is central to student engagement and satisfaction. However, many students struggle with developing connections in online programs. Drawing on interviews with 13 instructors, this paper explores the strategies that they use to help students develop a sense of community in synchronous virtual classrooms. Four strategies for…

Blended synchronous learning has the potential to increase students' co-presence and improve upon the flexibility and accessibility of course offerings if designed well. This method of instruction, however, has yet to realize that potential. This exploratory study used qualitative methods to iteratively design, assess, and refine the technological…

This study investigated teaching self-efficacy beliefs and opinions about distance education of teachers in Turkey who switched to distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. 758 teachers from Turkey completed an online questionnaire comprising demographic information questions, Likert type scale items on self-efficacy for distance education,…

The process of education has been affected mostly by the COVD-19 pandemic process, and distance education methods are getting popular. In line with this situation, the aims of this study are to examine the opinions of prep-class university students on foreign language literacy via synchronous distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic…

The overarching goal of this design-based research was to explore WhatsApp's potential for facilitating and supporting speaking and pronunciation instruction in an EFL large-class speaking course. More specifically, this paper explored the perceived learning outcomes of WhatsApp-supported pedagogy in large English-speaking classes. Ninety-nine…

Students have been observed as underprepared or skipping steps during the problem-based learning (PBL) process due to fatigue or low motivation, potentially creating a barrier for effective learning. One way to explore resolving this issue is to consider whether variables of problem scenario design can be altered to optimize motivation. This mixed…

The narrative in this paper focuses on a discourse by the authors regarding the ideal method of delivery for online instruction. A research study was conducted with 20 experienced online learners who also happened to have experience with online instructional design. The outcomes of the study provide insight regarding the preferred method of online…

This study investigates university-level German instructors' perceived advantages and disadvantages of synchronous emergency remote teaching during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic at five universities across the United States. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of an electronic questionnaire from 16 instructors of beginning…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to understand what online adjunct faculty value as support services, specifically professional development opportunities, provided by their respective higher education institutions. Method: This qualitative narrative inquiry study centered on exploring perceptions and experiences of online adjunct faculty…

This paper examines the use of technology in the development and assessment of interpersonal communication skills in an online second language (L2) Spanish classroom. The study explores the use of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools and strategies to promote interaction among learners, while also considering the challenges and…

How should a pedagogical agent in educational software be designed to support student learning? This question is complex seeing as there are many types of pedagogical agents and design features, and the effect on different student groups can vary. In this paper we explore the effects of designing a pedagogical agent's self-efficacy in order to see…

Sometimes users need to be asked if they need help. This is difficult with online users, because in-person cues cannot be used to engage when the users need assistance. Proactive chat widgets help to solve this problem as the chat box slides out onto the screen and prompts the user for help. The need for the proactive chat widget was also seen as…

Purpose: Blended learning is an emerging trend across many educational settings, adopting the purposeful integration of traditional face-to-face and online teaching to establishing an engaging learning experience for the students. Blended learning provides an ideal platform for the implementation of reusable learning objects (RLOs) as a…

We tested sarcasm production and identification across original communicators in a spontaneously produced conversational setting, including testing the role of synchronous movement on sarcasm production and identification. Before communicating, stranger dyads participated in either a synchronous or nonsynchronous movement task. They then completed…