According to the socio-constructivist theories of learning, collaborative learning allows negotiation of shared meanings and co-construction of new knowledge among peers. This approach fits particularly well with healthcare professional education needs, as these professionals often face challenging issues that require the ability to fully…

This paper is a mixed methods case study measuring student perceptions of a pedagogical strategy called "Digital Moments" (DM) for developing creative interactive online learning communities. The theoretical framework within which this resides is the Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) model (vanOostveen et al, 2016), based on a…

Learning science requires the understanding of concepts and formal relationships, processes that--in themselves--have been proved to be difficult for students as they seem to encounter substantial problems with most of the inquiry-learning processes in which they engage. Models in inquiry-based learning have been considered as powerful…

At present, it is difficult to assess the quality of learning in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments, because standard pretest and posttest measures do not capture the differences in the learner's ability to engage in the material, pose interesting new questions, engage others in learning and work collaboratively. This…

This paper describes the initial findings of a longitudinal case study that investigates the use of a virtual learning environment to enhance the placement experience for full time postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) students. Geographically separated trainees can feel very isolated on placement. The purpose of the VLE was to try to…