Districts and schools are spending millions of dollars on technology, training, and professional development each year; however, a disconnect between technology use and good pedagogy remains. The one-shot, sit-and-get professional development model has not provided CrossRoads Intermediate School's teachers the necessary skills and knowledge to…

The purpose of this study was to examine graduate students' perceptions of online synchronous and asynchronous courses in peer engagement, teacher presence, and course design and materials. It further compared differences in synchronous and asynchronous courses, and whether graduate students' perceptions differed due to student age, number of…

Modern advances in communication technology have allowed for the expansion of asynchronous online sport coaching services. In this intra-individual repeated time measures study, the effects of coaching communication scheduling on athletes' affective state and the coach-athlete relationship were observed as well as measures of performance in the…

The problem addressed in this study was the high dropout rate and the resulting low graduation rate in alternative virtual school settings. This quantitative correlational case study examined the influence of three instructional modalities on students' credit accrual and graduation rates in one alternative education virtual high school. The three…

Video clubs, in which teachers meet to view videos of their classrooms in order to improve instruction, have become a popular means of professional development. With today's technology, these video clubs can be conducted virtually, yet little is known about the effectiveness of asynchronous or synchronous virtual video clubs. This study addressed…

The purpose of this action research study was to understand and strengthen the learning culture of one curriculum specialist team working remotely at Newco (pseudonym). The study participants were curriculum specialists who claimed they had little time to learn independently or share knowledge with teammates due to the isolation of remote work and…

Teachers who lack the professional development needed demonstrate less self-efficacy. Teacher pedagogical and content understanding are important factors related to the impact on student engagement and achievement. This study was designed to attempt to understand teachers' perceptions of the impact of professional development and which format…

Easily accessible, asynchronous professional learning can support new career technical educators' instructional skill development from their 1st day of employment. This two-cycle action research inquiry aimed to improve special education student engagement in the licensed trades curriculum by exploring the connection between teacher induction…

This research study delves into the multifaceted realm of social presence in online education, encompassing the existence and manifestation of social presence indicators in students' engagement with discussion boards within asynchronous online courses. Social presence manifests when individuals perceive themselves to be simultaneously present with…

The ability to communicate effectively to others is a pivotal skill necessary to get one's needs and wants met; however, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have significant delays in communication skills. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices provide an alternative means for children with complex communication…

This research aimed to investigate how achievement emotions predict, mediate, and affect academic achievement in online learning. Online learning has been proliferating, but little is known about how emotion mediates cognition in the Community of Inquiry framework. Recent progress in cognitive neuroscience provided the theoretical foundation for…

Objective: Individuals with autism who are minimally speaking often rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Communication partner training is an integral element of AAC intervention, and parents are ideal communication partners for supporting their child's language development skills. Asynchronous, online trainings may offer…

The three research papers completed and compiled to make up this dissertation explore the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education courses in the instructional technology field. Paper 1 is a literature review of the interaction analysis model (IAM)…

The purpose of this study was to explore higher education faculty's perceptions of factors that influence dynamic decision-making when choosing opportunities for student engagement in asynchronous online courses. More specifically, this study sought to understand how faculty in higher education perceived these factors to prevent and facilitate…

This study sought to address the gap in knowledge about the effect of UDL features on asynchronous online postsecondary learners' achievement, engagement, and self-efficacy. The study also described a process for redesigning an online course to incorporate UDL components and provided specific examples of the implemented UDL guidelines. The study…