This article aims to investigate how university students perform agency in an online course and whether the collaborative nature of the course affects such expression. A total of 11 online web forums involving 18 students (N = 745 posts in total) were qualitatively analysed through the use of a codebook composed of five categories (individual,…

Background: Despite the accumulating evidence highlighting the significant roles of an effective facilitator and appropriate pedagogies that a facilitator employs in shaping the professional learning environment, there is a paucity of research that explores how facilitators learn to facilitate. Purpose: The overall purpose of this study was to…

This study reports on a qualitative small-scale exploratory study which examined the factors influencing 32 Iranian pre-service language teachers' participation in online asynchronous text-based discussion forums. By adopting a multiple case study design and analysing data gathered through semi-structured interviews and participants' online…

Discussion forums are a primary tool for interactions in the online classroom. Discussions are a critical part of the learning process for students, and instructor facilitation should reflect this importance. Effective instructor discussion facilitation encourages students, provides evidence and analysis and links the discussion to subsequent…

Examining repeated classroom encounters over time provides a comprehensive picture of activities. Studies of instructional practices in classrooms have traditionally relied on two methods: classroom observations, which are expensive, and surveys, which are limited in scope and accuracy. Teacher logs provide a "real-time" method for…

Dynamic assessment (DA) as an alternative to psychometric-based testing focuses on the collaborative dialogue between the learners and the mediator to move the learners from their current capabilities. This study represents a web-based qualitative inquiry in online DA which aims at addressing the inadequacy of the diagnostic feedback of the…

In today's media-laden environment, the ability to read text from a critical literacy perspective is imperative, particularly for librarians who influence children's reading choices and behaviors. This study examines the critical literacy performances of students in an online, asynchronous, graduate-level children's literature course using a…

This article reports a study on collaboration within an action research project that was conducted by university researchers and elementary school teachers in the Azores, Portugal. More specifically, it examines how different kinds of participants worked together in different phases of the project. The notion of mutuality (i.e., the relative…

E-learning has become one of the primary ways to deliver education around the globe. Research is keeping pace with the use of various techno-aids as educators evaluate how to effectively use these aids in an ever-changing e-classroom. Adding to this body of work, and in assessing the effectiveness of techno-tools, this study evaluates meaningful…

Distance librarians often do not have the opportunity to engage face-to-face with users of library services. Without this personal interaction, it can be difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of library services in meeting the needs of the distance learners. Distance librarians may not realize it, but most have a wealth of information at their…

This article focusses on graduate level students' interactions during asynchronous CMC activities of an online course about the teaching profession in Turkey. The instructor of the course designed and facilitated a semester-long asynchronous CMC on forum discussions, and investigated the interaction of learners in multiple perspectives: learners'…

This study is about graduate students' discourse practices in classroom text-based synchronous computer mediated discussions (SCMD). Cultural historical activity theory (in short, Activity Theory) is the primary theoretical lens through which the data are analyzed. Engeström's (1987) Activity System model among the various theoretical positions or…

Instructional designers need to be able to assess the level of knowledge construction generated by participants of a virtual learning community (VLC). Such participants include the learners engaged in threaded discussions within online courses. Assessing the level of knowledge construction enables course revisions that scaffold such knowledge…

This is an empirical study in which we explore child foreign language learners' interactional strategy use, uptake, and lexical acquisition in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). The study was carried out with 16 10-year-old Spanish English as a foreign language learners paired with age- and proficiency-matched English native…

This empirical study attempted to investigate the effect of using online communities of practice in teacher education on pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions. California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and the comments posted to the online community of practice were used as the data collection tools. Results showed that…