The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has affected higher education institutions worldwide as they had to switch from face-to-face to online teaching almost overnight. This abrupt change made a huge impact on teaching, learning, and particularly, student engagement. This paper focuses on online social presence as an element of student engagement,…

A significant challenge of pandemic teaching was creating active small group learning experiences in a synchronous online learning environment. Efforts to address this challenge led to an instructional process, using multiple Google Apps, that was not only effective in an online setting, but has the potential to improve seated small group…

Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning pedagogy developed for in-class sessions and based on the collaborative work of small groups of students. The increasing push to online and blended learning has enhanced the need to expand this pedagogy to a virtual environment, but little evidence has been produced on how students accept online…

Challenged by COVID-19, we sought ways to increase engagement in the virtual classroom, capitalizing on a popular multiplayer game to teach persuasion to undergraduate students. In the game "Among Us[R]," players ("Crewmates") work together to repair their spaceship before it explodes while being attacked by other players…

The need to quickly transition from face-to-face teaching using engaging, content-based activities to a new, online platform in just two weeks during the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID19) pandemic, made it necessary to try to migrate familiar activities that the students enjoyed into a virtual classroom. The activity that proved to be the most…

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Computer Science and STEM-related fields were among the most resistant to online courses. This is because of a perception of the need for more hands-on instruction with labs, clinicals, field studies, etc. Additionally, many STEM students had perceptions based on limited experience of an online STEM course.…

Higher education (HE) faculty are increasingly teaching online. For many faculty, this represents a new instructional mode that comes with its own set of challenges but also with new instructional possibilities. One challenge is identifying innovative and effective active learning methods that academically engage online students. Along with other…

The realities of the 21st century have led professors and lecturers to renew their learning assessment practices so that they are more adapted to and contextualized in the current professional world. Despite advances in teaching and learning, assessment methods may still deviate from practice in authentic contexts. Although some instructors are…

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented challenge for wider society and has impacted all facets of life, including Higher Education Institution (HEIs) provision for teaching and learning -- demanding an immediate digital response. The core challenge lies with the inherent choice made by students upon embarking on an undergraduate degree;…

Virtual teaching modalities urgently implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic require strategies to motivate students to participate actively in higher education. Our study found that gamification using a reward-based system is a strategy that can improve the educational experience under exceptional circumstances. This article reports the results…

Reading requires appropriate strategies to spark initial interest and sustain engagement. One promising strategy is the pedagogical approach of learning-by-teaching, transforming learners into active participants. Integrating this approach into digitalized and individualized reading contexts has the potential to foster the development of young…

"Engaging Learners through Zoom" delivers numerous practical strategies and helpful advice on how to engage students virtually. Many of the tools are also applicable in face-to-face and hybrid environments. Backed by cognitive neuroscience research, this book is a collection of dozens of active, synchronous online learning structures…

This study aimed to investigate the impact of electronic synchronous and asynchronous interaction patterns, in a learning environment based on collaborative learning and instructional anchors, on developing instructional design skills and achievement motivation. A quasi-experimental design was used to develop a theoretical framework and research…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Minnesota shifted all instruction to remote learning in mid-March 2020, including all classes in the College of Design. This case focuses on a studio course in interior design with 16 students. The classes used a range of different computer technologies. These technologies include Zoom,…

Active-learning activities can be successfully implemented into a course even when instructors are not in the same physical classroom as students. Technology can assist with synchronous distance education as well as facilitate active learning. This manuscript describes student perceptions of active learning activities in a re-designed drugs in…