In-service teachers, constrained by work commitments, adopt online learning methods for their graduate studies, emphasizing the significance of exploring the construction of online learning communities. Analyzing collaborative conversation texts within the online learning process of the "Learning Science" course at a university in…

The purpose of this research was to examine differences between students at high and low levels of interactions, their perceived online presence (teaching, cognitive, and social), and the level of actual cognitive presence in asynchronous case-based discussions. The results revealed that among three online presences, teaching presence was the…

This paper examines teacher discourse and the building of culture circles in an asynchronous collaborative blog that combined two different classes in an Early Childhood MS Ed program. Social speech is often considered non-rational. Coupling grounded theory to analyze speech patterns with relational ethics, we argue that teachers engaged in…

Establishment of online communities in distance education has been linked to improved engagement, retention, and learning outcomes. This study investigates how online community building was fostered in the text-based Discussion Board (DB) and multimodal VoiceThread (VT) in one of the postgraduate units offered by Open Universities Australia.…

While online learning holds many benefits for graduate students, lack of student interaction often found in asynchronous content delivery may negatively impact student engagement. This study examined student perceptions of online lecture-embedded interactive activities that promoted student active engagement through quizzes and gamification. From…

Researchers have been investigating social presence in online learning for decades. However, despite this continued research, questions remain about the nature and development of social presence. The purpose of this mixed method exploratory case study was to investigate how social presence is established in online discussion forums in an…

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic makes it vital for nursing students to have access to online education. Dale Carnegie's principles were used as a teaching strategy by the same instructor in one of the two text-based online asynchronous courses on nursing informatics in the summers of 2020 and 2021. Students (n = 108) were…

Building a sense of community (SoC) is an important process in the success of distance education and students' retention. However, developing a community in online learning environments is not an easy task. The purpose of this research study is to explore perceptions of graduate students on SoC and learning after using different collaborative…

Many librarians struggle with how to balance scalable instructional offerings with more personalized instruction for online students--scale tends to come at the cost of personalization and vice versa. This paper will discuss three methods for connecting with online students that range from one-to-one personalization to widely scalable instruction:…

Interaction in online learning (OL) has been extensively studied over the past few decades. Today, courses following social constructivist (Vygotsky, 1997) based designs are widespread throughout higher education. These course designs place an emphasis on interpersonal interaction, which is largely viewed as beneficial to online learners, as a…

Research has focused on the significance of social presence in online learning. However, peer interaction does not always result in positive emotions and feelings; it can trigger tension, distress, and anger within a learning community. Therefore, conflictual presence, as a carrier of negative valence within presence, is also a critical element…

Students are accessing graduate study online in ever-increasing numbers with interactive experiences differing from those who traditionally enroll in corresponding face-to-face (F2F) classes. Soft skills such as collaboration/teamwork, communication and presentation are important to learning but difficult to practice outside the F2F environment.…

Blended learning (BL) is still in its infancy in the United Arab Emirates, but is gaining growing attention and acceptance. The particular university under investigation offers its nationally accredited graduate programs with a BL format that makes use of synchronous virtual classrooms, asynchronous self-study, and face-to-face sessions. 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…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether and how students enact "responsibility" and "generativity" through their comments in asynchronous online discussions. "Responsibility" referred to discourse markers indicating participants' sense that their contributions are required in order to uphold their…