This study aims to enhance second language (L2) learners' motivation and facilitate successful L2 learning by using motivational languaging, an intervention that encourages learners to reflect on, and externalize, their L2-speaking, competent future self-concepts by writing or speaking about them. Two types of effective languaging activities were…

Constructionist principles provide fertile ground for developing innovative approaches to learning. Using a grounded theory qualitative research design, we analyzed participant reports of their experience in an online course in which they collaboratively authored a book. Our qualitative analysis suggested that participants experienced…

We approach the construct of social presence (SP) from a socio-cultural perspective, taking it as an essential component of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) process. We present a qualitative case study in which sixteen student-teachers carried out a computer supported collaborative writing activity in small groups during six weeks.…

This paper explores how wiki may be used to support secondary education students' collaborative creativity processes and how such interaction can promote critical and creativity thinking. A science case-based project in which 81 secondary students participated was designed, implemented and evaluated. Students worked in the science wiki project…

Some recent proposals on CSCL scripts have suggested that one key factor for their effectiveness is the ability of the teacher to adapt the scripts to the students and to the specific teaching and learning situations. In this context, this paper presents a multiple-case study dealing with the relationship between the assistance given by the…

Joan Garfield reflects on cooperative learning, 20 years after publishing an article on this topic in the inaugural issue of "Journal of Statistics Education" ("JSE") (Garfield 1993). Here, she writes that as she re-read the article, she realized that she still agrees with most of what she originally wrote regarding the use of…

For a number of years, Rebecca Luce-Kapler and Dennis Sumara have been investigating the ways in which literary practices of close reading can help change how we think and how we remember. They have also considered how such practices might help make us more critical of normative representations of remembered experience. More recently, they have…

The rapid proliferation of technology can have profound effects on the evolution of teaching, learning, scholarship, and governance in higher education (Katz, 2008). However, instructors report that simply "keeping up" with new instructional technologies, let alone integrating them productively into one's teaching, can be a significant…

The present study represented an effort to improve on the outcomes of the Puma (2006) study by creating a writing process program that provided students with compelling video models of effective writing practices in small writing teams. In this method, called Writing Wings with Media (WWM), students worked in 4-member, heterogeneous writing groups…

Describes how to conduct a collaborative group story-writing session with preschool children and encourage the creativity of the group. (MM)

Describes an effective method for having business writing students work together on a writing project. (JC)

Teachers at both college and pre-college levels have long realized that collaborative writing is an effective learning tool for beginning writers. Many have pointed out that collaboration in writing groups properly shifts the focus from the teacher to the student, and allows writers to take more responsibility for their own composing processes.…

Discusses a course on shared-document writing in which students indicate that they value the time allowed to coordinate groups and to understand and complete assignments. Asserts that structuring the course necessitates assigning work relating to a single topic and providing choices, including a voice in group formation and evaluation. (PRA)

Growth into literacy occurs most effectively with the engagement of the learner. The question is therefore: what motivates learners to sustain them through the struggle to attain literacy? In this aspect of literacy education, "lifewriting" can be a most powerful medium. Basic to all of the lifewriting programs described in the text,…

Describes one technical writing teacher's use of group writing projects in which students write and present a marketing report of a product they have invented. Points out that such projects teach students valuable skills in group dynamics, as well as technical writing skills. (ARH)