This paper outlines a four-year study of a preservice education course based on a socio-constructivist research framework. The preservice English Language Arts course focuses on critical literacy and teaching for social justice while employing digital technologies. The research study examines two concepts across all aspects of the course: 1) new…

This study sought to determine if an online course designed and delivered in Second Life can meet the needs of higher education students with dyslexia. The course design incorporated strategies from Gagne' and Briggs' principles of instruction, Gagnon and Collay's constructivist learning design, Powell's key learning needs of…

As an online institution of higher education, Excelsior College strives to ensure delivery of high quality online courses leading to student success. A key benchmark for student success is student-faculty interaction (SFI). The decade-old National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) measures several benchmarks including student-faculty interaction…

There are new pressures and familiar pressures on teacher educators to prepare teachers who will be able to teach successfully in a changing world, and who will be able to change the world. The question of how to prepare well-qualified teachers has become an international question with global responses and consequences. This book describes a…

In Turkey, the secondary mathematics curriculum, students' mathematical proficiency, and their preparation for the university entrance examinations are inextricably connected. The Ministry of National Education adopted a new curriculum in 2005 that was built on constructivist theory. This study explored the perceptions of high school mathematics…

The purpose of this participatory action research study was to answer the following research question: How does online instructional design impact students' virtual teamwork performance? Through the lens of social constructivism, a qualitative, in-depth multi-case study design was utilized to conduct document analyses, observations, and student…

Social networking technologies are used by millions of individuals around the globe to foster dialogue and share all types of information. It is therefore common to see that campuses abound with students embracing these technologies, sharing everything from personal experiences to general interests and current events with their immediate and…

In this study, academic optimism as an individual teacher belief was investigated. Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs were measured using the short form of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale. One subtest from the Omnibus T-Scale, the faculty trust in clients subtest, was used to measure teachers' trust in students and parents. One subtest from the…

The focus of this article is on Finnish pre-school curricula from the early pioneering years to the start of the new millennium (1972-2000). Pre-school has been part of the Finnish education system for nearly 40 years. It has been undergoing a challenging reconstruction process and changes influenced significantly by the increasing call for…

This paper will look at the services presently offered to distance students by libraries within the categories of professional staff, access to resources, reference assistance, and library user instruction. It will then offer the argument that these services could be improved by developing embedded librarians within online academic courses as a…

In this article, I develop a perspective on learning as multilayered phenomena. I take a socio-genetic approach in order to understand human activity and to show how categories are a fundamental part of learning in a specific type of institutional practice. In the empirical section, student dialogue is analysed in relation to a set of categories…

Continuing emphasis given to computer technology resourcing in schools presents potential for web-based initiatives which focus on quality arts teaching and learning, as ways to improve arts outcomes for all students. An arts e-learning collaborative research project between specialist on-line teacher/researchers and generalist primary teachers…

Ever since the first ethnographic studies, the question about how people learn in different contexts was an essential element of research. Studies in anthropology of education have increasingly focused on schooling. Nowadays, however, the traditional topic of learning in out-of-school contexts recovers its relevance because the development of…

Research in science education suggests that teachers' beliefs are linked to the use of inquiry-based instruction; teachers holding a constructivist belief are more likely to engage in student-centered activities in the classroom. However, there is currently little research on the ways in which teachers' beliefs change over time, and in particular,…

The purpose of this study was to determine how contributing to a class wiki affected the learning of pre-service teachers enrolled in a language arts methods class. Participants included 37 preservice teachers enrolled in three sections of a field-based language arts methods class during two semesters. Data collection included online observations…