In this paper I address one question asked by teachers who teach online--"How can I build community among my learners in my class?" This paper provides an answer; in fact, it provides ten possible answers, in the form of ten models for teachers to use to build community in on-line courses. Each model has been tried and tested over ten…

Although the study of college student development has progressed during the last decades to address various aspects of identity development across a wide range of diverse populations, there is a noticeable gap in the literature about Muslim-American college students and how the university experience impacts their development as young adults. The…

Any student seeking a high school diploma from the public school system in one U.S. state must pass the state's high school graduation test. In 2009, only 88% of students at one high school in the state met the basic proficiency requirements on the science portion of the test. Because improved science education has been identified as an explicit…

Across the globe, students learn with digital texts, classrooms connect through the world-wide web, and elementary students apprentice in highly technical skills such as moviemaking or animation. As education embarks on the second decade of the 21st century, technology is becoming more sought after than ever before as countries prepare their youth…

Students' science achievement has been subject to scrutiny and criticism in the United States. The decline in rankings on standardized international assessments has been the focus of concern for educators, policy makers, parents and society at large. This study, designed as an action research, explored the factors contributing to the decrease in…

Web 3.0, termed as the semantic web or the web of data is the transformed version of Web 2.0 with technologies and functionalities such as intelligent collaborative filtering, cloud computing, big data, linked data, openness, interoperability and smart mobility. If Web 2.0 is about social networking and mass collaboration between the creator and…

A teacher professional development program for in-service elementary school science teachers, the Rice Elementary Model Science Lab (REMSL), was developed for urban school districts serving predominately high-poverty, high-minority students. Teachers with diverse skills and science capacities came together in Professional Learning Communities, one…

Even seasoned public relations (PR) practitioners can find it difficult to handle communications during a crisis situation when the consequences of making poor decisions may seem overwhelming. This article shares results from using a collaborative simulation to teach college students about crisis communications in an advanced-level PR course.…

Acknowledging the general difficulty of new e-learning pedagogical approaches in achieving wide acceptance and use, the study described in this article examines a class of MBA students' adoption of a proposed online interactive learning environment. To this end, a web-based, case-based constructivist learning environment was developed, embedding…

This article addresses the under-theorization of visual techniques for social science research applications through the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). The "problem" of "the visual" in research is given an ontological framing by highlighting the ways in which the use of visual techniques as research tools--designed…

As technology continues to advance, the use of computers and the Internet in educational environments has immensely increased. But just how effective has their use been in enhancing children's learning? In this thought-provoking book, Christina E. Erneling conducts a thorough investigation of scholarly journals articles on how computers and the…

The purpose of this research was to examine teachers' perspectives on transitioning from a predominately whole to small-group delivery method during reading instruction. This study used a qualitative approach and nested itself in an epistemology of constructivism. The research operated under the umbrella of practice ethnography as it closely…

This qualitative study was designed to examine the processes and practices that occurred before, during and after consolidation of the four elementary schools in the Great Local School district with the goal of developing a conceptual framework to be utilized by school districts that plan on implementing a school consolidation or reconfiguration.…

Using a constructionist framework in music, specifically through an emphasis on composition, is revolutionizing the field of music and education by bridging the gap between the novice and professional. Much of the research has been spearheaded by Jeanne Bamberger and others, who noted the computer's potential to highlight what it means to be a…

Positioned within the social constructivist view of learning that individuals make meaning from their experiences and through their social actions and interactions, this qualitative study explores the ways in which nine instructors of underprepared adult English as a Second Language students made meaning of their classroom experiences. Through…