The effectiveness of a peer review process for online graduate students is predicated on a balance between "social"- and "task"-directed communications. The defining criteria of learning communities are presented to illustrate the operational meaning of social and the criteria for Critical Thinking used to illustrate the…

When converting from a paper-based distance mode to an online mode of teaching, certain expectations arise that students may engage not only in the development of extended research activity but that the quality of discussion and thinking will change. With access to open-ended discussion within the online forum the opportunity is afforded to…

The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore ways in which professionals working in multi-professional settings can develop their understanding of the different perspectives and knowledge bases of team members in order to build new working practices together. The importance of exploring professional identity in professional development…

The purpose of the study is to examine positions of students and a teacher in dialogic discussion. In this study, dialogic discussion was defined with Bakhtin's (1981) dialogism, Nystrand's (1997) explanation of dialogically organized instruction, and Mercer's (1995) explanation of Exploratory Talk. Studies about literature discussion in…

The purpose of this self study was to discover the values and attitudes I model as a leader to support people in doing their best work. Specifically, do I practice leadership intimacy as defined in this study? Leadership intimacy is defined by addressing these research questions: What values do I lead by? And, what attitudes and practices do I…

The use of electronic audience response systems (ARS) in undergraduate science instruction is increasing. In this article, we argue for combining such a teaching approach with a more active use of student small-group discussions, demonstrating with examples from a Norwegian physics course how "talking physics" is central to the…

Precision teaching emerged from O.R. Lindsley's pristine application of Skinner's natural science of behavior, with a focus on response rate measurement and free operant procedures. When applied with human learners in instructional settings, these first principles led to a series of developments framed in this paper as four kinds of ceilings that…

"The Puppets Promoting Engagement and Talk in Science" project focuses on using puppets to engage children in conversation to develop their thinking about scientific concepts in an inquiring, explorative approach. This project is also about motivating and engaging teachers to link literacy with science in their teaching and learning…

While training social work students to become culturally competent practitioners is at the forefront of multicultural higher education, courses on diversity issues present great challenges for both students and faculty. Building on previous research, this study presents an instructional approach to promote social work graduate student learning via…

We have developed a set of tools for improving online collaborative learning including an automated expert that monitors and moderates discussions, and additional tools to evaluate contributions, semantically search all posted comments, access a library of hundreds of digital books and provide reports to instructors. The technology behind these…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explain a cooperative learning technique, Academic Controversy, also known as Cooperative Controversy, Structured Controversy and Structured Academic Controversy. This technique has potential for use in intercultural education and has support in both research and theory. Briefly, the technique involves…

At Campus Technology 2010 this past July in Boston, Josh Baron, director of academic technology and e-learning at Marist College (New York) and chair of the Sakai Foundation's board of directors, led a panel discussion on the future of open source and open content in higher education with Brad Felix, chief learning officer of open textbook…

Wikis are open-source sites, meaning that users may add, remove, or edit most content quickly. Because they are a public venue, students became more engaged and invested in what they wrote, wrote more frequently, edited their work more carefully, collaborated, and became accustomed to frequent peer and adult feedback. Writing practice and in-depth…

It has been no secret that today's schools are faced with many challenges. U.S. schools are struggling with low test scores, high drop-out rates, and unequal quality public education. These schools are also struggling to meet the needs of an ever changing population of students. The changing demographics in schools present challenges to teachers…

At the suggestion of a colleague, I read "The Code Book", [32], by Simon Singh to get a basic introduction to the RSA encryption scheme. Inspired by Singh's book, I designed a Ball State University Honors Colloquium in Mathematics for both majors and non-majors, with material coming from "The Code Book" and many other sources. This course became…