The effective use of technology is increasingly important in many fields where online and digital communication, collaboration, and production have become more prevalent. Although it is clear that many higher education students come into the classroom with skills involved with consuming technology, they often are much less capable of producing…

The Commonwealth Government of Australia OLT-funded PIVOTAL (Partnerships, Innovation and Vitality -- Opportunities for Thriving Academic Leadership) cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional research confirmed the validity of the PIVOTAL model and its positive impact on the design of postgraduate leadership courses. An improvement in students'…

For many years, the U.S. has underutilized its human resources, as evidenced by the pervasive underrepresentation of several racial and ethnic groups within academia in general and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, in particular. To address this underutilization, academic departments within U.S. universities…

This ethnographic investigation of a multiethnic, multilingual classroom examines the ways in which immigrant students' goals for community and belonging were mediated by their vibrant cultural and linguistic practices. Findings demonstrate how youth formed a community of practice through brokering acts, resource pooling, and linguistic play…

Social media and web 2.0 technologies are an attractive supplement to the higher education experience and are embraced as a way to foster intra-and extracurricular knowledge generation among a class community. However, these collaborative media require a rethinking of the theoretical framework through which we engage student communities of…

Based on a widely held belief that immersion provides the best language learning opportunities, a large number of Asian students go to English-speaking countries to improve their English language skills. These strongly motivated learners arrive in a new country with a bag of expectations, learner beliefs, and imaginations about the new community…

Within professional learning communities, the processes of shared reflection and critique, or critical transformative dialogues are considered crucial for the maintenance and improvement of professional practice. This paper focuses on the development of the processes of critical transformative dialogues and their application in the professional…

This research examines the feasibility and benefits of using Twitter as a support tool to enhance social interaction among teachers in their first year of service, as they participate in an online induction workshop, and as a tool to aid the workshop's moderator in monitoring the group and enhancing and supporting the early-service teachers'…

This study investigated the effect of cohort participation in a learning community and collaborative learning techniques on the success of first-year engineering students. Student success was measured as gains in knowledge, skills, and attitudes, student engagement, and persistence in engineering. The study group was comprised of students…

Workshop pedagogy is a staple of writing classrooms at all levels. However, little research has explored the pedagogical moves that can address longstanding critiques of writing workshop, nor the sorts of rhetorical challenges that teachers and students in secondary classrooms can tackle through workshops. This article documents and analyzes the…

This article discusses a project designed to build a community of enquiry in the first year of a foundation degree in early years at an English university. Derived originally from Lipman's ideas of Philosophy for Children, this approach became a regular part of the fortnightly session for these early childhood practitioners, in order to support…

This paper addresses the impact of teachers' beliefs about argumentation and their community of practice framed views of teaching on co-designing an environmental health afterschool club curriculum with researchers. Our team collaborated with a group of four middle school teachers, asking them to co-design a club that would facilitate (1)…

Wagner College's academic program emphasizes interdisciplinary study, experiential learning, and reflection on theory and practice. The curriculum is enhanced by a rich array of opportunities in New York City. In the course of their undergraduate studies, students enroll in three learning communities, two of which include experiential learning and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate instructor participation in asynchronous discussions through an in-depth content analysis of instructors' postings and comments through the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework (Garrison et. al, 2001). We developed an analytical tool based on this framework in order to better understand what instructors…

According to Richard DuFour (2004), "To create a professional learning community, focus on learning rather than teaching, work collaboratively and hold yourself accountable for results." Professional learning communities provide the structure that must exist within a school in order to become effective. However, to truly prepare…