Drawing on 14 years of collaborative self-study group work at their university, East and Fitzgerald reviewed the data, stories and findings from that collaborative work, seeking to go beyond those original stories to identify practical implications of the tensions that emerged and played out within the various groups. Findings were shared and…

Meaningful discussion helps students develop new knowledge about the world around them. "Progressive discourse" is talk that encourages people to develop a new understanding together. In this article, the author discusses how she used student collaboration to foster progressive discourse and describes assignments that engage her students in group…

This paper presents results from a rigorous random assignment study of Learning Communities programs operated at three of six community colleges participating in the National Center for Postsecondary Research's (NCPR) Learning Communities Demonstration. The demonstration's focus is on determining whether Learning Communities are an effective…

This paper is based on an empirical study of assessment practices currently being undertaken in a post-1992 university in the UK. Our broad interest is in examining assessment practices in context in order to explore why lecturers assess in the ways that they do. The Assessment Environments and Cultures project aims to illuminate some of the…

This paper considers the "policy work" of teacher actors in schools. It focuses on the "problem of meaning" and offers a typology of roles and positions through which teachers engage with policy and with which policies get "enacted". It argues that "policy work" is made up of a set of complex and…

This study investigated 6 weeks of online asynchronous discussions in a graduate-level course involving eleven students. The research purposes of this study were to identify patterns of collaborative knowledge exploration (CKE) and to suggest new analytical dimensions for investigating online discussions. Based upon a unique theoretical framework…

Introduction: Examines how an analytical framework of situated genre analysis can be used to study how research blogs are constructed and used as tools in scholarly communication. Method: A framework was extracted from genre research theories consisting of four concepts: aim, form, content and context. The term "situated genre" was used to focus…

Research has become a key element in the knowledge-based society with its role of producing and disseminating results. In this context, scientific publishing becomes the means by which research activity and knowledge production are circulated to the scientific community and society at large. However, there are factors influencing the system of…

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their…

The professional development needs of early career academics (ECAs) are increasingly subject to scrutiny. The literature notes writing groups can be successful in increasing research outputs and improving research track records--a core concern for ECAs. However, the pressure on ECAs to publish takes the pleasure out of writing for many. We argue…

First, the author briefly outlines genre theory and sets out some broad definitions of genre. She also discusses how genre knowledge is acquired and how it has been taught in ESP and EAP. Following this, she highlights two challenges to using this pedagogy in a general EFL class. Finally, she argues that despite these challenges, teachers can…

Early childhood and early childhood special education programs have a focus on parent-educator partnerships. Parent-teacher conferences are a context for these partnerships, and advice giving is one type of exchange occurring within conferences. Parent-teacher conference advice was investigated through participant interviews and the methodology of…

This case study describes the creation of a supportive culture for online teaching at a western university that was transitioning to a new learning management system. The case study highlighted the creation of a faculty learning community as one strategy to address the challenge of faculty working through a change process. The faculty learning…

Using Astin's I-E-O model as a framework, this article explores the effects of a variety of factors on first-year persistence for conditionally-admitted students participating in a learning community at a public land-grant university. Since the learning community began in 2002, program administrators have collected survey, interview, and academic…

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the inner workings of a North American summer enrichment programme named Freedom School. More specifically this research explores how participants of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School programme experience "the Freedom School way", an amalgam of ideologies, discourses, and behaviours…