Online students are often short-changed when they reach their most important milestone--graduation. For many institutions, virtual graduation has proven to be a holy grail of sorts--critically important to student experience, but illusive in form and difficult to achieve. This article explores several existing models of virtual graduations, and…

How should a pedagogical agent in educational software be designed to support student learning? This question is complex seeing as there are many types of pedagogical agents and design features, and the effect on different student groups can vary. In this paper we explore the effects of designing a pedagogical agent's self-efficacy in order to see…

In this study, a flipped classroom was compared with blended learning and face-to-face learning environments and the aim was to identify the effect of these learning environments on students' achievements, academic engagement and satisfaction levels. Based on this aim, one control and two experimental groups were formed. The students in…

The HyFlex blended learning model is a student-driven approach that allows students to determine what blended learning they prefer to meet their unique needs. In a HyFlex course, students are presented with a choice with each class session -- whether to attend face-to-face or participate online. This article introduces social work educators to the…

Student engagement in the online learning environment is critical for academic success. One increasingly popular means through which to facilitate this engagement is the use of web-conferencing software. While there are a variety of potential applications, this paper will evaluate the use of one such web-conferencing tool to support synchronous…

Austin Community College's (ACC) Student Money Management Office conducted a text messaging scavenger hunt to engage ACC students in financial-aid-related education and programming, including when to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and how to ensure Satisfactory Academic Progress. Results demonstrated that 268 students began…

With the increasing strategic importance of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) in higher education, this paper offers an innovative approach to advancing discussions and practice around MOOC learning design, in the context of staff development. The study provides a deeper understanding of staff (academic and learning technologists') experience…

Sometimes users need to be asked if they need help. This is difficult with online users, because in-person cues cannot be used to engage when the users need assistance. Proactive chat widgets help to solve this problem as the chat box slides out onto the screen and prompts the user for help. The need for the proactive chat widget was also seen as…

A major concern of online learning is the absence of face-to-face student-instructor interaction and student-to-student interaction, leading researchers to examine practical approaches to keep students engaged in the online learning environment. Synchronous methods have become a growing opportunity for student engagement in the online environment.…

From the 2013 "Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)," OWI Principle 11 suggests, "Online writing teachers and their institutions should develop personalized and interpersonal online communities to foster student success." Previous discussions of synchronous…

In this study, we examined a mathematics teacher's communicative acts on an instant messaging tool, WhatsApp, and its role in creating a sustained learning environment between secondary-school students and a teacher in Turkey. The interactions of a mathematics teacher and his students (n = 38) over two years were explored. The WhatsApp group…

In this study, propensity score matching (PSM) was conducted to examine differences in the effectiveness of research mentor training (RMT) implemented using two modes--face-to-face or synchronous online training. This study investigated each training mode and assessed participants' perceived gains in mentoring skills, ability to meet mentees'…

To investigate how physics students perceived the sudden shift to online learning at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, 18 semistructured interviews were conducted with university students in Austria, Croatia, and Germany. Based on the interviews, a questionnaire was developed and data from N ¼ 578 physics students from five universities in…

This research aims to investigate if information and communication technologies (ICT) supported activities prepared by the researchers can contribute to academic success in developing listening skills in EFL when they are presented in a connective approach and what the participants think about the content and approach used. The sample includes…

This mixed-method study introduced an adaptive scaffolding system to support middle school science problem-based learning (PBL) activities. 298 6th-graders were grouped into three conditions, which are the adaptive scaffolding group, the non-adaptive scaffolding group, and a control group that did not receive any scaffoldings. Results showed that…