In this session, Dr. Rick Shearer shares insight into Transactional Distance Theory as originally proposed by Prof. Micheal Moore. Listen to the Podcast Let’s Talk eLearning is a podcast series that shares success tips on elearning and distance education. The podcast was created as a way to assist pratitioners to understand some key issues, challenges […]

This study aimed to explore learners’ discourse patterns and outcomes while using a visible-annotation tool as a collaborative representation tool. The tool used in this study introduced two types of sharing activities before the problem-solving phase to support sequential knowledge construction. Forty participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups according to two variables: […]

The number of online courses in higher education is on the rise. However, empirical evidence elucidating best practices for synchronous online instruction is needed to best implement these courses. The research purposes were to examine synchronous online class sessions to (1) quantify interaction type, frequency, and rate, (2) quantify student engagement frequency, and (3) quantify […]

This research presents findings of a College of Education Pilot Webinar Series designed to promote online students’ engagement with classmates, faculty presenters, and the university. Student attendees participated in a pilot webinar series that included active discussions and options to synchronously communicate and engage with others. Findings suggest that student attendees increased their sense of […]

Young people need the right resources at their disposal to navigate uncertain times and to pursue their evolving interests and passions. All too often, however, a critical resource in the opportunity equation repeatedly goes unmeasured: students’ social capital. Social capital describes students’ access to, and ability to mobilize, relationships that help them further their potential […]

Despite extensive studies surrounding the topic of interaction in online learning, faculty are often still relegated to an attempt at replicating their face-to-face course interactions in the online environment. Interpersonal interaction is a necessary yet nebulous concept in online learning. This paper attempts to build a quality lens to view interpersonal interaction in online learning […]

This report offers an overview of methods investigating educators’ professional discourse. The selected three methods are text-mining focused on content words, text-mining with function words, and social network analysis. The first method allows summarization of text data based on focal points in corpora. The second type of text-mining leverages predetermined categories of words to investigate […]

In this qualitative study, the authors analyzed the participation of preservice teachers in a discipline specific Twitter chat known as #sschat. Findings indicated that preservice teachers found value in the chat when they shared resources with practicing teachers, had resources shared with them, and built professional networks. However, there were instances when the preservice teachers […]

Research indicates that when instructors interact with students online their academic engagement increases, yet there is little research on student peer interactions and its effectiveness in terms of academic engagement. This study evaluates peer deliberations on a collaborative website for students enrolled in an American politics course at two institutions. Significant evidence reveals that student […]

The paper shows how a framework adapted from Toulmin (1958) was valuable in exploring the force of online argument in an educational setting. In past research of online discussions there has been a focus on interaction patterns at the expense of exploring questions of content. In seeking to address this imbalance, we used Toulmin’s key […]