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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Developing Asynchronous Online Courses: Key Instructional Strategies in a Social Metacognitive Constructivist Learning Trajectory

This qualitative, design-based research study resulted in a proposal for a comprehensive set of best instructional practices immersed in a learning trajectory, outlining the tools, processes and the content development for online asynchronous, text-based learning in graduate level professional development courses. The outcome provides a rich description of essential instructional strategies for merging the tools, […]

Dissertations at a Distance: Students’ Perceptions of Online Mentoring in a Doctoral Program

The purpose of this research was to identify best practices in online mentoring used in an online doctoral program to mentor doctoral students through their dissertation. During semi-structured interviews, students (n=9) reflected on the challenges faced communicating with their mentors, and the online technologies, online mentoring strategies, and their own best practices that had been […]

Assessing Students’ Competency And Practical Learning Ability In A Distance Learning Environment

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) operates an exclusively open and distance learning (ODL) mode of education whereby students study mostly by reading printed course materials. Practical activities including tasks, exercises, experiments and other activities that involve doing things practically are integrated in the course materials to support student learning. Because distance learners are […]

Teaching Writing in Online Distance Education: Supporting Student Success

An intervention is a counseling action an instructor may use to support a student who struggles to work productively in an online writing instruction (OWI) course. Interventions may increase retention and graduation rates at institutions as well as increase student and teacher satisfaction (Allen, Bourhis, Burrell, and Mabry, 2002; Archambault and Crippen, 2009; McCombs, Ufnar, […]

Adapting to the digital age: a narrative approach

The article adopts a narrative inquiry approach to foreground informal learning and exposes a collection of stories from tutors about how they adapted comfortably to the digital age. We were concerned that despite substantial evidence that bringing about changes in pedagogic practices can be difficult, there is a gap in convincing approaches to help in […]

Maintaining Pedagogical Integrity of a Computer Mediated Course Delivery in Social Foundations

Transforming a face to face course to a computer mediated format in social foundations (interdisciplinary field in education), while maintaining pedagogical integrity, involves strategic collaboration between instructional technologists and content area experts. This type of planned partnership requires open dialogue and a mutual respect for prior knowledge, expertise and experiences within a multi-disciplinarity context. A.D.D.I.E. […]

An Investigation of Teaching Strategy in the Distance Learning Mathematics Classroom

Distance learning has become increasingly popular among higher learning institutions, and more academic disciplines, such as mathematics, are now being offered at a distance. This experimental study investigated whether an objectivist-based teaching strategy or a constructivist-based teaching strategy yields greater achievement scores for adult students learning mathematics at a distance. A pretest-posttest control-group design was […]

Content Creators and Language Learners: Exploring Web 2.0 and Wikis

This qualitative study examined the use of Wikis and blogs among graduate students in an online class that was part of a teacher preparation program in English as a Second Language. Participants included practicing teachers and graduate assistants who represented a variety of learning environments and experiences. The study was framed by a set of […]

Information literacy and embedded librarianship in an online graduate programme

This paper reports on an embedded librarian project aimed at providing incoming online graduate students with essential information literacy skills to succeed in an online programme. It describes the design and implementation of the project, the results of pre- and post-instruction surveys of students’ information literacy skills and students’ perceived ability, confidence, and anxiety when […]

Addressing the needs of diverse distributed students

Two interrelated studies were undertaken to assist Alberta post-secondary institutions with meeting challenges associated with providing services to diverse distributed students that are of similar quality to services provided to traditional classroom students. The first study identified and assessed best practices in distributed learning; the second refined the focus to students who were identified as […]