As an educator teaching an online course for the first time, I observed that the teachers in my class engaged in meaningful and sincere conversation and gained deep insight and greater awareness about their practice. Sincere conversation obviously differs from brief verbal exchanges operating at the surface level. It is conversation that invites…

This paper reports on the effects of a graduate course on teaching and learning on graduate teaching assistants' conceptions of teaching and on the teaching philosophy statements that arose from those conceptions. Effects are interpreted from three perspectives: 1) course facilitators' reports of their perceptions of course…

Experiential education and service-learning are "buzz words" within many educational circles. The purpose of this study was to explore students' (N=18) and professor experiences with/in a student-directed experiential education elective course, with a particular focus on a service-learning initiative. Stephen Brookfield's…

This paper reports the qualitative findings of a mixed methods research study conducted at three Canadian post-secondary institutions. Called the Meaningful E-learning or MEL project, the study was an exploration of the teaching and learning experiences of faculty and students as well as their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of…

North American universities are encouraged to increase opportunities for undergraduate research experiences (UREs). To this end, many universities offer directed studies courses (DSCs) which are 1-2 semester long courses involving one-on-one instruction, with a focus on student-led independent research. Building on the understanding of dynamics…

The rise of the research intensive university has led some critics to argue that teaching has been discounted in favour of research, and thus the academy has "failed...their undergraduate populations" (Boyer Commission, 1998, p .5). This paper examines instructor perceptions of inquiry at an institution with a significant history of providing…