Research on learning communities has been largely influenced by the sociocultural turn in educational scholarship approximately three decades ago. Here, we present a wider history of research and practice on learning communities as we revisit this highly generative and central topic in the learning sciences. Using this to frame our perspective, we…

The study sought to determine the effects of teacher-introduced multimodal representations and discourse on students' task engagement and scientific language during cooperative, inquiry-based science. The study involved eight Year 6 teachers in two conditions (four very effective teachers and four effective teachers) who taught two units of…

An online discussion facilitates students' higher order thinking in online classes, especially when adopted with the instructor's guidance. The current experimental study examined the effects of two different discussion representation tools (social and cognitive diagrams) on students' discussion behaviors. The social diagram emphasized…

The goal of this research was to highlight the role social regulatory processes play in making students' teamwork in reciprocal teaching (RT) groups (a classroom activity in which students take the teacher's role in small group reading sessions) effective. In addition to teamwork quality, we expected peer feedback to be a key factor in enhancing…