Research shows that a cohesive classroom community, or the relationships built between students within a classroom setting, leads to a long list of positive student outcomes in higher education. This research seeks to better understand how to build cohesion in a classroom community, a goal that has become even more urgent given the student…

Fully online courses and degree programs are popular with students today. It is important that these courses provide the same rigor and value of a traditional learning experience in a face-to-face classroom in order to ensure mastery of concepts and learning objectives. Online classes typically have suffered due to a lack of hands-on experiences…

As a discipline, educational psychology is somewhat idiosyncratic in terms of content and methodologies. Such idiosyncrasies are likely rooted in the philosophical history of the discipline which involves both the empirical tradition of Thorndike and the contextualized pragmatics of James and Dewey. Despite this, there is little teaching about…

This study is an appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivasta, 1987; Priest et al., 2013) into hybrid courses offered in Fall 2020, which included a combination of face-to-face and online elements. The courses in this study were part of an academic leadership studies program at Fort Hays State University and were taught in the hybrid format…

The abrupt shift to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic put a strain on the education sector the world over. Using the social constructivist theory, this study postulates that face to-face teaching and learning does not seamlessly translate to online instruction both in terms of pedagogical practice and learner experiences.…

This study aims to provide preliminary validation for a newly designed instrument to evaluate teaching effectiveness through student classroom engagement and learning gains. The instrument is titled the Middle Semester Classroom Survey of Student Engagement and Learning (MS-CSSEL); it consists of 31items to measure student classroom engagement in…

Reacting to the Past (Reacting) is an active-learning pedagogy utilizing elaborate historical roleplaying games. This study examined the effect of Reacting on student academic self-efficacy, perspective taking, engagement, and perceived learning, and considered whether these outcomes were impacted by the type of role a student assumed. Students…

We experimentally assessed the efficacy of two online instructional methods, guided inquiry and video, on learning and conceptual change, while also examining the relationship of student characteristics to these outcomes. Results indicate an interaction between mindset and instructional method for learning; additional learner characteristics may…

This study compared student engagement and performance in both open educational resources (OER) (n[open textbook users fall 2018] = 72) and traditional textbook (n[traditional textbook users fall 2017] = 66) classes. Data were drawn from the Learning Management System (LMS). Results show (1) final grades in the OER class were on a par with the…

A Faculty Learning Community comprised of four faculty members evaluated their work of implementing collaborative learning techniques (CoLTs) into their graduate and undergraduate courses that included different teaching modalities (traditional classroom, hybrid, and online). Two research questions were examined: (1) Did students perceive that the…

Writing in English holds great importance throughout the world, especially when it comes to academic and professional excellence. Therefore, writing in English is given due status in Pakistan too. However, despite learning English for years, Pakistani students face difficulty in writing like other foreign language learners. One of the major issues…

Funded by a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from a University in western Canada, this paper reports on findings from an educational design research study (McKenney & Reeves, 2012) investigating the ways, and the extent to which, particular technological supports and other interventions impacted the acquisition of academic writing…

The process toward academic literacy aims at developing academic reading and writing together with higher academic competences of increasing relevance for undergraduate students as future teachers and researchers. Such a process is even more complex in ELT vocational courses where non-English speaking trainees study English as a system while they…

This study examined English Learners' (ELs) self-efficacy beliefs in a U.S. university setting by using a survey, interviews, and focus group discussions. The results identified that ELs from different disciplines had positive self-efficacy beliefs about their overall English learning, and self efficacy was related to ELs' age, years of English…

Since the advent of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs, first in K-12 and now in college curricula, many variants of STEM have arisen to include other disciplines in developing cross-disciplinary literacy among students. This paper briefly defines our own variant STE[A]M branch within the context of cross-disciplinary…