Local and federal governments, public school boards, and higher education institutions have been promoting online courses in their commitment to accommodating public needs, widening access to materials, sharing intellectual resources, and reducing costs. However, researchers of education needs to consider the often ignored yet important issue of equity since disregarding the issue of inequity in online education may create suboptimal consequences for students. This dissertation work, therefore, investigates the issues of social justice and equity in online education. I argue that equity is situated between the tensions of various social structures in a broader cultural context and can be thought of as a fair distribution of opportunities to participate. This understanding is built upon the idea that individuals have different values, goals, and interests; nevertheless, the online learning context may not provide fair opportunities for individuals to follow their own learning trajectories. Particularly, online learning environments can reproduce inequitable learning conditions when the context requires certain individuals to assimilate mainstream beliefs and values at the expense of their own identities. Since identifications have certain social and political consequences by enabling or constraining individuals’ access to educational resources, individuals may try to be identified in line with culturally-hegemonic perspectives in order to gain or secure their access to educational resources or to legitimize their learning experiences. In this interview study, I conceptualize online courses within their broader socio-historical context and analyze how macro-level social structures, namely the concept of whiteness, can reproduce inequity in micro-level online learning practices. By questioning who has control over the conditions for the production of knowledge, values, and identification, I investigate how socially accepted bodies of thoughts, beliefs, values, and feelings that give meaning to individuals’ daily-practices may create inequitable learning conditions in day-to-day online learning practices. In specific, I analyze how those who are identified as non-White experience “double-bind” with respect to stereotypification on one hand, anonymity on the other. Building on this analysis, I illustrate how those who are identified as non-White have to constantly negotiate their legitimacy and right to be in the online environment.

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Distributed learning is becoming an increasingly common method of further education in post-secondary institutions and programs across Canada and internationally. Academic libraries are not immune to this trend, and many are reviewing and revising their teaching methodology. All learners require information literacy instruction that is relevant, engaging, and embedded in curriculum; in a distributed learning environment, however, the design and delivery of that instruction may need to be adapted to respond to the challenges of instruction to distributed learners. Through a literature review of distributed learning models in academic libraries and consultation with faculty and librarians at the University of Saskatchewan, this research will assist in determining distributed learning models and instructional design best suited for the provision of information literacy instruction within this environment. Although this research focused on academic libraries, this session will be relevant to anyone who is interested in providing instruction outside of a classroom. / Slides from a presentation at the Saskatchewan Library Association annual conference in Saskatoon, SK, in May 2013. Notes from the presentation are included on the slides which were not part of the original presentation.

With the increasing popularity of and demand for online learning in higher education (Konetes, 2011) comes a need to examine students’ perceptions about classroom climate in these environments. Using the Instructional Beliefs Model (IBM) as a theoretical framework, this dissertation proposes the online learning climate (OLCS) scale for doing so. Informed by both organizational and instructional communication, as well as education, the scale consists of several variables related to instructor role(s) and behaviors, student characteristics, and course-specific structural issues to explain how students perceive climate within a computer-mediated classroom. Ultimately, this three-phase study consisted of: (a) constructing the OLCS, (b) establishing factor structure, as well as concurrent and convergent validity, and (c) establishing the scale’s discriminant validity, confirming its factorial structure, and testing three theoretical models.

An important technique for learning, feedback has been described as responses to students’ behaviors, tasks, assignments, and outcomes. In this study, the researcher used a new kind of feedback message called an Emotional Motivational Feedback Message (EMFEM). EMFEM is a feedback message which includes motivational strategies and emotional content for motivating and encouraging students to learn more and to focus on a specific topic. EMFEM is based on Visser and Keller’s (1990) motivational message design, which was influenced by Keller’s (1987) ARCS theory and emotional content strategies. Because EMFEM is primarily used in text-based, online learning environments, it is limited in its ways of adding emotional content to feedback messages. Therefore, three main strategies were used in this study to include EMFEM: using the meaning of the words; formatting the words by using colored, bold, underlined text; and adding emoticons. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of EMFEM in online learning environments. This exploratory research was conducted using mixed method single case study design (Creswell, 2005; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Yin, 2009) and guided by the following question: How effective are emotional motivational feedback messages in an online learning environment? Participants were 15 undergraduate students enrolled for an instructional technology course in a large state university located in an urban region in the southeastern part of the United States during fall 2013. The researcher used multiple data collection strategies, including a course interest survey, an instructional technology attitudes survey, open-ended questionnaires, a research journal, forum/discussion postings, emails, reflection papers and warm-up surveys. The findings showed that, in an online course using EMFEM, (a) students’ motivation increased; (b) students’ attitudes toward IT increased; (c) students liked the EMFEM and the style of the instructor’s teaching; (d) students had a closer and friendlier relationship with the instructor; (e) students were satisfied with the course; (f) students started to use more emotional content; (g) students enjoyed having personalized EMFEM and requested to have EMFEM; and (h) students reported positive overall experiences by the end of the course.

Scholars suggest that when students use information and communication technology to complete and present identity texts about their own cultural background, such as self-authored literature, artwork, and multi-media texts, they learn about themselves and others and they can improve literacy skills and proficiency with technology (Chow & Cummins, 2003; Cummins, 2006). In this exploratory case study five middle-school students attending a diverse inner city school, and each representing a different demographic, were asked to complete an identity text project. In question was whether they would consume or critically deconstruct the negative hegemonic discourses they might encounter in the process. Results indicated that student response to these discourses was inconsistent, that students minoritized as black were especially vulnerable to them, and that student-led constructivist projects like this should be preceded by effective inclusive schooling and media literacy pedagogy to help ensure student engagement with multi-literacies is enhanced as intended.

This case study examined the spread of ideas in a Gr. 5/6 classroom in which the teacher was attempting to foster a knowledge building community. The goal of the research was to explore the relationship between the social network of the classroom (in terms of face-to-face and computer-mediated interactions), the teacher’s role, and the spread of ideas. Further, the thesis examined how social network tools may help teachers better understand the pedagogical implications of Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1991) Teacher A, B, C models. Analyses of videotaped lessons revealed the teacher used a complex mix of traditional instructional methods and knowledge building strategies while trying to shift the locus of control of learning to students. Critical teacher-driven processes included the class-wide adoption of knowledge building vocabulary and practices, and efforts to foster higher levels of student-student discourse. Analyses of online interactions provided strong evidence of highly interconnected student-student online networks, with the note reading network being especially dense. Longitudinal studies revealed these network established themselves early in the unit, and persisted during the course of the inquiry. There was evidence that idea improvement was present in addition to idea spread. In face-to-face classroom communication, the teacher’s role was more central, particularly in "Knowledge Building Talk" sessions. However, here too, the teacher made efforts to shift the locus of control. Overall the analyses suggest that social network tools are potentially useful for helping teachers make the difficult transition from "Teacher A" and "Teacher B" strategies, in which the locus of control is with the teacher, to "Teacher C" strategies, in which strategic cognitive processes are turned over to students. This dissertation proposes that movement toward Teacher C practices may be illustrated, in part, by a shift in classroom network topologies from that of a star-shaped network, centered on the teacher, to a highly interconnected student-student network. Finally, the thesis recounts a number of ways in which the use of social network tools uncovered discourse patterns of which the teacher was unaware, including gender differences in reading, building-on, and contribution patterns.

Scholars suggest that when students use information and communication technology to complete and present identity texts about their own cultural background, such as self-authored literature, artwork, and multi-media texts, they learn about themselves and others and they can improve literacy skills and proficiency with technology (Chow & Cummins, 2003; Cummins, 2006). In this exploratory case study five middle-school students attending a diverse inner city school, and each representing a different demographic, were asked to complete an identity text project. In question was whether they would consume or critically deconstruct the negative hegemonic discourses they might encounter in the process. Results indicated that student response to these discourses was inconsistent, that students minoritized as black were especially vulnerable to them, and that student-led constructivist projects like this should be preceded by effective inclusive schooling and media literacy pedagogy to help ensure student engagement with multi-literacies is enhanced as intended.

This thesis reports the outcomes of an investigation into students’ experience of Problem-based learning (PBL) in virtual space. PBL is increasingly being used in many fields including engineering education. At the same time many engineering education providers are turning to online distance education. Unfortunately there is a dearth of research into what constitutes an effective learning experience for adult learners who undertake PBL instruction through online distance education. Research was therefore focussed on discovering the qualitatively different ways that students experience PBL in virtual space. Data was collected in an electronic environment from a course, which adopted the PBL strategy and was delivered entirely in virtual space. Students in this course were asked to respond to open-ended questions designed to elicit their learning experience in the course. Data was analysed using the phenomenographical approach. This interpretative research method concentrated on mapping the qualitative differences in students’ interpretations of their experience in the course. Five qualitatively different ways of experiencing were discovered: Conception 1: ‘A necessary evil for program progression’; Conception 2: ‘Developing skills to understand, evaluate, and solve technical Engineering and Surveying problems’; Conception 3: ‘Developing skills to work effectively in teams in virtual space’; Conception 4: ‘A unique approach to learning how to learn’; Conception 5: ‘Enhancing personal growth’. Each conception reveals variation in how students attend to learning by PBL in virtual space. Results indicate that the design of students’ online learning experience was responsible for making students aware of deeper ways of experiencing PBL in virtual space. Results also suggest that the quality and quantity of interaction with the team facilitator may have a significant impact on the student experience in virtual PBL courses. The outcomes imply pedagogical strategies can be devised for shifting students’ focus as they engage in the virtual PBL experience to effectively manage the student learning experience and thereby ensure that they gain maximum benefit. The results from this research hold important ramifications for graduates with respect to their ease of transition into professional work as well as their later professional competence in terms of problem solving, ability to transfer basic knowledge to real-life engineering scenarios, ability to adapt to changes and apply knowledge in unusual situations, ability to think critically and creatively, and a commitment to continuous life-long learning and self-improvement.