Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-03, Section: A, page: 0904. Adviser: Elizabeth Boling. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 16, 2007)."

The online teaching skills and best practices of virtual classroom teachers| A mixed method Delphi study

Marshaling Resources| A Classic Grounded Theory Study of Online Learners

<p> The number of online courses in higher education is on the rise; however, empirical evidence elucidating best practices for synchronous online instruction is needed to implement these courses. The purpose of this dissertation was to perform a mixed-method investigation into the relationships between instructor prompt and student engagement in 5 areas based on the 7 Principles of Good Practices in Undergraduate Education using recorded chat, video, and audio transcripts of two recent fully online nutrition courses. A total of 25 previously recorded synchronous sessions including oral and textual chat interactions were transcribed. Every line of student interaction was determined to be either superficial or containing evidence of at least one instance of engagement. Every line of instructor interaction was concurrently coded for at least one of the following forms of prompt: social, organizational, intellectual. Inter-tester reliability of coded interactions was determined to be excellent (Cohen's kappa = 0.91) on a 5% sample of the entire dataset before comprehensive analysis continued. In total, 172,380 words were exchanged through 13,394 oral and text interactions across all class sessions. With 54% of student interactions deemed superficial the remainder produced a total of 8,906 student engagements. There were 4,125 instructor prompts composed of 48% intellectual, 30% organizational, and 22% social cues. Pearson correlations were performed to investigate relationships between prompt and engagement across class sessions. Intellectual prompts were the best predictor of faculty interactions, active and collaborative learning, and academic challenge (<i>r</i> = 0.77, <i>r</i> = 0.78, <i>r</i> = 0.54 respectively); organizational prompts were the best predictor of enriching academic experiences (<i>r</i> = 0.72); and social prompts were the best predictor of supportive campus environments (<i>r</i> = 0.79) with all of these being significant (<i> p</i> &lt; 0.01). No category of engagement was significantly correlated to class performance. Online synchronous class sessions can promote high levels of student engagement. A variety of instructor prompts must be used in order to promote student engagement across a number of different categories. Finally, care should be taken in order to craft and facilitate learning activities in synchronous online class sessions in order to achieve desired learning outcomes.</p>

Thesis (PhD(Computer-Assisted Education))--Universiteit van Pretoria, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Steven Aragon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-158) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Due to discipline specific shortages, web-based learning has been proposed as a convenient way to upgrade the content knowledge of instructors interested in learning to teach science. Despite quantitative evidence that web-based instruction is equivalent to traditional methods, questions remain regarding its use. The efficiency and practicality of this approach with teachers in particular has not been extensively studied. This investigation examines learning in an online biology course designed to help teachers prepare for science certification exams. Research questions concern flow teachers learn biology in the online environment and how this setting influences the learning process. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are employed in an attempt to provide a more complete perspective than typical studies of online learning. Concept maps, tests, and online discussion transcripts are compared as measures of assimilated knowledge, while interviews reflect participants' views on the course. Findings indicate that participants experienced gains in declarative knowledge, but little improvement with respect to conditional knowledge. Qualitative examination of concept maps demonstrates gaps in participants' understandings of key course ideas. Engagement in the use of online resources varied according to participants' attitudes towards online learning. Subjects also reported a lack of motivation to fully engage in the course due to busy teaching schedules and the absence of accountability.

A study of computers and the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Japanese universities was designed to look at interrelations of technology and teachers' theories in these contexts. A review of the literature on technology and education concludes that technology is often given a purposive role in formulating change. However, instead of focusing on the effects of technology, it is argued that technology is better seen as indicative of other purposes. Connections to changing employment opportunities, skills, relations of professionals within the university, as well as problems and issues in teaching and learning with computers, lead to a conceptualization of risk in the teaching approaches in this study. In recent years, Japanese universities face increasing competition for a declining population of students. The financial pressures are concomitant with changes impinging on Japanese universities. These include the first attempts at on-line education in Japan, the need to reduce costs, initiatives from the central government to reform higher education, and demands for new skills. The primary source of data in this study were 14 in-depth interviews with experienced university English teachers who used computers frequently in teaching. A second source was a reflective journal of the author's teaching in a computer classroom for two years. Themes in the data were analyzed and linked to sociological theories of risk. Two strands of risk-oriented theories reviewed, Beck's risk society and Foucault's governmentality, were used to hypothesize simplified approaches to risk, one that is ethical and another that is strategic. Both approaches help explain ambivalences in the pattern of responses in the interview data. How these teachers value the skills of computing in English as necessary but at the same time express reservations for the isolating tendencies of using computers in teaching is an example. The results show that risk is useful in explaining ambivalences while pointing to the need for further research to understand how computing is becoming part of the educational equipment of more and more teaching contexts in Japanese universities and how risk as strategy and ethics opens up possibilities for increased understanding of computers and education.

Research in the area of computer-mediated communication (CMC) has shown enormous potential for its use in the foreign language classroom. The observed benefits include affective factors as well as linguistic features (Beauvois, 1992, 1995; Kern, 1995; Pellettieri, 2000; Sotillo, 2000; Warschauer, 1995/96). However, so far only three studies (Abrams, 2003; Beauvois, 1998b; Payne & Whitney, 2002) directly examined the effects of CMC on the development of oral language skills in a foreign language. These studies reported higher scores for the synchronous CMC groups, thus suggesting that oral proficiency can be enhanced by synchronous online discussions. Neither of these studies, however, examined the effects of online discussions on the development of learners' overall language skills, based on their practice with CMC. Thus, the present study investigated the effects of synchronous CMC on the interlanguage development of beginning learners of German over the course of one semester, specifically with regards to accuracy, proficiency, and communication strategies. Employing a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, two sections of German 102 participated in oral role plays and two sections engaged in synchronous online discussion after comparable preparation. Results showed no statistically significant differences in oral and written proficiency at the end of the semester due to treatment. However, students engaging in online discussions perceived them as beneficial for both their oral and written language skills; they also reported that they were able to notice their peers' vocabulary and grammar mistakes, which constitutes the first step of turning language input into intake. Other analyses indicated a general increase in language production and accuracy, especially for low- and medium-proficient learners. The fact that students perceived the online discussions as beneficial for their oral speech, and the fact that there was no significant difference between the post-treatment oral and written proficiency of the groups, corroborates the notion that online discussions support the development of the same processes that underlie oral speech. CMC discussions are thus shown to be a valuable addition to the foreign language classroom, in terms of second language acquisition and learners' interlanguage development.

The focus of investigation in this study was the online reading behavior of intermediate learners of French as they read a hypertext with L1 and L2 lexical glosses and their comprehension. By design, access to the L2 translations was constrained by access to the L1 gloss information first. This prescribed path of support was meant to maximize target language input, and to prompt cognitive and metacognitive processes toward the goal of increased comprehension. Comprehension was measured through multiple choice and recall tasks, and questionnaires were used to gather demographic data and learner perceptual variables. The study provides evidence that comprehension is increased with access to the hypertext glosses among readers who accessed both French and English language glosses, regardless of prior ability. Accessing only French glosses was not linked to greater comprehension, and no access to glosses reduced a comprehension factor score. Prior ability, as measured by a standardized FL placement exam, was not related to gloss access or time on task. L2 readers' preference for L1 language glosses in also reaffirmed to some extent, though French language glosses seem to have some appeal. Gender also played a role in the extent to which the text was enjoyed by L2 readers, and there is suggestive evidence for the roles of background schema and formal schema based on a qualitative analysis of recall. Questionnaire data reveal insights on readers' perceptions of FLL, reading, their abilities, and reading online, findings which are related in a variety of ways to other factors in this study. Pedagogical implications are considered, as well as directions for future research.