taru malhotra

Literature suggests that online course videos with instructor’s faces highly engage students [1]. Such videos are used to welcome students, provide orientation, explain course content, provide feedback, and summarize discussions [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. They also offer aspects of teacher presence (social, cognitive, and teaching aspects) that help students engage meaningfully in online courses [8], [9]. Instructor-led facilitation, using instructor-created videos can lead to greater satisfaction and an enhanced learning experience [10], [11], [12], [13]. Studies of faculty videos usually examine how teaching presence can be humanized [14] including tone, expressive language, and other engaging aspects [15]. Faculty value these aspects of teaching presence, actively seeking creative ways to extend online discussion beyond simple text and superficial exchanges [9]. However, few studies have looked at the technical aspects of video length, camera angle, lighting, setting, etc. tha...

Using a socio-constructive approach and based on Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of learning and development, this research project helps elucidate the role of technology in classrooms to support literacy learning in young children. Classroom observations of two classrooms (regular and learning-needs kindergarten classrooms) were taken in the form of handwritten notes, and semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with the teachers were audio-recorded. This project observes how the use of technology influences literacy learning in kindergarten classrooms and the role of teachers in establishing this influence. Further, the data gathered helps establish the factors that affect teachers’ use and integration of digital and new media technology in classrooms. This qualitative study sheds light on varying uses of technology by teachers in regular and learning-needs kindergarten classrooms and the impact of teachers’ beliefs and views in using technology in their literacy curriculum with kin...

Engrained in a socio-cultural perspective, this study will focus on if and how social media may mediate knowledge building in grades 4, 5 and 6 classrooms across four elementary schools in the Waterloo District School Board and understand the role teachers and student perceptions play in it. I will follow a mixed methods approach that will include weeks of non-participant classroom observations, structured and semi-structured interviews with teachers (of nearly 24 teachers), and online student surveys (of nearly 600 students). I will use SPSS and constant comparative method to analyze quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Findings from this study will help teachers and students understand if and how social media may enhance knowledge building in junior grades. It will also help administrators to understand where to direct their funds into technology, and will play a role to enhance parent-teacher partnership.

This chapter proposes that Engeström's activity triangles in tandem with direct attention to the 4Cs—collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity—can help teachers and researchers identify effective teaching practices in online environments. The authors illustrate this technique using data from two studies on teachers' technology use in brick-and-mortar classrooms. Focusing on literacy and music in the elementary classroom, the authors suggest ways teachers can reflect upon and design their online activities considering students' use of the 4Cs. They demonstrate the process using an exemplar online activity. Apart from individual pedagogical concerns, the chapter also discusses more significant issues around policy, access, professional development, and the 4Cs and offers implications to research and practice.

Examined in this study is the question of whether students in STEM courses perform better and have more positive perceptions than students in non-STEM courses, when both are offered in the blended format. As part of a blended learning initiative, 6 STEM and 8 non-STEM university courses were redesigned using the blended format. Students (n = 318) were surveyed on perceptions of their blended experience and courses grades were compared. Results indicated that STEM students performed significantly higher than non-STEM students; however, STEM students did not perceive their courses as positively as non-STEM students. The conclusion was that focusing blended learning course redesign in STEM fields in higher education may be advantageous, although more research is needed to confirm the findings and to investigate why student perceptions were relatively low for STEM students.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a commissioned research study that analyzed a schooling initiative with the ambitious goal of transforming learning environments across the district by advancing innovative, inquiry-driven pedagogical practices combined with 1:1 iPad distribution. The paper explores impacts of the initiative on pedagogical innovation, twenty-first century learning, and related impacts on professional learning, collaboration, and culture change in the pilot schools analyzed in the study. Design/methodology/approach A multi-dimensional case study approach was used to analyze how the initiative was implemented, and to what extent teaching, learning, and professional cultures were transformed, based on action plan inputs and “change drivers”. Research methods included structured, open-ended interviews conducted with randomly selected teachers and key informants in leadership roles, focus groups held with students, as well as analysis of poli...

Drawing on data from five large enrolment introductory courses in a public university, we compared students’ perceptions of blended learning on design, interaction, learning, and satisfaction in four different blended models. The models, which were the result of a course redesign initiative, had different combinations of face-to-face lectures, online sessions, and small group tutorial classes. Our findings suggest that students perceived courses with fully online lectures and in-class tutorials most positively on design and overall satisfaction, while those enrolled in courses with in-class lectures and in-class tutorials, supplemented by online discussions, felt most positively about interaction. Students perceived learning in the former courses more favourably than the latter, however the differences were not statistically significant. The least preferred model overall was the one that had in-class lectures and tutorials that alternated weekly between in-class and online sessions.