Search results for: Online discussions

The present article reports on a study that explored identities in the context of a pre-service cohort’s online discussion group. The authors identified six main emergent identities –sociable, supportive, open, helpful, reliant, and hidden. It was also found that one category of identities emerged from a commitment to the social expectations and values of the group, whilst another emerged out of a personal resistance towards the social norms of group participation and involvement. In order to promote a collegial online environment, the findings indicate that pre-service teachers consistently exhibited and conceptualised sociable, supportive, helpful, and reliant identities when interacting within this online forum.

This study examines how teachers experience the use of online role-play for collaborative argument so that they could have a better knowledge of how technology enhances learning. The findings reveal that online role-play was an appropriate way for teaching collaborative argument. The participants indicated that topic choice would influence their degree of involvement in the activity. Furthermore, the findings show that participants recognised the value of conducting research on the topic prior to posting for evidence to support their claims. Finally, the participants identified a number of benefits of online role-play.

The present study examined whether online discussion of the classroom challenges that preservice teachers face during the field experience can lead to problem solving and if so, how. Analysis of discussion threads related to classroom challenges revealed four distinct patterns of discourse as preservice teachers attempted to solve problems of practice. Preservice teachers used the space to link to and borrow from experts’ experiences and reflect on broader principles of teaching.

In this study, the authors inspected teachers’ online discussions of animations of classroom episodes realized with cartoon characters, looking at the difference in the content of conversation turns when members made evaluative comments and when they did not make evaluative comments. They were interested in finding out whether making evaluative comments correlated with participants’ reflection on their professional practice and proposal of alternative teaching actions. They found statistically significant evidence that the more the participants actively evaluated the teaching in the animations, the more they proposed alternative teaching actions and reflected on instructional practice.