Supporting peer interaction in online learning environments

This paper reports two studies into the efficacy of sentence openers to foster online peer-to-peer interaction. Sentence openers are pre-defined ways to start an utterance that are implemented in communication facilities as menu’s or buttons. In the first study, typical opening phrases were derived from naturally occurring online dialogues. The resulting set of sentence openers was implemented in a semi-structured chat tool that allowed students to compose messages in a freetext area or via sentence openers. In the second study, this tool was used to explore the students’ appreciation and unprompted use of sentence openers. Results indicate that students hardly used sentence openers and were skeptical of their usefulness. Because both measures were negatively correlated with students’ prior chat experience, optional use of sentence openers may not be the best way to support students’ online interaction. Based on these findings, alternative ways of using sentence openers are discussed and topics for further research are advanced

Engaging sport students in assessment and formative feedback

Sport as a discipline in higher education is grappling with the challenge of providing authentic and relevant assessment that engages students in their learning. The centrality of assessment to the student experience is now well accepted within the research literature (Brown and Knight, 1994; Rust, 2002). In particular, formative assessment, or assessment that creates feedback to support future teaching and learning experiences, can be a powerful tool for enhancing learning (see Black and Wiliam, 1998). Given that feedback is most effective if it is considered or reflected upon, one of the key challenges is to actively engage sport students in formative assessment processes. This guide offers advice in designing and facilitating sport students’ involvement in assessment and enhancing their engagement with the feedback they receive. The aim is to support sport programme teams by taking a pragmatic approach, combining a clear academic rationale based on assessment for learning principles with case study examples of successful formative assessment exercises emphasising innovative approaches to giving feedback. The guide consists of three key sections focused on: 1) Providing staff in HLST with background knowledge of formative assessment and formative feedback and how it relates to their subject. 2) Providing case study examples of how to effectively engage sport students with assessment feedback so that it feeds-forward to aid learning. 3) Providing a resource of references and sources of support for tutors wishing to further their learning in this area

Integrating Immigrants in Colorado: Accomplishments, Challenges and Lessons Learned

Presents findings from an evaluation of the Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families initiative, including grantees' strategies, activities, and accomplishments; conditions and factors that affected their work; sustainability; and lessons learned