Wikis as Communities of Practice: A Case Study in Higher Education

This dissertation was an instrumental case study that explored the experiences of graduate students when using online software, more specifically, a wiki, in a graduate course. This study also concentrated on the formation of a community of practice within a course wiki. Symbolic interactionism, situated learning, and communities of practice theories guided this inquiry. Field notes, e-observations, students-created documents, a focus group interview and six individual interviews were coded, which led to categories and themes. Findings from the analysis of the data sources exposed the following five themes when exploring the experiences of graduate students with online learning: (1) wiki experiences, (2) meaningful discourse, (3) egalitarian, (4) community enagement, and (5) collaborative learning processes

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Using Team-Based Learning in the Science Classroom

With an overwhelming amount of research and a demand for collaborative learning in the classroom, teachers are tackling challenges at all educational levels that often accompany the social aspects of group work. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is an instructional sequence that shifts instruction from teacher lecture to small-group learning. Through the use of teams and social learning, students are actively engaged and learning through critical-thinking tasks. College students can take responsibility both for their own learning and for each other as learners and fellow human beings. TBL allows the instructors to design opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and can do in the classroom with the content. This study qualitatively examines students’ perceptions of the pedagogical strategy TBL in an undergraduate science course. TBL practices enabled instructors to prepare students for classes in advance and assist students in deeply learning the material through application of course concepts, allowing them to solve interesting, complex, and real-world problems that are relevant to the teaching profession