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Over the past 20 years, the demand for international schools has increased worldwide, with expectations to sustain this momentum through the next decade. While these schools struggle with many of the same issues as others in the west, the different context in which they exist brings an additional layer that needs more understanding. This interpretative phenomenological study explored the experience of school climate over time through the lenses of third culture kids who attended the school at which they are now employed. Eight employees from one international school in Malaysia were selected and interviewed to explore school climate factors that impacted their lives as students, changes in school climate over time, and ways they now perpetuate that school climate as employees. Three themes emerged as influential factors of change to the school climate over time: (a) community through relationships, (b) school connectedness, and (c) diversity. The scope of the experiences of school climate development over time adds a unique perspective not found in previous literature and provides insight into aspects of school climate that leave a lasting impact on students. International school leaders can also gain insight into the importance of continually assessing school climate and the value of providing opportunities to build community through engaging experiences.

This study examined the relationship between co-teaching and elementary special education teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. A combined Co-Teacher Relationship Scale and Self-Efficacy for Teaching Mathematics Instrument was administered to 103 elementary special education teachers from Superintendent’s Regions 2 and 3 in the Commonwealth of Virginia who co-taught mathematics for at least one class period per day yielding a 54% response rate (N = 56). Employing a Spearman’s Rho, analysis revealed moderate, positive, statistically significant correlations between the co-teaching relationship and self-efficacy for teaching mathematics (rs = 0.41, p = 0.002) and between the grade level co-taught and self-efficacy (rs = 0.43, p = 001). There was also a small, positive correlation between the number of years a special education teacher co-taught mathematics and self-efficacy for teaching mathematics (rs = 0.20); however, that relationship was not statistically significant (p = 0.14). A one-way ANOVA revealed that special education teachers who co-taught Grade 5 had the highest self-efficacy score (M = 92.85, SD = 13.39) compared to those who co-taught Grade 2 (M = 83.38, SD = 13.49), Grade 3 (M = 81.00, SD = 12.49), Grade 4 (M = 80.90, SD = 15.61), Grade 1 (M = 74.33, SD =11.74), Kindergarten (M = 73.25, SD = 13.15), and pre-Kindergarten (M = 68.33, SD = 22.23). The implications include providing co-teachers with time to develop collaborative relationships prior to co-teaching, increasing training and implementing effective scheduling and planning practices for co-teaching teams, and increasing job-embedded mathematics training for special education teachers.

The knowledge explosion, the increased complexity of human life, and the ubiquitous, 24/7 nature of technology coupled with the globalization of the marketplace herald the need to embrace the most effective methods and platforms of teaching and learning. Currently providing powerful educational opportunities, the science and technology of distance teaching and learning continues to multiply at unprecedented rates. While historically traveling from village to village verbally disseminating knowledge was the only process of training those at a distance, today's learners eagerly embrace the rapidly expanding cloud-based technologies of the 21st century, offering a plethora of informational and educational opportunities. With this exponentially expanding global educational landscape, one must question what exactly distance teaching and learning is, how it has evolved, what the current state of affairs is, and what we anticipate in the future?

Augmenting communication in and among those in the academic, business, and military communities, the exponential advancement of science and technology has availed vast amounts of information to virtually millions of people around the globe. In conjunction with this knowledge explosion has been a growing concern for the democratization of the learning process, with constructivism driving much of the educational agenda, most particularly in areas such as online distance education. This chapter examines the resurgence of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning, its convergence with rapidly changing technological advances, and its relationship to future trends in online pedagogy and andragogy.

The knowledge explosion, the increased complexity of human life, and the ubiquitous, 24/7 nature of technology coupled with the globalization of the marketplace herald the need to embrace the most effective methods and formats of teaching and learning. Currently providing powerful educational opportunities, the science and technology of distance learning continues to multiply at unprecedented rates. Where historically traveling from village to village verbally disseminating knowledge was the only process of training those at a distance, today's learners eagerly embrace the rapidly expanding web-based delivery systems of the 21st century, which offer a plethora of educational alternatives. So, with this rapidly changing distance educational landscape, one must question, what exactly is distance teaching and learning, how has it evolved, and what is its future?

Augmenting communication in and among those in the academic, business, and military communities, the exponential advancement of science and technology has availed vast amounts of information to virtually millions of people around the globe. In conjunction with this knowledge explosion has been a growing concern for the democratization of the learning process, with constructivism driving much of the educational agenda, most particularly in online distance education. This chapter examines the resurgence of the constructivist approach to teaching and learning, its convergence with rapidly changing technological advances, and its relationship to future trends in online pedagogy.

This study analyzed one overarching research question: What effect does faculty-student interaction have on the relationship between student mentoring and student success in an online doctoral program. Both Cohen’s (1993) Principles of Adult Mentoring Scale and Grooms and Bocarnea’s (2003) Computer-Mediated Interaction Scale were modified and consolidated into one instrument to measure learners’ perceptions of mentoring and faculty-student interaction. Student success was operationalized as grade point average and passing comprehensive examinations on the first attempt, two critical benchmarks of doctoral program completion. While the data from this study did not support that faculty-student interaction moderated the relationship between student mentoring and student success, it did generate a plethora of questions. It also suggested the possibility that the online educational environment transmutes the traditional mentoring functions proposing the probable need for a revised instrument that will adequately measure these variables within the 21st century technologically-rich context.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-report instrument that can be used to measure learning in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The study underwent three phases, each with its own data collection and analysis. Phase I featured the development, testing, and factor analysis of an 80-item instrument that addressed cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning that was administered to a sample of 142 online and face-to-face learners. Based on the results, the instrument was reduced to 21 items for Phase II and tested with a new sample of 171 online and face-to-face students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis suggested a better data fit with an even smaller 9-item instrument, which was then administered to a new sample of 221 online and face-to-face students in Phase III. The results of this final phase are presented along with the resulting CAP Perceived Learning Scale, a 9-item self-report measure of perceived cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning. Implications and usage of the CAP Perceived Learning Scale for research and practice are also discussed.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY was to examine the relationship of personality-based learning styles and learning among graduate students enrolled in an online doctoral program that utilized the BlackboardSM e-leaming system. Two measures of learning—course grades and perceived learning—were used. According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, the majority of students in the sample (N = 64) were extraverts, intuitives, feelers and judgers. This profile differed from that of the general population on two personality dimensions: sensing-intuition and judging-perceiving. The general population tends to be sensors rather than intuitives and to be equally distributed between judgers and perceivers. No significant differences in learning were found based on learning styles. The implication for practice is that an online course can achieve equity in learning for all personality-based learning styles provided the course is designed to include elements that appeal to students with different styles. However, what is not known are the roles of motivation to learn and volition for students to persist despite any incongruence between individual learning style and the course as presented.

The past two decades have ushered in a very pronounced gravitation toward a constructivist approach to teaching and learning in all realms of society and most particularly in the online distance education environment. Augmenting communication in and among those in the academic, business, and military communities, the exponential advancement of science and technology has availed vast amounts of information to virtually millions of people around the globe. In conjunction with this knowledge explosion has been a growing concern for the democratization of the learning process, with constructivism driving much of the educational agenda. This article examines the resurgence of this approach to teaching and learning, its convergence with rapidly changing technological advances, and how it forecasts future trends in online pedagogy.

The knowledge explosion, the increased complexity of human life, and the ubiquitous nature of technology coupled with the globalization of the marketplace herald the need to embrace the most effective methods and formats of teaching and learning. Currently providing powerful educational opportunities, the science and technology of distance learning continues to multiply at unprecedented rates. Where just a short time ago traveling from village to village verbally disseminating knowledge was the only process of training those at a distance, today many eagerly embrace the rapidly expanding synchronous and asynchronous delivery systems of the 21st century. So what exactly is distance learning? In very simplistic terms, distance learning is just that: learning that occurs at a distance (Rumble & Keegan, 1982; Shale, 1990; Shale & Garrison, 1990) or that which is characterized by a separation in proximity and/or time (Holmberg, 1974, 1977, 1981; Kaye, 1981, 1982, 1988; D. J. Keegan, 1980; McIsaac & Gunawardena, 1996; M. Moore, 1983; M. G. Moore, 1973, 1980, 1989a, 1989b, 1990; Ohler, 1991; Sewart, 1981; Wedemeyer, 1971). In his 1986 theory of transactional distance, Michael Moore (Moore & Kearsley, 1996) defined distance not only in terms of place and time, but also in terms of structure and dialogue between the learner and the instructor. In this theory, distance becomes more pedagogical than geographical. As structure increases, so does distance. As dialogue increases, distance declines, thus accentuating the need for interaction in the distance learning environment. Saba (1998) furthered this concept, concluding, the dynamic and systemic study of distance education has made “distance” irrelevant, and has made mediated communication and construction of knowledge the relevant issue…. So the proper question is not whether distance education is comparable to a hypothetical “traditional,” or face-to-face instruction, but if there is enough interaction between the learner and the instructor for the learner to find meaning and develop new knowledge. (p. 5) To facilitate greater interaction in the geographically and/or organizationally dispersed distance environment, today, individuals most often use some form of technology to overcome the barrier of separation, affording institutional and learner opportunity to transcend intra- and inter-organizational boundaries, time, and even culture. By definition, the paradigm of distance learning revolutionizes the traditional environment (Martz & Reddy, 2005); however, even with this change, learning, which involves some manner of interaction with content, instructor, and/or peers, remains at the core of the educational process. Although imperative in both environments, these three types of interaction seem to be at the hub of the ongoing traditional-vs.-distance argument. Traditionalists often fear that with anything other than face-to-face instruction, interaction somehow will decrease, thus making learning less effective, when in reality, numerous studies have revealed no significant difference in the learning outcomes between traditional and distance courses (Russell, 1999). In fact, distance courses have been found to “match conventional on-campus, face-to-face courses in both rigor and quality of outcomes” (Pittman, 1997, p. 42). Despite these findings, critics still abound.