2021-02, Nussli, Natalie, Oh, Kevin, Panconesi, Gianni, Guida, Maria

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to develop a one-stop checklist that assists educators in providing online teaching grounded in the principles of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), ubiquitous learning (u-learning), and seamless learning. The authors explore how these paradigms inform the intentional design of learner-centered approaches in online learning environments and what an integrated approach could look like. This chapter will be relevant for faculty in higher education aiming to offer online curricula that emphasize active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal-directed learning.

2019-04, Nussli, Natalie, Oh, Kevin, Cuadro, Nicole Michele, Kaye, Melisa, Yang, Kenneth C. C.

This chapter describes a study that was conducted in a semi-immersive desktop virtual reality environment. The study investigated teacher trainees' perceptions of their mental effort in Second Life, their satisfaction with the communication modalities, and their perceived social behavioral changes. In the first event, only the instructor (host) used voice to communicate while all participants as well as the in-text facilitator (co-host) used text chat only. In the second event, not only did both hosts use voice, but the participants also had the option to use voice rather than text. The majority of teacher trainees appreciated the freedom to choose either modality. The integration of voice was perceived as humanizing the discussion, increasing the flow, and making the conversation more engaging. However, the addition of multiple voices was believed to increase their mental effort. While some teacher trainees felt more relaxed and more open in a virtual discussion, others reported a lack of attention and honesty as well as a tendency to ignore social conventions.

2021, Oh, Kevin, Nussli, Natalie, Kaye, Melisa, Cuadro, Nicole Michele, Choi, Dong Hwa, Dailey-Hebert, Amber, Simmons Estes, Judi

This chapter reports on an exploratory case study investigating strategies to facilitate group discussions in Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world. The purpose was to identify best practices for discussion facilitation in-world from the perspective of a virtual host and a discussion facilitator. A host and a facilitator moderated four virtual group discussions with 16 in-service teachers enrolled in a graduate technology class. The chapter discusses several themes that emerged from the host’s and the facilitator’s debriefings. Key themes include the need for a careful selection of the communication modality (text or voice or a combination), strategies to promote interactivity among the participants, the critical need for at least one facilitator in addition to the host, the need for clear ground rules for the participants, and clear guidelines for the host and the facilitator. Several challenges experienced during the process of facilitating these virtual events are discussed and recommendations are made to address these difficulties. This chapter is of interest to educators who are planning to substitute in-class group discussions with synchronous group discussions in-world.

2019-04, Nussli, Natalie, Guan, Yu, Oh, Kevin, Kyei-Blankson, Lydia, Blankson, Joseph, Ntuli, Esther

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to identify strategies that help educators develop online learning curricula to meet the needs of culturally diverse students. The first part of this chapter offers insights into culturally responsive teaching (CRT) from multiple perspectives. Specifically, the authors explore the importance of CRT in teacher education programs, how to evaluate teachers' cultural competencies, how to initiate the transformation process into culturally responsive educators, how teachers perceive the value of CRT programs, what pre-service and novice teachers typically struggle with in their attempts to teach diverse student populations, and how students perceive cultural diversity. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of practical approaches to developing culturally responsive online curricula for both 2D and 3D learning environments, how to prepare faculty to meet the needs of diverse students in online courses, and how to stimulate pre-service teachers' reflections on CRT.

2020-07, Nussli, Natalie, Oh, Kevin, Inoue-Smith, Yukiko, McVey, Troy

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to develop a tool that helps educators develop digitally mediated learning (DML) episodes by systematically applying the principles of four paradigms, namely meaningful learning, ubiquitous learning (u-learning), universal design for learning (UDL), and culturally responsive teaching (CRT). The goal is to harness the affordances of each paradigm and combine them into an approach that systematically enhances and enriches DML. This chapter will be relevant for teachers in higher education wishing to complement their face-to-face teaching with carefully designed digitally mediated content capitalizing collaboration, interaction, personal relevance, and projects that can provide creativity-enhancing learning.