Creating engagement in the school system fosters success and belonging. This is essential for enhancing the student experience especially in higher education. Students who feel connected to their institution, supported by peers and faculty, and empowered in their academic and personal pursuits are more likely to excel both inside and outside the classroom. By cultivating a sense of belonging, universities can help students overcome challenges, build meaningful relationships, and unlock their full potential. With the emergence of distance learning, students motivations and sense of belonging have diminished over the years. Lack of motivation has led to more students dropping out and not completing their degrees. Motivating students through engagement will help them finish their degrees and pursue their careers. Universities use of engagement and use of tools to help students in higher education to feel belonging is a great asset in helping students to feel like they belong and motivate them to finish their degrees. Motivating Engagement, Belonging, and Success in Higher Education Student Experience expands the discourse on ways universities can help engage their students in higher education. This book uses research based and real-world applications of student success stories that have positively impacted students engagement. Covering topics such as digital community building, learning styles, and student experience, this book is an excellent resource for educators, policymakers, administrators, researchers, academicians, and more.
Crawford, Caroline M.: - Caroline M. Crawford is a Professor of Instructional Technology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in Houston, Texas, USA. Dr. Crawford has designed, developed and taught several courses during her tenure at UHCL, including the following: Trends and Issues, Advanced Applications of Technology; Multimedia design; Multimedia Development; Analyzing Emerging Technologies; Applications of Technology; Training Practicum; Advanced Grant and Proposal Writing; Applications of Java, Multimedia for Educators; Change Leadership, Creating Digital Resources; Project Management and Grant Writing; Web Development; Teaching and eLearning; Learning Theory and Instruction; and, Performance Technology. Further, she is in the process of designing and developing Systematic Design of Technology-Based Instruction. She has designed, developed, implemented and continuously redesigned no fewer than twelve online and hybrid courses over the past twelve year period, with strong formative and summative feedback from the learners within the courses and subject matter experts in the field. Crawford's scholarly pursuits are varied, including a minimum of 60 international, national and regional refereed and non-refereed journal articles, as well as edited book chapters. Further, Crawford has presented a minimum of 160 professional conference-focused presentations and thirteen poster sessions, with several invited presentations and a keynote presentation at a regional technology-focused conference, with a history of honored positions as a Managing Editor for the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) refereed review of conference manuscript proposals, Review Editor for six international refereed journals, and reviewer for innumerable regional, national and international refereed journals. As well, Crawford's book chapter titled Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow's Recognition of Industry Applications within Virtual Words: A Meta-Analysis of Distance Learning Instructional Achievements within Virtual World Architectural Environments, and Potential Implications for Higher Education, recently published in the book Distance Learning Technology, Current Instruction, and the Future of Education: Applications of Today, Practices of Tomorrow, has been nominated by the book editor for the IGI-Global's first annual Excellence in Innovative Research Award for Outstanding Book Chapter. The book chapter was nominated, based upon the following criteria: Innovativeness; Practicality of research/results; Potential impact on the field; Thoroughness of the research; Thoroughness of the references; and, Style or clarity of prose. Further, Crawford was awarded the prestigious University of Houston-Clear Lake 2009 Outstanding Professor Award. At this point in Crawford's professional career, her main areas of interest focus upon communities of learning and the appropriate and successful integration of technologies into the learning environment. The learning environment may be envisioned as face-to-face, hybrid and online (virtual or text-driven) environments.
