Section Introduction: Reimagining Support for Online Learners

Technology increasingly permeates all aspects of life, including educational contexts. In this technologically rich environment, learning often occurs in online settings. Therefore, we must better understand the nature of learners’ interactions online with curriculum, teachers, other students, and parents. In order to effectively take advantage of learning opportunities online, this new research must be informed by what is already known about support that all learners need regardless of setting. Sociocultural learning theory asserts that all learning occurs through interactions with others. In other words, learning then can be seen as being mediated through the individual’s social interaction in the external world. Embracing this conceptual framework that learning is interactive, demands that we design and inquire into such online learning in a manner that honors the relational aspects of learning and attends to the complexities of such relational aspects in a digital environment.