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This paper intended to explore the knowledge and use of the digital verbs and tools by the students and teachers for conceptual understanding in the virtual and conventional learning environment. The study also explored the use of such digital tools for lower- and higher-order thinking.

A survey research method was used for the study. All the students and teachers of the faculty of education from one virtual and one conventional university were the population of this study. Teachers were selected through census sampling. Student enrollment in the faculty of education of the virtual university during Spring 2019 was 1,139 while the conventional university had 1,809 students. In total, 20% of the students from each of the two universities were sampled by using a convenient proportionate sampling technique. A questionnaire was developed by the researchers and validated by three experts before administration. The reliability of the instrument was a = 0.934. Mean, SD, parametric and nonparametric statistics were applied for data analysis.

The study reveals that the students of ODL are far better in using digital tools and activities that is, googling, collaborating and Skyping. They are good at understanding and application levels and are involved in higher-order thinking tasks, that is, publishing and podcasting as well. Unlike the students, the teachers of the virtual university are using digital tools of lower-order thinking. The authors infer that the students and teachers of the online universities are using these tools regularly because of the demands of the ODL environment. These findings suggest further research to explore the factors that hinder the use of higher-order thinking skills by the teachers in the online environment.

The study suggests the adoption of Bloom's digital taxonomy in teaching–learning processes, that is, curriculum, instructions and assessment for the millennials. The findings may motivate the online and conventional higher education institutions to adopt digital pedagogy for instructional purposes as the students of the digital age are already extensively involved with digital tools.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether attention, emotion, and cognitive regulation (CR) may be strategies to advance one’s ethnic identity.

The paper is presented in three parts. The first section discusses integrative inquiry (INIQ) (Bresciani Ludvik et al., 2016), a mindfulness methodology and mindful inquiry training program, as a potential pathway to help mitigate stress and enhance healthy development and well-being strategies that combat stressors related to ethnic and racial identity; and increase opportunities for positive ethnic identity development. INIQ was designed to influence areas of the brain associated with attention regulation, emotion regulation, and CR in order to decrease stress and anxiety, and heighten executive functions of undergraduate and graduate students. The second section discusses an exploratory study to see whether INIQ resulted in higher mean scores for participants on their ethnic identity, as assessed by the multigroup ethnic identity measure (Phinney, 1992).

The results indicated that there was a significant increase in pre-test and post-test scores for mindfulness (p=0.001) as well as the dependent measure for learning exploration (p=0.028) among 30 undergraduate, master’s- and doctoral-seeking students. There was also a non-significant increase for clear understanding (p=0.15) and overall ethnic identity achievement (p=0.387); and non-significant decrease for ethnic belonging (p=0.424).

These findings suggest that INIQ may increase students’ ethnic learning exploration, which is an important process in ethnic identity development (Phinney and Ong, 2007). This study also suggests that INIQ increases mindfulness in participants. The authors conclude with a discussion and recommendations to future INIQ and other diversity centered student support practitioners interested in influencing positive ethnic identity formation.