Is the Biggest Hindrance to Educational Success "Virtually" Solved?

It started with a simple little filler in "USA Today" 25 years ago. It showed a broken student desk with cobwebs on it and offered data on "average yearly absences" in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Assessing my own data, I verified that they were on point and proceeded to discuss why this was a major hurdle for our kids and what could be done. Now, 25 years later, I am revisiting this topic, but through the virtual lens, including new data.

A Pandemic Partnership: Preservice Teachers and Fourth Graders Engage in Virtual Book Clubs

When preservice teachers were no longer able to visit schools due to the pandemic, their university professor partnered with an alum who teaches fourth grade to design and implement virtual book clubs. The preservice teachers created book trailers for the fourth graders to view and choose from for their book club. The groups connected using a variety of digital platforms and modalities to discuss the selected books. Through this virtual experience, the preservice teachers learned how to individualize their responses using the Four-N-Framework as a guide to nurture and nudge each reader through virtual book club conversations.

Investigation of Secondary School Students' Opinions on Mathematics Lesson with Distance Education

The aim of this study is to examine the opinions of secondary school students about mathematics lessons taught with distance education. The research was carried out by taking the opinions of 286 secondary school students from one state school selected from each of the provinces (Manisa, Izmir, Mugla, Antalya, Sirnak, Bitlis). Quantitative and descriptive survey method was used in the study. According to the findings, it was seen that the opinions of female and male students were very close to each other, there was no significant difference according to the variables of the number of siblings and whether they had their own study room, and there was a significant difference between 5th grade students and 8th grade students. Students;It was seen that there was no difference in their views on understanding the lesson better and increasing their success, they did not have any problems in accessing the Mathematics lesson, but they had problems due to internet interruptions during the lesson, they did not have any problems in communicating with their teachers and delivering homework during the lesson, but they still preferred face-to-face education at a high rate. It was observed that the motivation of the 5th grade students during the lesson and their better understanding of the lesson were higher than the 8th grade students.

The Views of Middle School Students on Distance and Face-to-Face Education on Mathematics Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The spread of the COVID-19 all over the world have negatively affected many areas, leading to a number changes throughout the world. Being one of these areas, education had to undergone some changes and shifted to distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, distance education has also brought some discussions and problems. This study was carried out to investigate the thoughts of middle school students on distance education and face-to-face education. Based on quantitative research design, this study adopted a phenomenological design Data were collected from a participant group consisting of 240 secondary school students (60 5th grade, 60 6th grade, 60 7th grade and 60 8th grade) through a scale prepared by the researchers. The data were analyzed using SPSS package program with descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage. As a result of the study It was found that middle school students' views on distance education and face-to-face education differed significantly with regard to parents' education level, gender, grade level and average monthly family income.

Students' perspective on online learning during pandemic in higher education.

This research provides an insight into the students' perspective on online learning during the pandemic. We conducted this research in one of the universities of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). A quantitative research design was employed, and cross-sectional research method was used. An online survey form was administered by using Google survey forms on Likert scale (N = 405). The online survey and use of social media tools were adopted owing to the pandemic. The Google survey form was disseminated among the students by means of teachers through social media tools using convenient sampling technique. Chi-square results showed highly significant association among the variables. Regression analysis found that lack of technology, learning skills, and disconnectedness of internet, marking and grading issues, and mental growth are the predictors of the bad educational performance of the students. It is, thus, concluded that the students' educational performance is badly affected due to the online learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in AJK. It is suggested to the higher educational institutions to take the radical measures of preparedness during any such crisis to ensure the smooth online educational and learning environment to the students.

A comparison of student final grades in college algebra based on face-to-face and online course modalities

As community colleges emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic there may be a tendency to rely on technology to facilitate more online coursework. Online education has been a fixture of higher education since the mid-1990s, but there's always been a question as to whether it is effective as traditional, face-to-face coursework. This is especially important in College Algebra, already viewed as a barrier course for many students. If more students take College Algebra online, will the results be as good as students taking the course in a classroom? The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study is to identify the relationship between course modality and final grade percentage, after accounting for instructor and curriculum effects for college algebra courses taught both online and face-to-face.Previous research studied this question, but a consensus about the efficacy of online education was mixed. Some studies found that online students perform worse than face-to-face students in college algebra (Amro, 2014;Amro et al., 2015;Driscoll, 2012). Other studies found no difference between the modalities (Araeipour, 2013;Harrington et al., 2016;Huang, 2016). Research by Burch and Kuo (2010) and Graham and Lazari (2018) discovered online students perform better than face-to-face students. This study considered the question through the lens of Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance, which examines the distance between the learner and instructor, course content, interface, and other learners as a psychological distance rather than a spatial distance. Using one instructor teaching both online and face-to-face courses using the same materials was an attempt to keep transactional distance as a constant, mitigating instructor and curriculum effects that could impact a study comparing modalities. Previous research that accounted for the instructor and course materials found no significant difference in outcomes based on modality. This study looked at final grade percentages in College Algebra courses taught by one instructor with both online and face-to-face sections over the course of the 2017-2018 school year. Data were supplied by a two-year institution located in rural Arkansas. In addition to looking for the relationship between modality and final grade percentages, the study looked for relationships between gender and final grades, a student's age and final grades, as well as an interaction between online students and their age or gender on final grade percentages. Findings indicated there was no significant relationship between the course modality and final grade percentages. Additionally, there was no relationship between gender or age and final grades based on modality. However, one significant relationship the study found was that when women took online algebra, they scored over 15 points lower than men taking online algebra. There was no interaction between a student's age and taking an online college algebra course. Further research should expand on the notion of accounting for Transactional Distance while looking at the relationship between course modality and final grade percentages and expand the study to disciplines outside of college algebra. Finally, research should investigate whether the relationship changed after the COVID-19 pandemic altered perceptions and implementation of online courses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Student's perspectives about their learning profile before and after Covid-19

Changes in educational paradigms have affected the understanding of how individuals learn. The emergence of Covid-19 has created unprecedented disruption in the education systems. This study attempts to analyse students' perceptions of their learning profile before and after Covid-19, using two different cohorts of students from five schools. Participated in October 2019 (first application) 369 students, and in November 2021 (second application) 294 students. These are students of two educational cycles: grades 7-9 and 10-12. The Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory questionnaire has seven dimensions: 'and learning', 'critical curiosity', 'creativity', 'learning relationships', 'strategic awareness', 'resilience';and it was administered to understand how students self-assess their learning profile. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated to analyse the data and detect possible differences in the learning profiles. The results show that students in grades 7-9 seem to have been the most affected by Covid-19 (means were statistically significant in all dimensions except 'resilience') when compared to students in grades 10-12 (statistically significant only in 'critical curiosity', 'learning relationships' and 'meaning making' dimensions). In conclusion, the learning profiles have changed between the applications in both cycles. A higher percentage of students rated themselves worse in almost all dimensions in the sec-ond application. However, the increased autonomy during Covid-19 could explain the average increases in 'resilience' in grades 7-9 and 'creativity' in grades 10-12 from the first to the second application.

The engagement of students using the virtual platform tools. A successful case in a required subject of 1st year in mathematics in engineering (UPC)

Fonaments matemàtics is a required 1st year subject in engineering career at the university EPSEVG (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) with approximately 270 students enrolled each semestre that traditionally it had a medium pass rate. Over the last 6 years we have introduced gradual changes in the teaching planning of it with the idea of achieving: 1) that students work throughout the course, 2) leveling knowledge and 3) reduce the number of students not presented to any exam. The changes have been implemented and corrected based on our feedback from students (engagement, grades, acceptance and survey assessments). The introduction of the calculator, laptops and tablets in everyday life and the use of the tools of the UPC virtual platform have been key. In this contribution, we present the strategies used and the good results obtained. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Rethinking Happiness at School after COVID-19 and Some Implications for Future Research

Introduction: This research aims to determine what makes children feel happy and unhapy at school, the determinants of their subjective well-being, and by using this information it attempts to develop recommendations for the ongoing process which is characterized by uncertainty and stress and for education due to the crisis created by COVID-19 and some implications for future research. Methods: This is a qualitative study using a phenomenological approach. The study group of the research consists of 34 primary school students in the 3rd and 4th grades (between the ages of 8-11) during the first term of 2019-2020 school year. A semi-structured interview form including three open-ended questions was used as data collection instrument. The data were analysed with descriptive analysis technique. Results: As a result of the study, the main determinants of children's happiness were found as the relationships which they established with their friends and teachers and their academic achievement. Also, it was revealed that students made references to creating more time for courses such as physical education, music, art, etc. and more free time at school and renewal of school fixtures in order to contribute to their happiness. Discussion: Considering the students' opinions about what makes them happy/unhappy at school and the factors that can contribute to their happiness, it can be argued that what is important for children's happiness at school is their relationships with their friends and teachers. This finding of the research has itself an utmost importance in the current process which the children experience either limited or no relationship with their peers and teachers due to the COVID-19 crisis. Accordingly, this research discusses the children's happiness within the framework of the researches that prompt us to rethink about students' happiness in an atmosphere of stress and uncertainty. Limitations: Although the qualitative method used in this study provided a profound picture of the views of students about what makes them happy/unhappy at the school, its limited sample constitutes an impediment to generalize it to all students in Turkey and the whole participants of the research. Conclusions: Considering what makes students happy and unhappy in schools in that research, we can argue that even the existence of schools alone, as the main grounds of social relationships, can be considered as a means of happiness in the current process. Nevertheless, future research should aim to determine what makes children happy in a process which the students are deprived of all facilities which the schools provided.

Intelligent Student Relationship Management Platform with Machine Learning for Student Empowerment

Students' grades can affect their future studies at university. The COVID-19 situation has resulted in a greater amount of online teaching, in which teachers and learners rarely interact, causing additional problems with academic performance. This research aims to design and develop an intelligent student relationship management platform (an intelligent SRM platform) using machine learning prediction for student empowerment. This research begins with the synthesis of the factors, the machine learning prediction process, and the platform components. The results of the synthesis establish the design of the platform. Undergraduate students' grades are then predicted using the decision tree algorithm. Students are divided into two groups, empowerment and non-empowerment groups, using this algorithm. The results show that the learning outcome prediction model has an accuracy of 100.00% and an F-measure of 100%. The most important factor for improving grades is the grade point average, with a weight of 0.637. Therefore, student empowerment to provide students with better grades is essential. This paper presents two approaches to student empowerment: using artificial intelligence technology from the intelligent SRM platform and empowering teachers © 2023, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning.All Rights Reserved.

Novel Decision Making Methodology under Pythagorean Probabilistic Hesitant Fuzzy Einstein Aggregation Information

This research proposes multicriteria decision-making (MCDM)-based real-time Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) transfusion framework. The testing phase of the methodology denotes the ability to stick to plastic surfaces, the upregulation and downregulation of certain surface protein markers, and lastly, the ability to differentiate into various cell types. First, two scenarios of an enhanced dataset based on a medical perspective were created in the development phase to produce varying levels of emergency. Second, for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 patients with different emergency levels (i.e., mild, moderate, severe, and critical), an automated triage algorithm based on a formal medical guideline is proposed, taking into account the improvement and deterioration procedures from one level to the next. For this strategy, Einstein aggregation information under the Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment (PyPHFE) is developed. Einstein operations on PyPHFE such as Einstein sum, product, scalar multiplication, and their properties are investigated. Then, several Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein aggregation operators, namely the Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy weighted average (PyPHFWA) operator, Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein weighted geometric (PyPHFEWG) operator, Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein ordered weighted average (PyPHFEOWA) operator, Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein ordered weighted geometric (PyPHFEOWG) operator, Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein hybrid average (PyPHFEHA) operator and Pythagorean probabilistic hesitant fuzzy Einstein hybrid geometric (PyPHFEHG) operator are investigated. All the above-mentioned operators are helpful in design the algorithm to tackle uncertainty in decision making problems. In last, a numerical case study of decision making is presented to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the proposed technique. Besides, the comparison of the existing and the proposed technique is established to show the effectiveness and validity of the established technique.

Mission to Mars amidst a Pandemic

For years, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico has led an outreach effort called "Mission to Mars" to engage fifth grade students in applying science and mathematics concepts related to building a colony on Mars. Many organizations across the US canceled similar events due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This design case details the original program and the pivot made to continue the program. We share successes--including reaching more rural learners--insights, and challenges, and how these have shaped a more inclusive vision for future programs.

Student Outcomes Related to Academic Performance, Motivation, and Mental Health in an Online Materials and Energy Balances Course during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study evaluates students' outcomes in an online materials and energy balances course during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using multiple linear regression, we found that students' "competence" and "autonomy" beliefs decreased across the semester, with a negative change in competence beliefs predicting higher grades for students, especially women. Also, we used path analysis to model the relationship between "psychological distress," motivation, and final grades. These results give insight into how to support students during difficult circumstances.

Teaching Process and Plant Design in the Year of COVID-19

This reflective practice contribution presents the lessons learned from teaching plant design using an online flipped format to a small cohort of students in the first COVID-19 semester. These lessons were applied to the online teaching of the capstone design course to a full-sized cohort. The impact of the implemented recommendations on the students' academic outcomes is assessed, focusing on the importance of tracking student engagement in formative learning and encouraging the low-engagers to keep up.

The Effect of Mangala, the Intelligence Game Taught by Distance Education, on the Mathematical Motivations and Problem-Solving Skill Levels of 6th-Grade Students

This study examines the effect of "Mangala" on the mathematical motivation and problem-solving skill levels (PSoSL) of 6th -grade students. A single-group pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design based on the quantitative research approach was used in the study conducted through distance education. The sample consisted of 14 6th -grade students. The data collection tools used in the study, which continued for three weeks in the 2020-2021 academic year, were the Mathematical Motivation Scale (MMS) and Performance Tasks (PT). The data obtained from this study were analyzed using the SPSS 22.0 package program. Since the sample size was small and the data did not show normal distribution, data analysis was carried out using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, one of the non-parametric statistical tests. Data analysis showed a statistically significant difference between the pre and post-experiment MMS scores of the students. The effect of "Mangala" on students' PSoSL was evaluated through performance tasks. The Progressive Scoring Scale (PSS) taken from Baki (2014) was used to evaluate performance tasks. Researchers redefined each criterion in the scoring key and set four levels: "very good," "good," "unsatisfactory," and "empty." The analysis of the problems in the performance tasks showed that the students usually gave "very good" and "good" answers. However, some students had difficulties finding solution strategies and writing a similar problem, thus, they left blank answers.

The Correlation between Digital Literacy and Parents' Roles towards Elementary School Students' Critical Thinking

This study aimed at discovering the positive and significant relationships between digital literacy and the roles of parents together on the critical thinking skills of fifth-grade elementary school students. This study employs quantitative research, particularly correlational research. This research includes comparative causal research. This research is a quantitative research with a correlational design. The sample used was 70 students who were randomly selected. The data collection method used in this study was a survey using a questionnaire. The data analysis technique used to test the hypothesis is the product-moment correlation technique and regression multiple correlation analysis. The results of this study indicate that there is a positive and significant correlation between digital literacy and critical thinking skills. There is a positive and significant correlation between the roles of parents and critical thinking skills. There is a positive and significant correlation between digital literacy and the roles of parents together on critical thinking skills.

Lessons Learned from Teaching English through Facebook Live for Future

Facebook Live has become a means of teaching and learning in many parts of the world. This paper, thus, reports an examination of teaching English through Facebook Live and students' experiences of learning on it in the COVID-19 pandemic. It as participatory action research employed observation of self-managed Facebook Live streaming, and an online semi-structured interview with students and parents. The intervention of Facebook Live consisted of three strategies: pre-recorded video streaming, live teaching and a combination of both. This paper reports on how students in absence of a physical classroom learned English through Facebook Live, developed communicative skills and gained ICT skills. Although the teacher's lessons on Facebook Live were appreciated by students and parents as students could get ideas for speaking English, students expressed concerns if they could interact with the teacher and friends. Facebook Live associated with videoconferencing tools, however, can complement physical classroom learning in crises and normal situations.

Remote Learning: Challenges and Opportunities for Educators and Students in the New Normal

The occurrence of the global health crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the education system around the world to consider remote learning. This mode of learning involves the use of advanced technology that entails an interactive learning experience in an online educational setup. This study aimed to determine the benefits gained and the challenges encountered by the teachers and students in remote learning. Findings showed that the respondents perceived several advantages ranging from personal benefits to improving overall performance while enjoying personal freedom to explore other things aside from academics. Although they had several challenges encountered, the opportunities it has brought to both students and teachers outweigh them all, which provide a prospect for a better student outcome having remote learning set up in the new normal.

Primary School Students' Views on Online Education

After the global pandemic, it seems that solutions found during the period have made people accept the idea that the school is not confined to four walls and that teaching services can be carried out in every environment. Identification of the problems related to this new teaching method, which is particularly unfamiliar to primary school students, and its positive aspects, will help education stakeholders to be informed about the points to be considered in their work with students with similar or newer education-teaching methods and in environments that might be adopted soon. The aim of this research is to examine the distance education activities of the 4th grade students studying in public primary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education of Turkey during the global pandemic period and their views on the problems they experience in this process in two different socio-economic environments. The research design is qualitative and phenomenological. Qualitative interview method was adopted while taking opinions of the students. A structured interview form was used while collecting the data. Study group of the research consists of 8 4th grade students who receives online education in primary schools in Antalya. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis method was preferred. Of the negative aspects recorded in the research, technology-related ones are prominent. It was found that internet connection problems for online education were on top of the ones faced by students.

COVID-19 Disruptions: Attainment Gaps and Primary School Responses. Research Report

The study uses data from five assessment points for reading and maths. It focuses on a constant sample of students, all of whom completed a Rising Stars assessment in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also administered three teacher surveys: the first focused on the initial period of lockdown, the second focused on the autumn 2020 term when students returned to face-to-face instruction, the third focused on the second period of school closures from January to March 2021. This descriptive, longitudinal study focuses on primary schools in England. It has three aims: (1) to quantify changes in attainment gaps since the onset of COVID-19: the focus is on gaps between economically disadvantaged pupils and their peers in Years 2 to 6, (2) to describe how teachers and schools responded to the challenges of COVID-19, and (3) to explore associations between school responses to COVID and changes in attainment gaps. [The report was published with FFT and Teacher Tapp.]