Elementary Teachers’ Experiences with Remote Learning and its Impact on Science Instruction: Multiple Cases from the Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Teachers across the United States and worldwide found themselves in unprecedented educational situations during the early response period to the COVID-19 pandemic in spring of 2020. Efforts to quarantine and provide social distancing to prevent the spread of the disease brought mandated school closures throughout the United States, and teachers were required to pivot from their traditional, in-person instructional methods and deliver instruction remotely. This phenomenological multiple-case study explored the experiences of 10 elementary teachers with remote learning during the early response period and sought to understand the delivery of science instruction in the remote learning experience. Weekly interviews were conducted with each teacher over the nine-week remote learning period during the spring of 2020 to focus on their experiences each week in delivering and modifying instruction, engaging students in learning, communicating with parents and students throughout the process, and their perceptions of the involved conditions, situations, or issues of the week. A follow-up interview was conducted in September 2020 to capture the experiences of their transitions back to the classroom while still facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Case studies describing the experiences of the participants were written to capture the essence of what each teacher experienced and the factors that influenced their experiences, and a cross-case synthesis was conducted to draw conclusions and make comparisons across the experiences. Results indicated that literacy and mathematics were the focus of instruction during this remote learning period, giving students minimal opportunities to engage in science content. Teachers delivered instruction through a variety of methods, using digital tools that were often new and unfamiliar. Guidelines and expectations were lacking and did not adequately support teachers. Academic disparities were brought to the forefront due to inadequate access to internet, limited understanding of delivering instruction via remote methods, and the perception of students and parents was that the remote learning experience was optional and unimportant. This study demonstrates the resiliency and efforts of teachers during times of crisis and provides evidence for district and state level leaders needed to support teachers, parents, and students with similar situations in the future

Shifting Modalities: Providing K-5 Montessori Education Online during the Pandemic

At the first and only public Montessori charter school in New York City, teachers create learning environments, materials, and lessons that help students guide themselves to find information needed to arrive at a necessary learning outcome. The sudden shift to online instruction in March 2020 required parents, teachers, and administration to maintain business-as-usual in an unfamiliar modality—online instruction. This case study reflection article focuses on the planning strategies identified and implemented that shifted the school to teaching and learning online during the COVID-19 pandemic while working to keep the Montessori philosophy alive, despite the expansion to the online modality. Existing research, the process of shifting to the online modality, maintenance of the Montessori approach, and the inter-institutional support provided to the charter school by a community college are reviewed. Once mandated to move to online instruction, strategies employed show that maintaining students’ natural desire to learn and active discovery are central objectives in tandem with supporting the relationship-centered culture in the machine-oriented online-learning environment. This dual focus is critical because children’s development is maximized when they are engaged in secure, mutually collegial relationships (Greenfield & Suzuki, 1998). It was concluded that building community among children and teachers, as well as between administration, teachers, families, and a partnering community college were valued and deemed critical to sustaining the rigorous curriculum and relationship-based school culture during the pandemic crisis

Writing Postcards from the Museum: Composing Personalised Tangible Souvenirs

Building a long-lasting personal relationship with visitors by maintaining their engagement after the visit is one of the most challenging endeavours cultural heritage sites face. When successful, this connection fosters new opportunities for the visitor to get in touch with the heritage, e.g. to visit again or to take part in cultural activities. One way to establish a personal connection is via personalisation services that generate souvenirs for the visitors to take away and foster future engagements with the heritage. This paper discusses how the techniques for personalised text generation can be applied to produce post-visit postcards exploiting the interaction logs collected during the museum visit. The personalised postcard summarises the visit, creates a link with what was experienced and suggests further paths for content discovery. A user study conducted over four weeks confirms the appreciation for the personalised postcard and suggests future developments

2018 Top Trends in Academic Libraries

Every other year, the ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee produces a document on top trends in higher education as they relate to academic librarianship. Topics in this edition of ACRL Top Trends will be familiar to some readers who will hopefully learn of new materials to expand their knowledge. Other readers will be made aware of trends that are outside of their experience. This is the nature of trends in our current technological and educational environments: change is continual, but it affects different libraries at different rates. The 2018 top trends share several overarching themes, including the impact of market forces, technology, and the political environment on libraries

Blending customisation, context-awareness and adaptivity for personalised tangible interaction in cultural heritage

Shaping personalization in a scenario of tangible, embedded and embodied interaction for cultural heritage involves challenges that go well beyond the requirements of implementing content personalization for portable mobile guides. Content is coupled with the physical experience of the objects, the space, and the facets of the context – being those personal or social – acquire a more prominent role. This paper presents a personalization framework to support complex scenarios that combine the physical, the digital, and the social dimensions of a visit. It is based on our experience in collaborating with curators and museum experts to understand and shape personalization in a way that is meaningful to them and to visitors alike, that is sustainable to implement and effective in managing the complexity of context-awareness. The pro posed approach features a decomposition of personalization into multiple layers of complexity that involve a blend of customization on the visitor’s initiative or according to the visitor’s profile, system context-awareness, and automatic adaptivity computed by the system based on the visitor’s behaviour model. We use a number of case studies of implemented exhibitions where this approach was used to illustrate its many facets and how adaptive techniques can be effectively complemented with interaction design, rich narratives and visitors’ choice to create deeply personal experiences. Overarching reflections spanning case studies and prototypes provide evidence of the viability of the proposed frame work, and illustrate the final effect of the user experience

Instagram branding frame for Arctic artists and designers based on service design

In the remote Lapland region of Finland, Arctic artists and designers face challenges due to the limited local market and networking opportunities. This research leverages social media, notably Instagram, to boost their visibility and market presence. Grounded in digital service design and participatory design, the study employed the Double Diamond model across three phases: Interview and landscape analysis, Generating Workshops, and Prototyping. Data sources included interviews, landscape analysis, participatory workshops, and service prototypes. The data gathered shed light on Arctic artists and designers' motivations, challenges, and branding practices. It also yielded a frame with tailored 68 recommendations, covering themes, scheduling, content, and services. These recommendations facilitate branding, visibility, engagement, and efficiency

Piloting journalistic learning in a rural Trump-supportive community: A reverse mentorship approach

Partisan politics challenge educators to determine how best to navigate discussions of controversial subjects within their classrooms. This can be particularly true for new educators in the early stages of developing their confidence and classroom management skills. This qualitative case study uses situated learning and the communities of practice theoretical constructs to investigate a new approach to educator training and co-facilitation. The new approach places recent journalism school college graduates in classrooms alongside teachers to foster real-time professional development through a process best described as reverse mentoring. The model could potentially provide educators with new pedagogical strategies during divisive political times. Specifically, this study examines the working relationship between an established sixth grade English-language arts/social studies teacher and a 25-year-old recent journalism school college graduate who collaborated during the 2016-17 academic year at a public middle school in a conservative rural community in the Pacific Northwest

University Libraries Annual Report 2021-2022

The 2021-2022 annual report offers a review of the events, programming, and services provided by faculty and staff in University Libraries. The document also highlights the accomplishments and success of our faculty and staff through the fiscal year.https://aquila.usm.edu/ulannualreport/1007/thumbnail.jp