Design research in early literacy within the zone of proximal implementation

Despite intentions to the contrary, insights on pedagogically appropriate innovations with representative teachers in everyday school settings are severely limited. In part, this is because (design) research is often conducted at the bleeding edge of what is possible, exploring innovative uses of new technologies and/or emerging theories, while insufficient research and development work focuses on what is practical, today. This leaves a problematic gap between what could be useful research in theory, and what can be useful research in practice. This paper calls for (design) researchers to attend to factors that determine if and how innovations are understood, adopted and used by teachers and schools, and gives one example of how this was tackled in the domain of early literacy. Across ten studies, researchers collected data that helped shape an intervention that can be implemented by representative teachers, for diverse learners, in varied school settings

E-Learning and Open Distance Education (ODL) in IPRC Kigali during COVID-19 Pandemic Spread: Opportunities and Challenges Available

This study entitled “E-Learning and Open Distance education (ODL) in IPRC Kigali during COVID-19 Pandemic spread: Opportunities and Challenges available” was conducted to examine the opportunities available for IPRC Kigali students who were learning via Rwanda Polytechnic E-Learning platform, established to maintain the learning process and contain COVID-19 pandemic spread. It also examined the challenges they encountered during this period. More than 60% of the student-respondents supported the statement saying that their E-learning platform is able to provide opportunities for relations between learners by the use of the discussion forum. The respondents agreed that E-learning offers opportunities for learning for a maximum number of trainees with no need for many building. Therefore more than 67% of them found this as an opportunity. More than 63% also agreed that a small number of teaching staff may deliver courses to a big number of students at the same time. The majority of them did not accept that the students’ mindsets prevent them from accessing the E-learning platform (48.1%). They didn’t also agree on the statement that lecturers/instructors have a little experience in delivering courses through Distance Learning mode (65.4%). This shows that they are proud of their teaching staff. It was recommended that to address the issue of impossibility to control malpractice; the use of appropriate software used in other universities would be adopted; the government should speed up the distribution of laptops to students who have not received them yet; there should be sensitization to change the students’ mindsets and join E-Learning platform; trainers should design appropriate online learning resources and provide timely feedback to students, and emerging technologies like zoom, Microsoft teams, WebEx, Google meet … videoconferencing, social media, and other virtual classrooms should be considered. Keywords: E-Learning, ODL, opportunities, challenges, ICT DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-27-04 Publication date:September 30th 202

A case study of the integration of ICT in teaching and learning in a smart school in Sabah

This research investigates teachers’ views of their use of ICT in teaching and learning (T&LICT). The objective of this research was to study in depth the thoughts, beliefs and opinions of the teachers’ attempt towards pedagogical improvement as part of the Smart School Project. Specifically this research examines and describes the teachers’ implementation of T&LICT in the classroom in terms of the instructional practice, the instructional roles and the instructional environment. A case study research methodology is employed. The case is Sekolah Menengah Bestari (a psuedonym), which is a Smart School in Sabah. Analysis of data from 52 survey questionnaires complemented the qualitative data from the 13 interviews and 3 observations, as well as document analysis. Findings indicated that hardware and software technology infrastructure were available to support the T&LICT implementation. Nevertheless, the teachers felt it was not enough to implement T&LICT effectively. It was estimated that about half of Sekolah Menengah Bestari staff, mainly Bestari and ETeMS teachers, implemented T&LICT. Findings indicated that teacher practices were little changed. IT was used mainly to support the existing teacher-directed and teacher-centered approach. The role of the teacher extended to that of facilitating without releasing control of lesson to the students