Developing Ecological Habits of Mind

This paper describes a two-part study. The first part of the study documents the experiences of nine school-based artists who took part in a six-day professional development workshop on ecology and the arts at an off-grid wilderness facility. The course was designed to increase artist-educators’ awareness of issues surrounding energy use and consumption as well as to provide them with direction for approaching these topics through arts-based learning in schools. One of the sessions introduced an electronic portfolio as a tool for supporting arts-based learning on topics dealing with ecology and the environment. Data were collected from the artist-educators through observations, field notes, and semi-standardized interviews. Participants also completed an on-line survey regarding various energy conservation and consumption issues. The data for the first part of the study revealed how the artist-educators anticipated interacting with teachers and students upon returning to their local schools, both in terms of content related to energy conservation and in the ways that they would approach this topic through their respective art forms. In the second part of the study, the electronic portfolio was used to promote self-regulated learning with Grade 5 students in a public elementary school in Toronto, Ontario while they studied energy and ecology through an arts-based approach to these topics. Students worked with one of the participants who took part in the six-day professional development workshop. Together with their teacher, they explored solar power and wind turbine energy and presented their learning through dance. As for the first part of the study, classroom-based data were comprised of observations, field notes, and interviews. In addition, a pre- and post-questionnaire was used to ascertain the degree of self-regulatory practices used by the students. Students expressed considerable enthusiasm for the tool and demonstrated significant growth in understanding how to set goals and critique the work of their peers

Learning Mathematics with Interactive Technology in Kenya Grade-one Classes

While countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made significant progress towards achieving universal school enrolment, millions of students lack basic numeracy skills. This paper reports the results of a pilot study that aimed at using the Emergent Literacy in Mathematics (ELM) software to teach mathematics in early primary grades in Kenya. Designed as a pre- and post-test non-equivalent group research, the study unfolded in 14 grade-one classes from 7 primary public schools. After having learned with ELM for about two terms, the experimental students (N = 283) considerably outperformed their peers (N = 171) exposed to traditional instruction with the effect sizes of +0.37 on the overall skills measured by a standardised test of mathematics. The impact of ELM activities was the greatest on students’ ability to take language and concepts of mathematics and apply appropriate operations and computation to solve word problems. On this set of skills, the magnitude of difference between the experimental and control groups was +0.77. This study also revealed some positive shifts in the teachers’ perceptions about their practice. The teachers who adopted ELM in their practice reported having gained more confidence in mathematics and comfort in teaching mathematics with computers

Sustainability and scalability of digital tools for learning : the learning toolkit plus in Kenya

This research involved more than 500 primary and secondary classrooms in five areas of Kenya. The paper provides details of the study, including literature review, methodology, student response and factors that impact teacher’s beliefs, attitudes and motivation. The model points to directions for technology-based pedagogical innovations in developing context, such as seeking support from local and national governments and enhancing teacher professional development in order to strengthen individual and collective capacity. In terms of teacher motivation, political context turned out to be very influential.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Are contextual and designed student-student interaction treatments equally effective in distance education?

This systematic review draws from and builds upon the results of a meta-analysis of the achievement effects of three types of interaction treatments in distance education: student-student, student-teacher, and student-content (Bernard et al., Review of Educational Research, 79(3), 1243-1289, 2009). This follow-up study considers two forms of student-student interaction treatments, contextual interaction and designed interaction. Typical contextual interaction treatments contain the necessary conditions for student-student interaction to occur, but are not intentionally designed to create collaborative learning environments. By contrast, designed interaction treatments are intentionally implemented collaborative instructional conditions for increasing student learning. Our meta-analysis compared the effect of these two types of interaction treatments on student achievement outcomes. The results favored designed interaction treatments over contextual interaction treatments. Examples of designed interaction treatments and a discussion of study results and their potential implications for research and instruction in distance education and online learning are presented. © 2012 Copyright Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Inc

Educational Research in Educational Practice: Predictors of Use

This study investigates the predictors of school practitioners’ (N = 2,425) use of educational research. The suggested model explained significantly but modestly the infrequent use of educational research by practitioners. Of the four factors in the study, “opinions about research” had the most explanatory power. The results are discussed in connection with existing knowledge about school practitioners’ use of educational research and implications for further research and practice

A meta-analysis of blended learning and technology use in higher education: From the general to the applied

This paper serves several purposes. First and foremost, it is devoted to developing a better understanding of the effectiveness of blended learning (BL) in higher education. This is achieved through a meta-analysis of a sub-collection of comparative studies of BL and classroom instruction (CI) from a larger systematic review of technology integration (Schmid et al. in Comput Educ 72:271-291, 2014). In addition, the methodology of meta-analysis is described and illustrated by examples from the current study. The paper begins with a summary of the experimental research on distance education (DE) and online learning (OL), encapsulated in meta-analyses that have been conducted since 1990. Then it introduces the Bernard et al. (Rev Educ Res 74(3):379-439, 2009) meta-analysis, which attempted to alter the DE research culture of always comparing DE/OL with CI by examining three forms of interaction treatments (i.e., student-student, student-teacher, student-content) within DE, using the theoretical framework of Moore (Am J Distance Educ 3(2):1-6, 1989) and Anderson (Rev Res Open Distance Learn 4(2):9-14, 2003). The rest of the paper revolves around the general steps and procedures (Cooper in Research synthesis and meta-analysis: a step-by-step approach, 4th edn, SAGE, Los Angeles, CA, 2010) involved in conducting a meta-analysis. This section is included to provide researchers with an overview of precisely how meta-analyses can be used to respond to more nuanced questions that speak to underlying theory and inform practice-in other words, not just answers to the big questions. In this instance, we know that technology has an overall positive impact on learning (g+ = +0.35, p \u3c.01, Tamim et al. in Rev Educ Res 81(3):4-28, 2011), but the sub-questions addressed here concern BL interacting with technology in higher education. The results indicate that, in terms of achievement outcomes, BL conditions exceed CI conditions by about one-third of a standard deviation (g+ = 0.334, k = 117, p \u3c.001) and that the kind of computer support used (i.e., cognitive support vs. content/presentational support) and the presence of one or more interaction treatments (e.g., student-student/-teacher/-content interaction) serve to enhance student achievement. We examine the empirical studies that yielded these outcomes, work through the methodology that enables evidence-based decision-making, and explore how this line of research can improve pedagogy and student achievement. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

A cluster randomized control field trial of the ABRACADABRA web-based reading technology: replication and extension of basic findings

Sherpa Romeo green journalThe present paper reports a cluster randomized control trial evaluation of teaching using ABRACADABRA (ABRA), an evidence-based and web-based literacy intervention (http://abralite.concordia.ca) with 107 kindergarten and 96 grade 1 children in 24 classes (12 intervention 12 control classes) from all 12 elementary schools in one school district in Canada. Children in the intervention condition received 10 - 12 h of whole class instruction using ABRA between pre- and post-test. Hierarchical linear modeling of post-test results showed significant gains in letter-sound knowledge for intervention classrooms over control classrooms. In addition, medium effect sizes were evident for three of five outcome measures favoring the intervention: letter-sound knowledge (d = +0.66), phonological blending (d = +0.52), and word reading (d = +0.52), over effect sizes for regular teaching. It is concluded that regular teaching with ABRA technology adds significantly to literacy in the early elementary years.Ye

A study of meta-analyses reporting quality in the large and expanding literature of educational technology

As the empirical literature in educational technology continues to grow, meta-analyses are increasingly being used to synthesise research to inform practice. However, not all meta-analyses are equal. To examine their evolution over the past 30 years, this study systematically analysed the quality of 52 meta-analyses (1988–2017) on educational technology. Methodological and reporting quality is defined here as the completeness of the descriptive and methodological reporting features of meta-analyses. The study employed the Meta-Analysis Methodological Reporting Quality Guide (MMRQG), an instrument designed to assess 22 areas of reporting quality in meta-analyses. Overall, MMRQG scores were negatively related to average effect size (i.e., the higher the quality, the lower the effect size). Owing to the presence of poor-quality syntheses, the contribution of educational technologies to learning has been overestimated, potentially misleading researchers and practitioners. Nine MMRQG items discriminated between higher and lower average effect sizes. A publication date analysis revealed that older reviews (1988–2009) scored significantly lower on the MMRQG than more recent reviews (2010–2017). Although the increase in quality bodes well for the educational technology literature, many recent meta-analyses still show only moderate levels of quality. Identifying and using only best evidence-based research is thus imperative to avoid bias. Implications for practice or policy: • Educational technology practitioners should make use of meta-analytical findings that systematically synthesise primary research. • Academics, policymakers and practitioners should consider the methodological quality of meta-analyses as they vary in reliability. • Academics, policymakers and practitioners could avoid misleading bias in research evidence by using the MMRQG to evaluate the quality of meta-analyses. • Meta-analyses with lower MMRQG scores should be considered with caution as they seem to overestimate the effect of educational technology on learning

Self-regulated learning in Kenyan classrooms : a test of a process e-portfolio

Defined as “self-generated thoughts, feelings and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals,” self-regulated learning (SRL) addresses both meta-cognitive and motivational aspects of learning that unfold through the cyclical phases of forethought, performance, and self-reflection. The report provides details of the study design, activities and outcomes of the project. After learning with the e-portfolio, the students’ achievement and perceptions of their self-regulation skills improved when compared to peers who hardly used the electronic portfolio tool or did not use it at all.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC

The effects of technology use in postsecondary education: A meta-analysis of classroom applications

This meta-analysis is a study of the experimental literature of technology use in postsecondary education from 1990 up to 2010 exclusive of studies of online or distance education previously reviewed by Bernard et al. (2004). It reports the overall weighted average effects of technology use on achievement and attitude outcomes and explores moderator variables in an attempt to explain how technology treatments lead to positive or negative effects. Out of an initial pool of 11,957 study abstracts, 1105 were chosen for analysis, yielding 879 achievement and 181 attitude effect sizes after pre-experimental designs and studies with obvious methodological confounds were removed. The random effects weighted average effect size for achievement was g+ = 0.27, k = 879, p \u3c.05, and for attitude outcomes it was g+ = 0.20, k = 181, p \u3c.05. The collection of achievement outcomes was divided into two sub-collections, according to the amount of technology integration in the control condition. These were no technology in the control condition (k = 479) and some technology in the control condition (k = 400). Random effects multiple meta-regression analysis was run on each sub-collection revealing three significant predictors (subject matter, degree of difference in technology use between the treatment and the control and pedagogical uses of technology). The set of predictors for each sub-collection was both significant and homogeneous. Differences were found among the levels of all three moderators, but particularly in favor of cognitive support applications. There were no significant predictors for attitude outcomes. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved