A Longitudinal Qualitative Study on Teachers’ Technology Barriers to Distance Learning: A School for Students with Dyslexia

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an account of teachers’ perception of barriers to technology integration throughout distance learning. COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to adopt distance learning to cope with the crisis, but whether teachers are prepared for this change is unknown. Therefore, this study described teachers’ experience of technology integration over the course of distance learning and identified the barriers they faced at a small, private school for students with dyslexia. The findings found distance learning influenced teachers’ technological knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about technology integration. Barriers to technology integration were identified by all participants, but only novice integrators and one intermediate integrator experienced second-order barriers. Implications are provided on supporting teachers to overcome barriers towards technology integration

Explicit vocabulary instruction for fifth graders’ vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension: An action research study

This action research aimed to evaluate the impact that explicit vocabulary instruction delivered through Schoology had on the vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of fifth graders at an urban elementary school in the southeastern United States. A convergent mixed-method approach was applied. The vocabulary and reading comprehension scores and the learner experience survey accounted for the quantitative data. Furthermore, qualitative data gathered from semi-structured interviews were analyzed inductively. Findings show that students\u27 vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension significantly increased after receiving explicit vocabulary instruction, and results marked instruction regarding Latin and Greek roots as areas needing attention. For elementary educators, the study\u27s practical implications highlight the importance of teaching explicit vocabulary strategies, including morphology and context clues, to students

Massive Open Online Courses and Educational Equality in China: A Qualitative Inquiry

Although Chinese governments are devoted to the improvement of education, considerable defects such as inequality in education and an increase in educational costs exist in the current education system of China. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) assume the hope of resolving the educational inequality in China with the potential of empowering a diverse population with free, open access to prominent educational resources. This qualitative research project applies narrative inquiry to examine Chinese MOOCs learners’ perceptions of their lived experiences and how MOOCs attend to the problems in Chinese education. The inquiry includes triangulated data in the form of interviews, observations, and online posts. The research finds that MOOCs have limited influence on the issue of educational inequality in China. By identifying the perceptions that Chinese learners have towards MOOCs, this study provides significant implications for the adoption and diffusion of MOOCs in China

Exploring Chinese students’ learning experience in CIC MOOC 2.0– A study with Chinese online communities

This research explores Chinese students’ learning experience in the Creativity, Innovation, and Change (CIC) Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) 2.0 from the cultural, language, and communication perspectives. The CIC MOOC was the first course offered in both English and Chinese in Coursera. Data in this study were collected via online survey, interviews, QQ chat logs, and discussion threads in Guokr platform. Content analysis was performed to identify key themes from the collected data. Findings reveal that differences exist in Eastern and Western societies regarding power distance, individualism versus collectivism, and masculinity versus femininity. Communication patterns also vary in QQ and Guokr online communities. In addition, Chinese students reported that translation helped them understand the course topics better, and the online interest group motivated them to participate in course activities and complete the course. The conclusions shed light on the design of future MOOCs, advocating for translating course content into different languages and building small online communities to meet learners’ needs and improve their learning experiences

An Exploratory Study of Osmo Tangram and Tangram Manipulative in an Elementary Mathematics Classroom

This exploratory study considered the literature on the history of manipulatives, with attention to tangrams, and examined the use of manipulatives in the elementary classroom through the Osmo Tangram. Specifically, manipulatives can be utilized in assisting elementary students to develop mathematical ability and achievement, with an emphasis on spatial sense. This paper describes design features of first generation virtual manipulatives, the amalgam of real and virtual manipulatives (e.g. Osmo Tangram), and results of an exploratory observational study of Osmo Tangram at the elementary level. Findings are discussed tailored to the future design and implementation of integrating tangram into mathematics instruction

Knowledge Tracing: A Review of Available Technologies

As a student modeling technique, knowledge tracing is widely used by various intelligent tutoring systems to infer and trace the individual’s knowledge state during the learning process. In recent years, various models were proposed to get accurate and easy-to-interpret results. To make sense of the wide Knowledge tracing (KT) modeling landscape, this paper conducts a systematic review to provide a detailed and nuanced discussion of relevant KT techniques from the perspective of assumptions, data, and algorithms. The results show that most existing KT models consider only a fragment of the assumptions that relate to the knowledge components within items and student’s cognitive process. Almost all types of KT models take “quize data” as input, although it is insufficient to reflect a clear picture of students’ learning process. Dynamic Bayesian network, logistic regression and deep learning are the main algorithms used by various knowledge tracing models. Some open issues are identified based on the analytics of the reviewed works and discussed potential future research directions

A Qualitative Inquiry of K–12 Teachers’ Experience with Open Educational Practices: Perceived Benefits and Barriers of Implementing Open Educational Resources

Teachers in K–12 schools have shown an increasing desire for open educational resources (OER) to ensure all students can learn effectively. OER provide teachers with free access to open-licensed educational resources that they can retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute for personalized instruction. Open educational practices (OEP) have been considered a pathway to reinforce the acceptance and readiness of K–12 teachers to use OER. This research thus showcases a qualitative study that investigates teachers’ experiences with OEP. This research explains K-12 teachers’ perceived benefits of implementing OER and also discusses their perceived barriers hindering OER usage in K–12 settings. The study also discusses the practical implications of integrating OER in K–12 curriculum

Revisiting the Myth of Disruptive Innovation: An Exploratory Study of Chinese Learners\u27 Perception of Massive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are regarded as disruptive innovations for allowing open and free access to higher education resources for virtually unlimited populations. MOOCs have gained increasing prominence in China, especially since the government launched the nationwide initiative of building a lifelong learning society. In addition to the political support, innate advantages such as the enormous market potential for higher education and the mass of Internet users have been driving the rapid growth of MOOCs. However, the belief that MOOCs may be a disruptive innovation when opening up higher education seems to have abated. In order to lay the groundwork that guides the future MOOC initiatives, this qualitative study explored implications from the current situation of MOOCs in China via examining Chinese learner perceptions, given that learner perception is vital to reveal the effectiveness of MOOCs. From the perspective of Chinese learners, MOOCs merely interrupted their current epistemological value of learning and brought positive impacts to the landscape of the Chinese higher education system, rather than disrupting the current system. The research suggests embarking on several pertinent endeavors to maintain the effectiveness of MOOCs in China

Effects of puerarin on the intervertebral disc degeneration and biological characteristics of nucleus pulposus cells

AbstractContext Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is the pathological basis of spinal degenerative diseases. Puerarin (PU) is an isoflavonoid with functions and medicinal properties.Objective To explore the effect of PU on IDD and its potential mechanism of action.Materials and methods Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into sham, IDD, low PU, and high PU groups. Rat nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs) were isolated and divided into control, IL-1β, 100 and 200 μmol/mL PU, TAK-242 (TLR4 inhibitor), or 200 μmol/mL PU + LPS (TLR4 activator) groups. The water content, inflammatory factors, proliferation activity, TLR4/NF-κB pathway activity, apoptosis rate, protein expression of apoptosis, and histology of the extracellular matrix (ECM) were analysed.Results In vivo: Compared with the IDD group, disorganization of intervertebral disc tissue was significantly improved, water content (2.80 ± 0.24 mg, 3.91 ± 0.31 mg vs. 2.02 ± 0.21 mg) and expression levels of collagen II and aggrecan were significantly increased, and the levels of inflammatory factors and the expression levels of TLR4, MyD88, and p-p65 were significantly decreased in IDD rats treated with PU. In vitro: Compared with the IL-1β group, the proliferation activity of IL-1β-treated NPCs and the expression of collagen II and aggrecan were significantly increased, while the apoptosis rate, levels of inflammatory factors, and the expression levels of TLR4, MyD88, and p-p65 were significantly decreased in IL-1β-treated NPCs treated with PU. LPS reversed the biological function changes of IL-1β-treated NPCs induced by PU.Conclusions PU can delay the progression of IDD by inhibiting activation of the TLR4/NF-κB pathway

Exploring collaborative problem solving in virtual laboratories: a perspective of socially shared metacognition

SciVal Topics Metrics Abstract Socially shared metacognition is important for effective collaborative problem solving in virtual laboratory settings, A holistic account of socially shared metacognition in virtual laboratory settings is needed to advance our understanding, but previous studies have only focused on the isolated effect of each dimension on problem solving. This study thus applied learning analytics techniques to develop a comprehensive understanding of socially shared metacognition during collaborative problem solving in virtual laboratories. We manually coded 126 collaborative problem-solving scenarios in a virtual physics laboratory and then employed K-Means clustering analysis to identify patterns of socially shared metacognition. Four clusters were discovered. Statistical analysis was performed to investigate how the clusters were associated with the outcome of collaborative problem solving and also how they related to the difficulty level of problems. The findings of this study provided theoretical implications to advance the understanding of socially shared metacognition in virtual laboratory settings and also practical implications to foster effective collaborative problem solving in those settings