Online and Distance Education Commons^™

Online Echocardiography Modules For Pediatric Cardiology Fellows, Sarah Studyvin, Doaa Aly, Tyler Johnson, Laura Kuzava, Alison Samrany, Nitin Madan, Sanket Shah

Research Days

Background: Adequate echocardiographic (echo) education is integral to successful cardiology training. Online education is proven to be effective in other specialties, but pediatric echo training data are lacking.

Objectives/Goal: Our aim was to design and assess the role of a novel online module-based curriculum to enhance pediatric cardiology fellows’ echo education.

Methods/Design: Four interactive modules, focused on principles and interpretation of a normal echo, were delivered to fellows. Content included high quality 2D and 3D echo clips as well as interactive quizzes and could be accessed from a phone, tablet, or computer. All fellows completed pre- and post-tests ...

School Library Media Specialists: An Evolving Profession In A Pandemic, Heather Kapanka

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

In March 2020, Michigan’s school library media specialists, along with the entire educational community, found themselves facing unprecedented challenges brought by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. As learning shifted online, the roles of school library media specialists shifted as well. Three southeast Michigan school library media specialists were interviewed to obtain their perspectives regarding the adaptation to distance learning, as well as how they predicted educational practices will evolve going forward. The educational practices of learning commons, guided inquiry, co-teaching, and information literacy were found to be particularly valuable during the shift to distance learning. The increased dependence ...

Creating An Evaluation Factor For Group Work Assessment, Scott Mark

Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation

The idea of group work assessment is often seen as complicated, but necessary given the value of group work to learning. However, the traditional method involving a collective grade has been shown to be a less effective option, and raises questions about fairness for the students. Utilizing an evaluation factor provides a more inclusive assessment strategy, factoring in peer and self-assessment to enhance the reliability of the assessment. Through the evaluation factor, an instructor can maintain the product of the group work as the foundation of assessment, while allowing the process of the group work to be reflected in the ...

Theatre During Covid-19: Perceptions Of High School Students And Teachers, Marissa Lizette Trujillo

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

COVID-19 changed the way theatre was done in a high school setting. Students were required to wear masks and physically distance, and some even did theatre remotely. Doing theatre with limitations was especially difficult because the face and body play a vital role in helping actors tell a story. In this study, the researcher sought to understand what the perceptions of high school theatre students and teachers were while doing theatre during COVID-19. A survey, two focus group interviews, a group interview, and an individual interview were used to collect data, as well as observations in three theatre classes and ...

Rural Elementary Teacher Beliefs Regarding The Effectiveness Of Their Homework Practices During The Pandemic, Daniel Clara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the lenses of C.S. Peirce’s Belief and Genuine Doubt, Albert Bandura’s Self Efficacy and Collective Efficacy, Bernard Weiner’s Attribution Theory, and Critical Race Theory, this dissertation captured and codified rural elementary teacher beliefs regarding homework and its effectiveness related to learning, and in particular, the effects brought on by the 2020 COVID 19 school closure. Rural school systems are under-researched and present notable differences in homework challenges, including access to libraries, technology and distance from home to school. Using qualitative research, this study identified themes regarding teacher perceptions of homework. The author explained that many ...

Reimagining Student Engagement In The Remote Classroom Environment, Christopher B. Denning, Serra Acar, Carol Sharicz, Ellen Foust

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

As higher education institutions struggled with switching to remote teaching due to the COVID19 pandemic, perhaps one of the most important lessons learned is that instructors need additional support to successfully engage students in remote classrooms. Moving courses from the classroom to online delivery radically alters all aspects of teaching and learning, making it easy for interactions to be lost in the transition. It is, therefore, imperative that instructors use elements of effective online teaching and synchronous classroom pedagogy to maintain student engagement. This paper uses the constructivist learning theory as a framework, especially as this theory is applied in ...

Faculty Job Satisfaction Related To Online Course Design, April Marie Hixson

School of Education Doctoral Projects

Online education has expanded and evolved slowly through the decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 put online education at the forefront of teaching and learning worldwide and sped up the design and delivery of online courses. This study sought to examine faculty attitudes and opinions (amid a global pandemic) toward online course design that may affect their job satisfaction levels. Specifically, it explored factors that could inhibit or contribute to faculty job satisfaction during their engagement in online instructional design. Further, the study was designed to gain an understanding of how pedagogical and technological changes influence the degree of ...

Reimagining The Classroom Experience

Business Exchange

This article discusses innovative approaches to teaching business subjects, including using the principles of improvisational comedy to teach business leadership, using a game to help students learn to uncover financial fraud, and working in technology-enhanced classrooms.

Waiting To Learn And Learning To Wait: An Autoethnographic Metareflection On Journaling As A Reflective Teaching Practice, Ana Palomino

MA TESOL Collection

In this autoethnographic metareflection, the author, an English as a Second Language (ESOL) teacher, demonstrates how she is working to develop a personalized and systematic approach to journaling as a reflective teaching practice. A self-identified “crisis journaler” for over two decades, the author argues that her journal entries, filled with vented frustrations and attempts to figure out life’s challenges, are part of a professional ongoing, long-term data collection process. The author shows how keeping written records of her experiences has produced the important documents that can now facilitate her personal and professional reflection. Using multiple approaches, the author models ...

Covid-19 Impact On Radiology Students’ Distance Learning (Spring 2021), Mary Lee, Jason Chan, Cherylann Jackson-Holmes, Renzo Marmolejo, Zoya Vinokur

Publications and Research

Radiologic Technology students are well into a full year of distance learning. The Juniors are utilizing a hybrid mode, where they continue to have laboratory classes on campus at half capacity and every other week. The Senior students are completely learning through distance learning and focusing their efforts on reviewing for their licensing exams. Both cohorts are in clinical rotation with COVID-19, a smaller threat to their schooling, but still a hazard that can impact their personal and educational lives. With the use of surveys that are distributed during online classes, we hope to evaluate how a full semester of ...

Supporting The Student Service Member And Veteran Population As Learners: An Exploratory Study Of Academic Motivation And Best Practices In Student Services At A State Comprehensive University, Seth D. Kastle, Brendon Fox, Jeni Mcray, Haley Moon

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

This article explores best practices in student services for Student Service Members and Veterans (SSM/V) learners at a Midwestern state comprehensive university (SCU.) The Military Learner Academic Success Perception Survey (MLASPS) was administered to a small but targeted cohort population of SSM/V’s enrolled in a customized Associate of Applied Science (AAS) program through the institution’s new centralized student support center for SSM/V’s. The research team collected data related to the enrolled students’ perceived academic preparedness, student service needs, and academic motivation. Results informed the center about how to best serve SSM/V’s in ...

Evaluation Of Course Modality And Student Performance In A College Anatomy And Physiology Course, Madeline M. Kjera

Honors Thesis

As technology evolves, so does the integration of online alternatives to face-to-face learning within institutions of higher education. The growth of the virtual education platform has led many researchers to wonder if it is equivalent to traditional teaching methods. While the idea of whether or not a performance gap exists between different modalities of the same course is well-researched, the results vary. As such, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between delivery method (face-to-face or online) and final grade while controlling for the variables of instructor, gender, ethnicity, and ACT score. The data included final grade percentages and demographic ...

Influence Of Student Characteristics, Class Size, And Instructor Characteristics In Online Student Success, Melody K. Edmonds

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative case study was to compare the academic success of community college students over three academic years (2016-17 through 2018-19) before the onset of COVID-19 based on final grades and the influence of student factors, class size, and faculty characteristics using archival data from selected online and on-ground classes at a Middle Tennessee community college. Student factors reviewed include gender, full-time or part-time status, and age (traditional or non-traditional status). Instructor characteristics reviewed included full-time or part-time (adjunct) teaching status and tenure or non-tenure status of faculty. Institutional data for this study consisted of 44 ...

Sororities Surviving Covid-19: A Phenomenological Study Of Panhellenic Virtual Sorority Recruitment, Margaret Darden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study addressed perceptions of virtual sorority recruitment and was conducted at a large, public university in the Midwestern United States. Data was gathered through interviews using a criterion sampling method in place for this study. Study participants fell into one of the following categories: new members, general members, chapter recruitment chairs, chapter presidents, chapter advisors, chapter recruitment advisors, or the fraternity/sorority advisor. Emerging themes and categories were identified by coding and analyzing the interview data. The themes that were identified were: the convenience of online meetings, reduced emphasis on appearance reduced emotional, financial and time strain, increased ...

Disconnected, James H. Reeves Ii

Masters Theses

Even with complications, remote learning can be successful with the development of user friendly designed solutions. While there are educational tools and platforms available that electronically support remote learning, many students and teachers do not have deep technological knowledge and many lack internet access outside of school. Without access to the internet, many of them experience interruptions in their education. This underscores the needs of both the educator, and the students during sudden and unexpected periods of school closure. The research objectives of this project focus on current learning tools, their design, and their accessibility during remote learning. The level ...

The Four Transactional Distances Of The Apocalypse: A Critical Realist Case Study Of Higher Education During Covid-19, Lee Ann Dickerson

Doctorate in Education

The purpose of this comparative, longitudinal case study was to explore the distance operations system implemented in U.S. colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Embedded in a larger two-year study of distance education in the U.S. before and after the health crisis, this study combined a grounded theory methodology with a critical realist approach to identify the components of the distance operations system and illuminate the generative mechanisms that promote or inhibit effective distance education. Primary data for this study consisted of interviews of faculty, staff, and administration of four higher education institutions at two collection points ...

Defining Higher Education Writing Centers From The Perspectives Of Writing Center Directors, Paul D. Ludwig Mr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover what defines a writing center by interviewing directors of writing centers in the Southern Appalachian area. This qualitative study was based on a single round of recorded telephone interviews with 13 writing center directors who meet the criteria for inclusion in the study. Many researchers have written about writing centers, their efficacy, and what defines them; yet, no clear consensus exists. Without a clear definition there is no means of determining the efficacy of writing centers.

As a result of the interviews with the writing center directors three critical components of writing ...

Development Of A Grant Writing Seminar And Workshop Using Explicit Creativity Models, Processes, And Tools, Kim G. Zanti

Creative Studies Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project is the development of a grant writing seminar and workshop. I reference arts and culture organizations throughout, as this is my area of expertise. Yet much of the learning, and the organization of resources and information, is useful and transferable to small and mid-size health and human services, science, and other organizations. I will offer these sessions to adult and advanced high school learners. I develop the seminar and workshop using the the 4P’s Model of Creativity (Press, People, Process, Environment), Torrance Incubation Model (TIM), and key aspects of the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process, enhanced by ...

The Ceibalitas In Uruguay: How Digital Educational Technology Affects Social Cohesion, William Bradford

Honors Theses

Digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have become a focal point in improving worldwide education. There have been many studies on the effects of ICT in schools on grades and careers after graduation, but not many have studied the social impact. This study focuses on the Plan Ceibal in Uruguay to see the impact of ICT in schools on social cohesion. The Plan Ceibal was the first Nation-wide one-laptop-per-child (OLPC) program in the world. For this reason, Uruguay can provide a look into the future for other nations as they implement OLPC programs of their own. This study uses data ...

Creativity Through Arts: Expanding Creativity For A New Fluency In Imaginative Thinking, Tanya M. Knudsen

Creative Studies Graduate Student Master's Projects

The Torrance Incubation Model beckons creativity into education. That was in 1961. Like the subconscious automatic and multidimensional act of breathing, and formulating language, creativity is within us, materializing on a Mobius Loop structure continually moving in and out of incubation, creation, and the shaping of outcome. Creativity is unique in that is both a verb and noun adding weight and value to its illusive form and potential. Creativity Through Arts expands the Torrance Incubation Model of Creative Teaching and Learning in an expressed combination of creativity and arts to immerse creativity into curricula, cracking a new code for finding ...