Online and Distance Education Commons^™

Lessons We Learned From Avatars: Cultivating Meaningful Preservice Teacher Online Experiences During Covid-19 And Beyond, Kristin M. Murphy, Janna Jackson Kellinger

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Like flight simulators used to train airline pilots prior to flying an actual airplane, mixed reality simulations provide an opportunity to interact with avatars in order to practice newly learned behaviors in an online environment. As teacher educators, we have used mixed reality simulations as a part of our coursework for the past five years. In this article, we discuss implications and lessons learned for teacher education practice and research in the online environment during COVID-19 and beyond based on our experiences using mixed reality.

The Importance Of Data Privacy And Security During Emergency Remote Learning, Emma Antobam-Ntekudzi

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic forever changed the world. The virus’ rapid spread forced federal and local governments to enact quarantine mandates. On March 11, 2020, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2022) announced COVID-19 as a pandemic. Two days later the United States declared an official nationwide emergency. Institutions were required to shut down and persons deemed non-essential participated in quarantine. Remote working became the standard, thus affecting all aspects of individual lives and institutions, especially education. Primarily in-person universities and colleges across the world scrambled to address the COVID-19 health concerns, comply with local shutdown rules, and attempt …

Preparing Undergraduates For The Post-Pandemic Workplace: Teams Of Education And Engineering Students Teach Engineering Virtually, Kristie S. Gutierrez, Jennifer Kidd, Min J. Lee, Krishnanand Kaipa, Orlando Ayala

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

When schools and universities across the world transitioned online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ed+gineering, a National Science Foundation (NSF) project that partners engineering and education undergraduates to design and deliver engineering lessons to elementary students, also had to shift its hands-on lessons to a virtual format. Through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT), this study investigates engineering and education students’ experiences during the shift to online instruction to understand how they perceived its influence on their learning. As a result of modifying their lessons for online delivery, students reported learning professional skills, including skills for teaching online and …

Future Ready Schools -Nj Collective Impact Success Story, James Lipuma, Cristo Leon

STEM for Success Resources

Dr. James Lipuma, a faculty member in the Humanities and Social Sciences department, and Cristo Leon (PhD. Graduate Student) director of research at NJIT College of Science and Liberal Arts have a new article entitled: "Future Ready Schools—NJ Collective Impact Success Story"

Driving Change: A Model For Collaborative Librarianship In Prince George’S County, Maryland, Nicholas A. Brown, Kyla Hanington

Collaborative Librarianship

The Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (PGCMLS) has a long-standing partnership with the county’s human rights education and enforcement agency, the Office of Human Rights (PGCOHR), formerly the Prince George’s County Human Relations Commission (PGCHRC). The two agencies serve over 967,000 Prince Georgians, a majority-Black (64.4%) and Latin or Hispanic (19.5%) population with a sizable immigrant community (22.7%). The civil rights issues of 2020 hit close to home in Prince George’s County and the agencies have sustained a multi-year effort to provide residents with opportunities to learn how to engage with social justice topics for personal and collective advancement. …

Collaborative Learning In An Asynchronous Online Introductory Statistics Course, Marla Lemmon

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Collaborative learning has been shown to improve student learning and performance; however, the influence of collaboration has not yet been examined in the context of an online introductory statistics course. Often the influence of collaborative learning is measured using only one outcome variable, typically course achievement. This study will contribute a more thorough examination of the influence collaboration has on student learning by operationalizing the learning construct with the use of multiple measures: academic performance, perceived learning, and growth in statistical knowledge. In addition, this study will provide a model for incorporating collaborative learning in an asynchronous online course.

Implementation And Efficacy Of Interprofessional Education (Ipe) Initiatives, Javed A. Mohammed

Department of Occupational Therapy Entry-Level Capstone Projects

The literature demonstrates many benefits of interprofessional education (IPE) simulations in various types of formats that facilitate greater student knowledge and understanding of professions outside their own (O’Hara et al., 2018; Clauser et al., 2020; Cooper, Spencer-Dawe & Mclean, 2005; Djukic et al., 2015; Lazinski et al., 2021). The goals of my doctoral capstone experience (DCE) were to: 1) Develop IPE curriculum and active learning sessions along with assessment plans for professional programs on the Nova Southeastern University (NSU) – Tampa Bay Regional Campus with emphasis on advocacy for the occupational therapy (OT) profession, 2) Lead educational opportunities for students …

Guided Online Coaching For Teachers Of Emergent Bilinguals In A Tesol Practicum Course During Covid-19, Dawn Thieman

Dissertations

Guided online coaching for teachers of emergent bilinguals (EBLs) is a job-embedded professional development model established from the educational policies and practices described in the No Child Left Behind Act and Every Student Succeeds Act. Having effective teachers who ensure an equitable, creative, and linguistically and culturally relevant education for all EBLs is of paramount importance in the ever-changing demography of schools in the United States. The guided online coaching for teachers of EBLs offers a collaborative, facilitative, dialogic, and reflective coaching process for positively influencing teacher transformation, thus providing a creative language teaching pedagogy for EBLs. The purpose of …

Vocational Education: Cna Students’ Perspectives Of Soft Skills In Training And The Workplace, Kimberly S. Mcclendon-Payton

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify CNAs’ perceptions about the most important soft skills used by CNAs in training and the workplace.

Methodology: This quantitative research study identified CNAs’ perceptions of the most important soft skills they used based on the composite model for soft skills. CNAs were selected based on purposeful sampling. Likert scores were collected from the survey responses.

Findings: Examination of the quantitative data from the 35 CNAs revealed that brainstorming is the most important collaboration soft skill in CNA training and the workplace.

Conclusions: Results based on the findings of this study …

Chapter 15- "Things Are Different Now" A Student, Staff, And Faculty Course Design Institute Collaboration, Maggie Debelius, Susannah Mcgowan, Aiyanna Maciel, Clare Reid, Alexa Eason

Resilient Pedagogy

Like other institutions across the world, Georgetown University in Washington, DC switched to remote learning in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. Our Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), which serves as both a center for teaching and learning as well as a center for technology innovation, responded quickly with a series of offerings to prepare and support faculty to teach remotely. Options included a virtual conference on digital pedagogy, a series of cohort-based Course Design Institutes (CDI) throughout the summer where faculty engaged with intertwined principles and best practices from inclusive pedagogy …

How Padlet Encouraged Student Collaboration And Engagement In My Virtual Classroom, Annie Yon

New Jersey English Journal

With the growth of virtual classes, it is crucial for teachers to integrate strategies and resources that foster student engagement and build a sense of community in an online environment. One way to augment synchronous and asynchronous communication is to implement an online discussion board, which can provide rich opportunities for students to share insights, ask clarifying questions, collaborate, create multimodal projects, and have their voices heard. By incorporating an interactive discussion board, such as Padlet, as part of class resources, teachers can facilitate discourse among students that transcends the physical boundaries of the classroom, create a motivational environment, improve …

Examining Natural Resource Conservation: In The Classroom, Through Collaborative Conservation, And Across Public Communication Platforms, Shauni Seccombe

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Promoting 21st-Century Learning: Online Collaboration Through Design Thinking Framework For Today's Esl Students, Hande Yildiz

Master's Projects and Capstones

Learners of the 21st-century engage and learn differently than ever before. Policymakers and teachers are now challenged to makeshift into the 21st-century education model and adapt their approaches to better prepare the students for the future work world. 21st-century ESL classrooms should reflect this learning model through a more engaging, collaborative, and student-centered approach. Collaboration and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills are vital in 21st-century learning. Research shows that ESL learners can benefit from collaborative activities and the use of technology improves students' language reception and production. However, due to the lack of understanding of the paradigm shift in …

Implementing 21st Century Learning And Innovation Skills In Classrooms, Amber Soderlund

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This literature review depicts strategies educators can implement to facilitate 21st century learning and innovation skills in classrooms: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. One challenge educators currently face with implementing these skills in the classroom is being required to move to online learning or other learning formats as safety and health remain a top priority during the pandemic. This has caused teachers to reinvent the way they teach their students to communicate, work with one another, and display critical thinking and creativity skills. Many educators are reinventing teaching in schools without an increase in resources and guidance from the …

Information Literacy On-Demand: How To Create An Online Library Readiness Mini-Course, Rachel Hooper

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

What do many academic librarians want? Required information literacy classes! When do they want them? Now! This poster will show how a large university developed an on-demand library readiness mini-course online that has recently become a requirement for all undergraduate orientation classes, both in-person and online. Furthermore, the online mini-course has been adopted by numerous faculty in research-based courses across varied subject areas throughout the University. Through a collaboration between librarians and faculty, the mini-course teaches students research skills, how to find books and journal articles, how to use InterLibrary Loan, how to get library and research assistance, and more. …

Exploring The Relationship Between Teamwork Skills And Team Members' Centrality, Francisco Cima, Pilar Pazos, Ana Maria Canto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The present paper describes an exploratory study of small teams working on a four-month project as part of a graduate engineering program. The research had two primary goals. The first was to utilize the log files from shared repositories used for team collaboration to describe the network structure of the teams. The second was to determine whether the network centrality of any individual team member is associated with their teamwork skills and attitudes towards the collaboration platform. The relationship between teamwork skills, attitudes towards the collaboration technology, and the centrality index was explored using Pearson correlations. A total of 35 …

Curriculum Design With Systematic Analysis, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, And Research, Juhong Christie Liu Ph.D., Eric M. Stauffer, Jim R. West, Dominic "Nick" D. Swayne

Libraries

As the instructional design of courses and learning activities become a normal practice of professional development for teachers and faculty members, curriculum design has risen to tag the expertise of instructional design professionals. These curriculum design projects demand a high level of collaborative efforts to look into discipline-specific accreditation standards, to analyze existing resources including course catalogues and technology infrastructure, to update emerging pedagogy and technology, and to evaluate diverse teaching team and student compositions. This presentation will share the practical knowledge gained through several curriculum design projects from the perspectives of systematic analysis, interdisciplinary collaboration, and research.

Increasing Principal Candidates’ Self-Efficacy Through Virtual Coaching, Travis E. Lewis, Karen D. Jones

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

Skill development in instructional coaching and feedback is difficult to adequately simulate within a principal preparation program. As a result, many new administrators enter the field with little to no experience in instructional coaching and, therefore, feel tremendous uncertainty and low self-confidence. This study explored the effect a virtual coaching experience has on self-efficacy for principal preparation program students. Preservice teacher candidates were matched with principal candidates to provide virtual instructional coaching to the benefit of all involved. The findings of this study indicate that practice through virtual coaching is positively related to increased self-efficacy in principal candidates.

Collaboration And Community In Undergraduate Writing Synchronous Video Courses (Svcs), Kimberly Fahle

English Theses & Dissertations

From the 2013 Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (OWI), OWI Principle 11 suggests, “Online writing teachers and their institutions should develop personalized and interpersonal online communities to foster student success.” Previous discussions of synchronous modalities have suggested interpersonal benefits of this mode could aid in creating these communities and could minimize the isolation and transactional distance students can experience in asynchronous instruction, which in turn can impact their persistence and learning. However, with little research on this modality, it is difficult to corroborate this assumption or design synchronous courses to best exploit these …

Expanding Capacity To Serve Multilingual Learners: A University-School District Partnership, Beth Clark-Gareca, Kim Fontana

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

In a time of new teacher certification requirements in New York, school districts are grappling with how to meet the regulatory expectations imposed by Commissioner’s Regulations Part 154. One way that schools are solving staffing challenges is by forging new collaborations with university partners to expand their collective capacities to serve Multilingual learners (MLLs). In this article, we document a partnership between SUNY New Paltz’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program and the Pawling Central School District during the 2017-18 academic year. We describe the partners’ distinct roles in the university-district collaboration, and discuss the logistical considerations …

Books And The Big Screen: The Book Is Always Better, Sheri A. Brown, Samantha Ertenberg

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

What happens when an English professor and a librarian share their love of books and reading? A campus book club is born. Many students associate reading with what happens in the classroom or studying towards a specific goal. They don’t see the power of reading for enjoyment, entertainment, and pleasure. Stephen Krushen, in The Power of Reading, defines free voluntary reading (FVR), as “reading because you want to: no book reports, no questions at the end of the chapter. In FVR you don’t have to finish the book if you don’t like it. FVR is the kind of reading …

The Implementation Of Reading Circles In An Educator Preparation Program Course, Yvonne Hefner

Perspectives In Learning

This study examined the effectiveness of the implementation of reading circles along with a wiki in an undergraduate special education methods course as a way to increase understanding and retention of course content. Reading circles offered a direct way to encourage reading of course content. In addition, the use of the wiki allowed the students to construct, discuss, revise, and fine-tune their understandings and interpretations of assigned readings. Both the reading circles and the wiki emphasized collaboration through an ongoing process and, as such, complemented each other in very powerful ways. The results of this study support the implementation of …

Pioneering Alternative Forms Of Collaboration, Rebecca J. Hogue, Jeffrey M. Keefer, Maha Bali, Keith Hamon, Apostolos Koutropoulos, Ron Leunissen, Lenandlar Singh

Current Issues in Emerging eLearning

One key experience of human work, life, and play is people working together on a common goal. Yet this aspect of working together does not have one primary recognizable instantiation of what it means to work together. Words like collaboration and cooperation are often used to describe such instances, but even words like ‘collaboration’ don’t always have a neat formula for working through a collaboration. In this article we examine and reflect on our own collaborative experiences as a research group. We do this through an examination of past experiences, and through a method of writing that developed in our …

The Experiential Journey Of Teacher-Scholars: “If You’Re Not A Teacher, You Just Don’T Get It”, Ashleigh L. Pelafigue

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Center of Graduate Schools (2015) published a report detailing applications, enrollment, and trends in graduate schools across the nation showing that approximately one third of all first-time graduate school applicants in master’s degree programs utilizing the GRE assessment identify their career path in either business or teacher education. The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of classroom teachers who concurrently pursued graduate studies to earn a master’s degree in education and to understand how adult learning provided opportunities for personal growth and the attainment of professional goals. Individual interviews and two focus groups were conducted …

The Effectiveness Of K-12 Principal’S Digital Leadership In Supporting And Promoting Communication And Collaboration Regarding Ccss Implementation, Lin Zhong

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Technology plays an important role in supporting successful College-and Career- State Standards (CCSS) implementation, which requires principals and educators effectively communicate and collaborate at the local, state, and national level. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of digital leadership in supporting communication and collaboration regarding CCSS implementation in K-12 schools. In this study, 254 public school teachers from five school districts in Mississippi were surveyed. Results showed that principals were most effective in supporting professional development and digital citizenship. In addition, teachers’ age and teaching grades have an impact on the effectiveness of principals’ digital leadership strategies. Implications are …

Pedagogy For A Plugged-In Age, Independent Study 2017, Andrew Hladkyj

Publications and Scholarship

This is an independent study for Hladkyj's graduate studies in Strategic Foresight and Innovation (MDes) at OCAD University. The study’s goal is to establish a “lay of the land” informing how technology and pedagogy might be designed in the Web Design Graduate Certificate program Hladkyj spearheaded at Sheridan College.

The research consists of a literature review validated by primary sources, composed of four 30-minute, semi-structured expert interviews with college-level design educators, administrators, and students (both current and former).

A modified, “human-centred” STEEP V (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Values) framework provides context to the findings.The output is actionable and threefold: …

Digital Poetry Practicum: Preservice English Language Arts Teachers’ Dispositions Of New Literacies, Katie Dredger Ph.D., Susanne Nobles Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study investigated how graduate preservice teachers (PSTs) engaged in a digital practicum experience with a geographically distant secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. The graduate PSTs, enrolled in a Masters of Arts, English Education program at a university in the mid-Atlantic United States, mentored the 9th-grade students in the online spaces of a course wiki and video conferencing. In this portion of a larger study, PSTs mentored the students during a poetry unit organized by the ELA cooperating teacher and housed in the ELA classroom. A goal of this practicum was building PSTs’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Shulman, 1986) …

Design And Facilitation Of Problem-Based Learning In Graduate Teacher Education: An Ma Tesol Case, Cynthia Ann Caswell

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

This exploratory, evaluative case study introduces a new context for problem-based learning (PBL) involving an iterative, modular approach to curriculum-wide delivery of PBL in an MA TESOL program. The introduction to the curriculum context provides an overview of the design and delivery features particular to the situation. The delivery approach has established multiple roles that contribute to the design and facilitation of the learning environment: lead instructors, collaborating instructors, and students as peer teachers. These roles also identify milestones on a collaborative instructional skills trajectory for professional development. In this mixed methods study, qualitative data were collected from collaborating instructors …

Virtual Faculty Learning Community Implementation Framework, Angela Atwell, Cristina Cottom, Lisa Martino, Sara Ombres

Publications

This framework is meant to be a useful guide for those interested in creating a V-FLC. You may skip around to the various sections or read the framework from start to finish. The framework consists of twelve questions to ask as you begin developing a V-FLC, answers to these questions based on our experience, as well as a visual representation of the framework.

Using Technology To Facilitate Modeling-Based Science Education: Lessons Learned From A Meta-Analysis Of Empirical Research, Jing Lei, Patrick Heng Luo, Qiu Wang, Ji Shen, Sunghye Lee, Ye Chen

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This study focused on the integration of technologies in regular science teaching within the pedagogical framework of modeling-based instruction (MBI), a well-established instructional method in science education, and aimed to identify new trends of technology integration in MBI, explore the particular features (Interactivity, Collaboration, and Scaffolding) and affordances of new technologies, and examine the effect of technology-supported MBI on students learning outcomes. By analyzing empirical MBI studies from 2000 to 2010 through a meta-analysis and qualitatively reviewing studies from 2011-2016, this study shared three major findings: (1) computer-based software was the most commonly used technology in MBI, with Internet and …