scholarly journals COVID-19: The Disproportionate Impact on Underserved K-12 Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-21
Author(s):  
Janelle Hall ◽  
Leonard Jackson ◽  
Taurus Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Technology Learning ◽  
Online Curriculum ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this content analysis was to show the impact COVID-19 had on K-12 instructional method delivery, technology, learning, and academic achievement. The following questions guided the content analysis: How did COVID-19 impact student and academic achievement, how did the pandemic impact education and instruction method delivery in a virtual learning environment, and how did the pandemic affect teacher & student access to technology? The population consisted of K-12 educational leaders and students who completed surveys in previous studies. The findings via content analysis revealed that online education seems to be deeply rooted in the careful planning of instruction. We found that leaders were having a difficult time making the necessary adjustments with remote learning. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 has changed the way many students come to class. There is a need for K-12 institutions to strengthen their best practices relating to online curriculum and instruction demonstrated during in-person learning. Key Words: Student learning K-12, academic & instructional effectiveness, technology effectiveness, COVID-19, underserved communities

scholarly journals Educating Educational Leaders in a Blended Professional Doctorate Program: An Initial Action Research Inquiry

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Strom ◽  
Bradley Porfilio ◽  
Bobbie Plough
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Learning Program ◽  
Professional Doctorate ◽  
Initial Action ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

This paper describes the first cycle of an action research study investigating the impact of new blended learning courses in a professional doctorate program, the results of which will inform future course planning and pedagogy.  Specifically, core researcher-faculty members associated with the program were interested in understanding how a blended learning program impacted students’ learning experiences. In our findings from this initial inquiry, we detail both constraining and enabling elements of the hybrid experiences provided to students. We also describe the revised action plan created from these findings to improve our ability to utilize the online portion of our doctoral coursework to meet our larger goals of preparing educational leaders to fight for issues of social justice in K-12 settings and beyond.

scholarly journals An Exploratory Study of Online Equity: Differential Levels of Technological Access and Technological Efficacy Among Underserved and Underrepresented Student Populations in Higher Education

10.28945/4664 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 093-121
Author(s):  
Madhumita Banerjee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Transfer Students ◽  
Academic Outcomes ◽  
Educational Equity ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Access To Technology ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to explore levels of Technological Access (ownership, access to, and usage of computer devices as well as access to Internet services) and levels of Technological Efficacy (technology related skills) as they pertain to underserved (UNS) and underrepresented (UNR) students. Background: There exists a positive correlation between technology related access, technology related competence, and academic outcomes. An increasing emphasis on expanding online education at the author’s institution, consistent with nationwide trends, means that it is unlikely that just an increase in online offerings alone will result in an improvement in the educational attainment of students, especially if such students lack access to technology and the technology related skills needed to take advantage of online learning. Most studies on levels of Technological Access and Technological Efficacy have dealt with either K-12 or minority populations with limited research on UNS and UNR populations who form the majority of students at the author’s institution. Methodology: This study used a cross-sectional survey research design to investigate the research questions. A web survey was sent to all students at the university except first semester new and first semester transfer students from various disciplines (n = 535). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the survey data. Contribution: This research provides insight on a population (UNS and UNR) that is expanding in higher education. However, there is limited information related to levels of Technological Access and Technological Efficacy for this group. This paper is timely and relevant as adequate access to technology and technological competence is critical for success in the expanding field of online learning, and the research findings can be used to guide and inform subsequent actions vital to bridging any educational equity gap that might exist. Findings: A critical subset of the sample who were first generation, low income, and non-White (FGLINW) had significantly lower levels of Technological Access. In addition, nearly half of the survey sample used smartphones to access online courses. Technological Efficacy scores were significantly lower for students who dropped out of or never enrolled in an online course. Transfer students had significantly higher Technological Efficacy scores while independent students (determined by tax status for federal financial aid purposes) reflected higher Technological Efficacy, but at a marginally lower level of significance. Recommendations for Practitioners: Higher education administrators and educators should take into consideration the gaps in technology related access and skills to devise institutional interventions as well as formulate pedagogical approaches that account for such gaps in educational equity. This will help ensure pathways to sustained student success given the rapidly growing landscape of online education. Recommendation for Researchers: Similar studies need to be conducted in other institutions serving UNS and UNR students in order to bolster findings and increase awareness. Impact on Society: The digital divide with respect to Technological Access and Technological Efficacy that impacts UNS and UNR student populations must be addressed to better prepare such groups for both academic and subsequent professional success. Addressing such gaps will not only help disadvantaged students maximize their educational opportunities but will also prepare them to navigate the challenges of an increasingly technology driven society. Future Research: Given that it is more challenging to write papers and complete projects using a smartphone, is there a homework gap for UNS and UNR students that may impact their academic success? What is the impact of differing levels of Technological Efficacy on specific academic outcomes of UNS and UNR students?

scholarly journals Validation of an instrument for measuring the technology acceptance of a virtual learning environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro César Santana-Mancilla ◽  
Osval Antonio Montesinos-López ◽  
Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz ◽  
Juan José Contreras-Castillo ◽  
Laura Sanely Gaytan-Lugo
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Virtual Learning Environments ◽  
Latent Factors ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
Confirmatory Factor

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) provide platforms to make online education more convenient and affordable for learners. Although VLE are currently in great demand, their acceptance needs to be assessed. In this research, an instrument that measures the technology acceptance of a VLE is validated by applying a confirmatory factor analysis on 15 items and five factors. Results show that the overall fit of the model was satisfactory and that all correlations between the latent factors were higher than 0.48. It was found that the assessment of technology acceptance is very important, because the VLE’s success depends largely on the favorable reception of professors, researchers, and educational leaders.

scholarly journals Teaching with Digital Technology and the Impact on Pedagogical Changes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harisa Mardiana ◽  
Harisa Mardiana
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Pedagogical Change ◽  
Online Pedagogy ◽  
Continuous Training ◽  
Technology Learning ◽  
Online Curriculum ◽  
Face To Face Learning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pedagogical Changes

This study aims to investigate lecturer teaching using digital technology and its impact on pedagogical change. The change from face-to-face learning to online learning has implications for educational institutions. <div><p>The problem is that many lecturers find it difficult to use digital technology in teaching, so that it is not in line with online pedagogy and online curriculum. The knowledge, abilities, and skills of the lecturers are questioned because there is no such alignment. Thus the impact of pedagogical change on online teaching is contradictory. Moreover, the components of digital technology and pedagogical changes will be fragmented.</p> <p>The research method approach is qualitative by interviewing six lecturers who teach at one university in Tangerang City. The findings obtained, three lecturers are knowledgeable, capable, and skilled in using digital technology to align with changes in online pedagogy. The other three lecturers have difficulty using digital technology, so the institution must provide continuous training so that learning can run smoothly.</p> As a result, by using digital technology that impacts pedagogical changes and online curricula, learning can run smoothly, despite the many difficulties in adopting digital technology. Learning using digital technology is a 21st-century learning process.<br></div>

Investigating the Impact of Interactive Immersive Virtual Reality Environments in Enhancing Task Performance in Online Engineering Design Activities

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajay Karthic B. Gopinath Bharathi ◽  
Conrad S. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Virtual Reality System ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The Impact

The objective of this paper is to test the hypothesis that immersive virtual reality environments such as those achievable through the head-mounted displays, enhance task performance in online engineering design activities. In this paper, task performance is measured by the time to complete a given engineering activity. Over the last decade, a wide range of virtual reality applications have been developed based on non-immersive and immersive virtual reality systems for educational purposes. However, a major limitation of non-immersive virtual reality systems is the lack of an immersive experience that not only provides content to students, but also enables them to interact and learn in a completely 360 degree immersive environment. The authors of this work have developed a replica of a physical engineering laboratory in an interactive virtual learning environment. This research measures the difference in task performance between i) students exposed to an immersive virtual reality system and ii) students exposed to a non-immersive virtual reality system, in the interactive virtual environment developed by the research team. This research seeks to explore whether statistically significant differences in performance exist between these groups. Knowledge gained from testing this hypothesis will inform educators about the value and impact of immersive virtual reality technologies in enhancing online education. A case study involving 54 students in a product functional analysis task is used to test the hypothesis.

scholarly journals Student Enrollment Patterns and Achievement in Ohio’s Online Charter Schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
June Ahn ◽  
Andrew McEachin
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Charter Schools ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Enrollment ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Enrollment Patterns ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

We utilize state data of nearly 1.7 million students in Ohio to study a specific sector of online education: K–12 schools that deliver most, if not all, education online, lack a brick-and-mortar presence, and enroll students full-time. First, we explore e-school enrollment patterns and how these patterns vary by student subgroups and geography. Second, we evaluate the impact of e-schools on students’ learning, comparing student outcomes in e-schools to outcomes in two other schooling types, traditional charter schools and traditional public schools. Our results show that students and families appear to self-segregate in stark ways where low-income, lower achieving White students are more likely to choose e-schools while low-income, lower achieving minority students are more likely to opt into the traditional charter school sector. Our results also show that students in e-schools are performing worse on standardized assessments than their peers in traditional charter and traditional public schools. We close with policy recommendations and areas for future research.

Striving for Equity in Pandemic Times

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-223
Author(s):  
Linsay DeMartino ◽  
S. Gavin Weiser
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
Crisis Leadership ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Communication Support ◽  
Educational Administrators ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

This chapter considers the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the reality of educational administrators in U.S.-based institutions of education. Looking closely at 17 educational administrators from both K-12 systems and institutions of higher education, the authors come to a more comprehensive understanding of crisis leadership and its impact on equitable educational practices – both for students as well as for the administrators themselves. This chapter is based on a larger project the authors undertook to explore through narratives and photography the experiences of administrators during the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020. This chapter illustrates the ways that communication, support, and equitable solutions for the learning community are and are not well articulated by leaders. The authors close out this chapter with recommendations for educational leaders during times of crisis as well as for potential follow-up research.

Hospital Homebound Students and K-12 Online Schooling: A Cross-Sectional Analysis (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Black ◽  
Richard E. Ferdig ◽  
April Fleetwood ◽  
Lindsay A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Cross Sectional Analysis ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Sectional Analysis ◽  
The Impact

BACKGROUND The United States public educational system encourages inclusion, integrating learners with different needs in the same classroom students, including those with chronic disability and illness. However, a small but significant number of students with chronic illnesses or disabilities may not be healthy enough to attend school in a traditional environment. Hospital homebound programs serve these children by providing educational instruction for those living with short-term and chronic disabilities in non-school settings. These programs are publicly supported, differing significantly from homeschooling where, traditionally, a child’s parent or guardian assumes responsibility for the delivery of educational services. The limited research exploring hospital homebound programs describes them as challenged, characterized by instructors who may lack the qualifications to teach critical core subject matters and teach with limited instructional time. As online learning continues to become more mainstream in the United States, it is important to explore the impact that the medium could have on students with differing needs. The flexibility afforded by online education may provide opportunities for learners with disability that necessitates absence from traditional learning environments. OBJECTIVE This study sought to describe how a subset of learners with disability, those with a hospital-homebound designation, perform in K-12 online classes, particularly as compared to non-hospital homebound counterparts. METHODS A cross-sectional analysis was performed of all Florida Virtual School course enrollments from August 1, 2012, to July 31, 2018. Researchers analyzed 2,534-course enrollments associated with students who, at the time of their course enrollment, had hospital-homebound designation, and a comparison group of 5,470,591 enrollments from students without hospital-homebound status. RESULTS Hospital-homebound designed student academic performance was equivalent to their non-hospital homebound counterparts (P = .05 - .28). But, hospital-homebound course enrollments were 26% more likely to result in a withdrawal prior to grade generation (P < .01). CONCLUSIONS Hospital-homebound students represent a population under-served by many education systems, including online education. The results of this study provided evidence that when they can remain enrolled, hospital-homebound learners experience equivalent academic outcomes in online learning environments. These findings suggest that healthcare professionals should be made aware of the potentially equivalent outcomes for their patients, and virtual schools should seek to identify and create supports for these students.

scholarly journals The Effect of Online Learning on The Academic Achievement Among Students of Jordanian Private Universities in Light of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Based on The Variables of Comprehension and Analysis from The Perspective of Faculty Member

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 242-255
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Ali Al-Bahar ◽  
Rawan Fayyad Flouh ◽  
Rawan Al-Sulaihat
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Survey Method ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Descriptive Survey ◽  
The Impact

The current study aimed to identify the impact of online learning on the academic achievement among students of private Jordanian universities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sample, which was a stratified random sample, consisted of (378) faculty members. Descriptive survey method was used in the current study. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a questionnaire was developed, and its validity and reliability were verified. The results showed that the effect of online learning on the academic achievement among students of private Jordanian universities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic was average; results of the study also showed statistically significant differences at the significance level (a less or equal 0.05) according to the gender variable in favor of females, and no statistically significant differences according to either the type of college variable, or years of experience’ variables. In light of these results, the study recommended that private Jordanian universities pay great attention to online education, providing it with the appropriate infrastructure, because this may contribute to enriching the cognitive skills received, upgrading students' behavioral level, and actively contributing to improving students’ academic achievement.

scholarly journals Administrative Leadership in Times of a Global Health Crisis: Voices and Images From the Field

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linsay DeMartino ◽  
S. Gavin Weiser
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Educational Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Hermeneutic Phenomenological ◽  
Educational Administrators ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic took the world into crisis. We saw the virus alter a multitude of spheres worldwide, including our healthcare, economies, politics, social processes, and education. In fact, the impact of COVID-19 on educational administration took our leaders into forced emergency measures. Our study aims to better understand the experiences of educational administrators under crisis to ascertain what might be learned on how educational institutions may better respond to the crisis in the future. These stories were collected from educational leaders, both from K-12 and higher education, throughout the United States. In brief, this article is framed in the theory and literature associated with the complexity of leading in times of crisis. We explore the resiliency of leadership forged in crisis and the rethinking of administrative as administration as a caring and trustful acts. Our research began as a hermeneutic phenomenological interview study, but transitions into a two-round project, where after the first interview, participants were invited to share some images that typify and speak to the experiences being educational administrators during this time. We are engaged in sensitive topics that are ongoing and changing. Moreover, throughout, we are asking for images that speak to their experiences. Across both K-12 and higher education, our results indicated varied responses, from immediate to delayed administrative action. However, albeit they looked contextually different, there are clear indications the participants valued continuous, transparent communication, authentic caring, trust, and agency. In our discussion, we elaborate on the distinction between what the institutional response was as compared to what was valued by our educational leaders. Finally, as a contribution to the field, we seek to provide guidance for future administrators in crisis based on our own experiences and the recommendations provided by our educational leaders.

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