Supports for K-12 Students' Engagement when Learning Online and Remotely
Creators: name: Ferguson, Sharlyn
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: emergency remote learning
subject: engagement
subject: K-12 education
subject: student webcam use
subject: COVID-19 pandemic
subject: Education
subject: Social Sciences

description: The spread of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 necessitated a global shift to learning remotely which upended traditional pedagogy and curriculum for teachers at every level of education and created new fields of inquiry in learning science. Online and distance education has existed for many years in parallel with the advancing technologies which support it (e.g., videoconferencing), yet to date, research on effective teaching practice in this field is primarily focused at the undergraduate level. K-12 teacher’s widespread experimentation with online content and pedagogies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic affords a unique opportunity to examine online and distance teaching strategies which retain elementary, middle, and high school students’ interest and enjoyment in learning when learning online and remotely to a more generalizable extent than previously possible. This dissertation encompasses two studies which each examine instructional and pedagogical strategies K-12 teachers used to teach their students online and remotely at two time points during the COVID-19 pandemic, then links these to students’ academic and affective outcomes to answer a fundamental question: what worked? This dissertation utilizes data from the School Connectedness Project, a longitudinal study of K-12 students’ learning experiences and educational outcomes between 2017 to 2021 (PI: Dr. Allison Ryan, co-PIs: Dr. Nicole Brass, Sharlyn Ferguson, Jessica Kilday). Study 1 incorporates data from 206 high school students who I surveyed two months after their school had closed per COVID-19 (two months in to their remote learning). Study 2 incorporates data I collected from 1,426 elementary school students regarding their online and remote learning experiences throughout the following 2020-2021 school year, i.e. the first year of the pandemic. Study 1 examines the array of emergency remote teaching (ERT) strategies implemented in the initial wake of school closures in Spring 2020. The goal of Study 1 was to identify patterns among the online and remote learning opportunities high schoolers reported participating in during this time, and ultimately identify those associated with students’ higher levels of engagement in learning and positive affect post-transition (after shifting from learning in person to remotely). Study 1 further clarifies the importance of differences in student’s home environments, individual characteristics and daily routines, perceptions towards technology and learning remotely, on student’s engagement and positive affect post-transition. Study 2 provides a multi-level investigation of student webcam use in virtual class sessions respective to student academic outcomes. The goal of Study 2 was to clarify student and classroom characteristics predictive of specifically younger students’ (elementary school students) (non)use of their webcam in virtual classes, as well as identify whether individual frequency or classroom-level norms of webcam use are tied to students’ academic outcomes (level of engagement in learning and end-of-year achievement). The findings of this dissertation are targeted to provide evidence-based recommendations and guidance to elementary, middle, and high school educators’ emergency remote teaching efforts as well as decisions when creating an online course for their younger student populations. These findings also have further implications for future K-12 online and distance learning policies.