ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Student Engagement as a Predictor of xMOOC Completion: An Analysis from Five Courses on Energy Sustainability
Author: Guajardo Leal, Brenda Edith
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Learner Engagement,Predictor Variables,Online Courses,Energy Conservation,Sustainability,Electronic Learning,Learning Analytics,Educational Environment,Self Efficacy,Self Control

MOOCs are characterized as being courses to which a large number of students enroll, but only a small fraction completes them. An understanding of students' engagement construct is essential to minimize dropout rates. This research is of a quantitative design and exploratory in nature and investigates the interaction between contextual factors (demographic characteristics), student engagement types (academic, behavioral, cognitive and affective), and learning outcomes, with the objective of identifying the factors that are associated with completion of massive and open online courses. Two logistic models were adjusted in two samples, general and secondary, with the binary dependent variable defined as completes the course yes/no. The results in the general sample (15% completion rate) showed that the probabilities of a participant completing the course are positively and significantly related to participation in the forum and the participant educational level, and negatively related to gender (female) and age. The results in the secondary sample (87% completion rate) showed that the probabilities of a participant completing the course are positively and significantly related to participation in the forum, gender (female), and the motivation and satisfaction indexes, and negatively related to age, having previous experience in other MOOCs, and self-efficacy and task strategies indexes. The results lead to ideas on how these variables can be used to support students to persist in these learning environments.
NSBECS Program Effectiveness Surveys: A Tool for Strategic Planning and School Improvement
Author: Faber, David
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Program Effectiveness,Surveys,Strategic Planning,School Effectiveness,Academic Standards,National Standards,Catholic Schools,Benchmarking,Accreditation (Institutions),Middle School Students,High School Students,Middle School Teachers,High School Teachers,Parents,Parent Attitudes,Teacher Attitudes,Student Attitudes

When the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools (NSBECS) were first developed, principal and superintendent of Catholic schools in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan, David Faber writes in this article of his elation at the possibilities for measuring quality and for addressing total school improvement that the standards would provide. After being introduced to the standards, he began promoting their use within the diocese to benefit strategic planning and school improvement efforts. As a direct beneficiary of the new system, schools in Faber's diocese were able to take full advantage of the tools and resources provided by the Catholic School Standards Project website not only to assist through the accreditation process but also as a framework for strategic planning and school improvement. Faber describes how the program effectiveness surveys proved to be valuable because of their close alignment to the standards and the ability to use the data gathered to inform planning and to track school improvement progress. Faber specifically affirms the program's effectiveness surveys as an integral tool embedded within the planning and improvement processes of his diocese. He says the survey results are used as a 360-degree element of the administrator appraisal process. The results are also shared each year with both the pastor and the school's local board of limited jurisdiction. The surveys are also used as part of the collection of evidence during the self-study and accreditation school visit. Lessons learned from the field are provided in this article.
Posting Patterns of Students&apos; Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Teaching Presence in Online Learning
Author: Kilis, Selcan
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Teacher Student Relationship,Associate Degrees,Asynchronous Communication,Computer Mediated Communication,Integrated Learning Systems,Student Behavior,Class Size,Undergraduate Students,Social Media,Foreign Countries

Using the Community of Inquiry framework, this case study probes the posting patterns of students' social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence in an online learning setting. Using purposive sampling, qualitative data were collected from 91 students in the Department of Medical Documentary and Secretary, a fully online associate degree program at a well-known public university. Students participated in six online asynchronous discussion activities on Moodle. The data were analyzed through descriptive and deductive transcript analysis. The findings revealed students' posting behaviors of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence were at a substantially high level, and could be enhanced during treatment fairly significantly. The most important points behind a high level of social presence and cognitive presence were found to be the topics based on real-life cases and scenarios and reflective course activities. The findings further indicated that the difficulty caused by large class size in online discussion could be resolved.
A Structural Equation Model of Predictors of Online Learners&apos; Engagement and Satisfaction
Author: Kucuk, Sevda
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Electronic Learning,Learner Engagement,Student Satisfaction,Graduate Students,Predictor Variables,Structural Equation Models

This study investigated the structural relationships among online learners' teaching, social, and cognitive presence, engagement, and satisfaction. Data were collected from graduate students enrolled in an online graduate program at a large midwestern public university through online surveys. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. According to the results, teaching presence, cognitive presence, emotional engagement, behavioral engagement, and cognitive engagement were significant predictors of satisfaction, and these determinants explained 88% of the variance in satisfaction. The results indicate that the dominant determinant of the satisfaction was teaching presence, which had direct and indirect effects on satisfaction. Moreover, the study revealed significant predictors of emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and agentic engagement. Implications are discussed in terms of theoretical insights, practices for online learning environments, and further research directions.
Promoting Sense of Belonging in Online Learning Communities of Inquiry in Accredited Courses
Author: Peacock, Susi
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Communities of Practice,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Teacher Role,Teacher Student Relationship,Large Group Instruction,Peer Relationship,Higher Education,College Faculty,College Students

A sense of belonging (SoB) is a valued concept in campus-based learning, being firmly linked with improved student attainment, increased learner satisfaction, and reduced attrition rates. Some researchers, echoing the work of Maslow (1962), even assert that learners cannot fulfill the goals of higher education without acquiring SoB. This study recognizes that SoB can help promote and consolidate online learning and seeks to suggest how tutors may nurture online learners' SoB. An adapted version of the Community of Inquiry framework (CoIF) is used to frame specific suggestions for action in accredited courses. This revision of the well-known framework focuses on the overlapping intersections of the three presences, which are also known as &quot;influences&quot;: &quot;trusting,&quot; &quot;meaning-making,&quot; and &quot;deepening understandings.&quot; Guidance illustrated with examples is provided for each influence, leading to particular suggestions that concentrate on the promotion of a sense of belonging as an important aspect of the online tutor's facilitative activities.
Sowing the NSBECS: Professional Development Approaches for Sustained Catholic School Change
Author: Melley, Kristin Barstow
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Faculty Development,Catholic Schools,Organizational Change,Sustainability,School Effectiveness,National Standards,Academic Standards,Benchmarking,Program Effectiveness,Management Development,Administrators,Leadership Training,Instructional Leadership,Immersion Programs,Bilingual Education,Networks,College School Cooperation,Partnerships in Education

All Catholic schools face difficulties of one kind or another, some self-made, some inherited. The rise and fall of new school models over the past 15 years remind us that there are no silver bullets to mend these challenges. Instead there are seeds, carefully selected and properly placed, tended and tethered as seedlings, taking root and transforming the landscape. Sowers toil together, transforming seeds into life-giving harvest. In Catholic schools, the community sows the seeds of change, and the many hands that help need shared knowledge and guidance to complete the task. Sowers of change have found this guidance in the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools (NSBECS) (Ozar &amp; Weitzel-O'Neil, 2012). This article highlights two professional development programs that depend on the NCSBECS to sow change: the Emmaus Leadership Series and the Two-way Immersion Network for Catholic Schools (TWIN-CS)--signature programs of Boston College's Roche Center for Catholic Education. Provided is a brief description of the programs and their use of the NSBECS followed by a discussion of what the author has observed from this work and what value these lessons have for others responsible for successful Catholic schools.
Designing and Developing Video Lessons for Online Learning: A Seven-Principle Model
Author: Ou, Chaohua
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Video Technology,Electronic Learning,Instructional Development,Instructional Design,Instructional Materials,Graduate Study,Models,Computer Science Education,Graduate Students,Student Attitudes,Instructional Effectiveness,College Instruction,Online Courses

Despite the ubiquitous use of instructional videos in both formal and informal learning settings, questions remain largely unanswered on how to design and develop video lessons that are often used as the primary method for delivering instruction in online courses. In this study, we experimented with a model of seven principles drawn from instructional design theories for designing and developing video lessons for an online graduate course. Feedback was collected from students through surveys on their perceptions of the effectiveness of the video lessons and the overall course quality for eight semesters. This paper shares the instructors' experience on the design and development of the video lessons as well as the survey findings. Implications of the findings for instructional design and future research are also discussed.
Learner Engagement in Blended Learning Environments: A Conceptual Framework
Author: Halverson, Lisa R.
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Learner Engagement,Blended Learning,Definitions,Models,Educational Research,Research Problems

Learner engagement correlates with important educational outcomes, including academic achievement and satisfaction. Although research is already exploring learner engagement in blended contexts, no theoretical framework guides inquiry or practice, and little consistency or specificity exists in engagement definitions and operationalizations. Developing definitions, models, and measures of the factors that indicate learner engagement is important to establishing whether changes in instructional methods (facilitators) result in improved engagement (measured via indicators). This article reviews the existing literature on learner engagement and identifies constructs most relevant to learning in general and blended learning in particular. The authors present a possible conceptual framework for engagement that includes cognitive and emotional indicators, offering examples of research measuring these engagement indicators in technology-mediated learning contexts. The authors suggest future studies to test the framework, which they believe will support advances in blended learning engagement research that is increasingly real time, minimally intrusive, and maximally generalizable across subject matter contexts.
Supporting Continued Academic Success, Resilience, and Agency of Boys in Urban Catholic Alternative Middle Schools
Author: Fenzel, L. Mickey
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Resilience (Psychology),Males,Urban Schools,Catholic Schools,Nontraditional Education,African American Students,Hispanic American Students,Adolescents,Mexican Americans,Outcomes of Education,Student Attitudes,Middle School Students,Middle Schools,Self Efficacy,Social Capital,Leadership Training,Peer Relationship,Teacher Student Relationship,Mentors,Caring,Alumni

The persistent inequalities in urban public education in the U.S. that have left far too many Black and Hispanic male students behind with respect to academic skill development, high school graduation, and college success have led Catholic groups to provide alternative secondary school models to advance the academic and career success of urban students. One of these initiatives is the NativityMiguel model school, the first of which opened in New York City in 1971. The present study examines the lived experience, with respect to benefits of this education on the subsequent academic and career successes, of male graduates of two of these schools, one for African American, or Black, students and one for Mexican American students in different parts of the country. Analyses of interviews with 37 graduates showed that they benefitted from the schools' approach to academic skill development and the building of resilience, leadership, and a commitment to service in the context of a community that continued to support the development of resilience after middle school graduation. Differences in aspects of the two programs are examined along with the implications for making use of the schools' initiatives on a larger scale.
An Argument for Levinasian Ethics and the Arts with Considerations for Pedagogy
Author: Parker, Lana
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Ethics,Art,Social Distance,Philosophy,Instruction,Art Education,Listening,Responsibility,Freedom,Responses,Multiple Literacies

At a time when an ethics based on responsibility for the Other offers a counter to the individualism of neoliberal ideology, I argue that it is crucial to recuperate the possibility of creating the conditions for ethical moments of facing through all means possible, including art. I deliberate the possibilities for art in sustaining Levinas's conception of an ethical intersubjective interaction, including: the call to listen to the Other, the implications of being called into question, the overflow of self, and the humility of response. To begin, I contemplate art as an Other that is able to face and break apart the &quot;bonne conscience.&quot; Second, I posit that the overflow that results from an interaction with the Other, as the &quot;bonne conscience&quot; is surpassed, can serve as a source of inspiration for artistic creation. Third, in the face of the ethical call, though one is first required to listen, one also has an obligation to respond; I contend that art can operate here, too, as a means of reply. I conclude the work with a discussion of the implications for pedagogy, including art as a means of broadening sociality.
Teaching While Praying, Praying While Teaching: An Interactional Sociolinguistics of Educational Prayer
Author: LeBlanc, Robert Jean
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teaching Methods,Religious Factors,Sociolinguistics,Catholic Educators,Catholic Schools,Religious Education,Language Usage,Semiotics,High School Teachers,Classroom Techniques,School Prayer

What are the linguistic resources for teachers who pray in contemporary Catholic school classrooms? This article considers the intersections of prayer and language practice, and makes central two arguments. The first is that educational prayer--a particular type of teacher-led extemporaneous prayer in Catholic schools--is a linguistic phenomenon, a highly-flexible set of linguistic resources, captured within a special interactional frame marked by ambiguous boundaries which contains both prescribed formulaic linguistic properties and those which allow the performer to attend to real time classroom contingencies. Drawing on interactional data from a Catholic school classroom, this article delimits the contextualization of linguistic signs during prayer: how teachers indicate the connection between their words and the sociocultural frameworks which are relevant for that action. The second is that both interactional sociolinguists and Catholic school researchers would greatly benefit from attending to these linguistic features, from seeing prayer unfold in real-time.
The National Catholic Standards as a Unifying Strategy
Author: Fortier, Henry
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: National Standards,Catholic Schools,School Effectiveness,Benchmarking,Academic Standards,Principals,Management Development,Teacher Evaluation,Strategic Planning,Accreditation (Institutions),Alignment (Education),Educational Development,Skill Development,Creative Thinking,Critical Thinking,Religious Factors,Religious Education,Moral Values,Instructional Leadership,Empathy

Henry Fortier began his new role as Superintendent for the Diocese of Orlando Florida in the same school year (2011-2012) as the publication of the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS). Fortier gave himself a six-month window to immerse himself in the diocese and learn the culture of the Catholic community in Orlando. In the first few weeks, he met with various groups that included teachers, assistant principals, office staff, curriculum committees, and visited schools. During one visit the principal, a 40-year veteran in Catholic education, pointed out one serious issue. As she articulated her frustrations she pointed to several binders on her bookshelf labeled, Florida Catholic Conference (FCC) Accreditation, Principal Growth Results, Diocese of Orlando Strategic Plan, School Strategic Plan, and School Support Visit. Each binder represented thorough and comprehensive information for achieving and maintaining Catholic schools' quality; however, each binder was distinctly different. This experienced principal posed the question, &quot;Which plan do I follow?&quot; it soon became clear that at the diocesan level there were challenging issues. These issues included the following: (1) The diocese needed a new principal growth process; (2) The teacher evaluation tool was different for every principal; (3) School-based strategic plans did not align with accreditation action plans or diocesan strategic plans; and (4) A curriculum initiative, in its fifth year with major software issues, was causing dissention among the teachers and principals. This article describes how Fortier, using knowledge he had gained from previous professional experiences, was able to help the Orlando Diocesan schools move forward to develop a new accreditation process. The multiple binders that once filled the office shelves are gone now and, if possible, all components of operations have been connected like the spokes on a wheel around the NSBECS empowering the mission of the Diocese of Orlando to proclaim the Gospel message within an academic environment that challenges students to be creative and critical thinkers who integrate faith, moral leadership and compassionate service to create a more just and humane world.
Beyond the Competencies Agenda in Large-Scale International Assessments: A Confucian Alternative
Author: Tan, Charlene
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Competency Based Education,Measurement,Confucianism,Adults,Foreign Countries,International Assessment,Secondary School Students,Achievement Tests,Interpersonal Relationship,Technological Literacy,21st Century Skills,Interpersonal Competence,Individual Development,Cultural Context,Ethics,Decision Making,Student Motivation,Rote Learning,Moral Values,Behavior Standards,Asian Culture

This article examines a Confucian conception of competence and its corresponding response to the competencies agenda that underpins international large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It is argued that standardised transnational assessments are undergirded by a technical rationality that emphasises proficiency in discrete skills for their instrumental worth at the expense of moral cultivation and personal mastery. Challenging the competencies agenda, this paper draws upon a relational model of competence proposed by Jones and Moore (1995) that views competence as essentially communal, situated within social practices, and manifested through tacit achievement. Building on their work, a Confucian notion of competence is advocated wherein skills are predicated on the virtue of &quot;ren&quot; (humanity) and demonstrated through appropriate judgement in everyday settings. A Confucian perspective offers an alternative to the behaviourist and generic notions of performance in global assessments by highlighting the interpersonal, cultural, and ethical dimensions of competence.
Didactic Strategy for Learning and Teaching of Functional Groups in High School Chemistry
Author: Perez-Rivero, Mayra Guadalupe
Date: 2019-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Science Instruction,High School Students,Secondary School Science,Chemistry,Experimental Groups,Control Groups,Foreign Countries,Bulletin Boards,Visual Aids,Educational Equipment,Educational Technology,Interactive Video

With the aim of improving the teaching and learning of chemistry functional groups, a didactic strategy was designed based on real-life situations. This strategy was used at the high school level, in the subject of &quot;Chemistry II.&quot; One group of students was taught functional groups using interactive board software through different dynamics (experimental group), and another group was taught traditionally (control group). Learning was evaluated through a series of questions, exercise solving, and scientific problems. Results indicate that the group of students in which the interactive board software was used achieved higher learning levels in comparison to the control group, which was traditionally taught.