The issue of students enrolling who are ill prepared in mathematics for university studies has been an area of concern for some time in South Africa. Various universities tried different interventions to address this problem. One example is the establishment of a bridging programme at an institution of higher learning. Technology has been discussed as support that can be provided to students. This study therefore sought to understand the adoption of technology in the teaching of mathematics at an institution of higher education in South Africa. Using Roger's diffusion of innovation theory, this study sought to understand how technology is adopted by mathematics teachers in the bridging programme. Whilst the results of the study show that some teachers have adopted technology at different scales to provide access, to supplement instruction and to encourage interaction, the results also show that some teachers are uncertain of the benefits that technology has to teaching and learning in the programme. The current talk and chalk method is seen as being essential as it is tried and tested. The study also showed that teachers did not receive support from the institution resulting in them seeking assistance from outside of the university. The study recommends that higher education institutions should provide instructional design support to ensure that teachers are not overburdened with developing technology interventions where they have little or no expertise in.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-124). / Many studies have shown that, despite, the initial hype about how the world wide web would change learning, young people and, especially, students are not necessarily inclined to use the web for learning, simply because it is available. In this dissertation, I investigate third-year multimedia students' use of the web to supplement and enhance formal course work and skills. The study investigates the use of the web for academic self-study that is not linked to direct assessment such as assignments. The dissertation is based on the premise that even where students choose technology as a career and have relatively good access to it, they do not necessarily make high use of it for learning.

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Several studies have focused on how in-person informal CS learning programs like summer camps and after-school programs impact Black girls' intent to persist in Computer Science; however, virtual informal CS learning programs remain to be studied. This mixed-methods study uses Intersectional Computing and Social Cognitive Career Theory to examine the impact of four virtual CS summer camps on Black middle school girls' intent to persist in CS. Key to the approach of the camps is the recognition that intersectional representation in the camp's community of attendees, teachers, and guest speakers and the content fosters confidence for Black girls in computing. Findings of a pre-and post-survey study of 108 camp attendees show that participating in the camps increased computing confidence and outcome expectations among Black girls at the camps. Semi-structured interviews (n=10) revealed how Black girls' intersectional identities influence their attitudes towards learning CS, both in-person at school and virtually at camp. Implications will help expand or improve virtual informal CS experiences for Black girls to reduce the barriers that may prevent them from learning CS at an early age. / Educational Administration

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Institutional inhibiting factors, and lack of motivation and support at the University of Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) result in lecturers not teaching using technology-augmented approaches. This research study investigates how a faculty-based EdTech-UEM professional development model could potentially foster Communities of Practice (CoPs) for technology-augmented pedagogical practices in UEM faculties. One way of addressing the technology-augmented pedagogical practices is to understand motivations, pedagogical practices, support and barriers of lecturers to adopt them. Lecturers (innovators and adopters: early adopters and late majority adopters) who participated in the four workshops on EdTech professional development, reported instances of innovators exhibiting peer leadership in group-learning activities during the workshops. The CoPs theoretical framework was used to investigate social learning and support among the innovators and adopters. After the workshops, which coincided with the beginning of the pandemic, 18 lecturer participants of the workshops were purposefully selected, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the goal of better understanding the support needs among lecturers (innovators and adopters) after the workshops as well as discussing the best ways to overcome potential barriers and challenges in technology-augmented pedagogical practices and provide a conducive environment for the emergence of CoPs in the adoption of technology-augmented pedagogical practices. The workshops were before the pandemic and lecturers implemented what they learnt during the pandemic. It was serendipitous as the workshops helped them to prepare for ERT even it was not the aim of the initiative that completed before the pandemic started. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the empirical data was analysed through an interpretive approach. The interpretive method looks at how people make sense of their experiences, as well as how they construct and attribute meaning to their worlds. The result of the interpretive analysis was based on the description of qualitative themes formed and related from each other in multiple case studies of both innovators and adopters. The anonymity of their responses was guaranteed.

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As perceived by Boston computer teachers, to what degree is the Computer Literacy program in the public schools of Boston serving its students and faculties? To answer this question, the goal of this research was to make an assessment of the perceptions of Boston computer teachers concerning the teaching of Computer Literacy in their schools. A review of the literature and the discussions held in connection with a pilot study showed that a reasonable set of questions could be developed to provide some definitive answers. These answers expressed not only what individual teachers do encounter on a day-to-day basis, but also what they believed should be occurring in their classrooms. A questionnaire was designed with three "Areas of Interest" to obtain data. The three "Areas of Interest" were called "Curriculum," "Facilities," and "Policies." After the pilot study-group arrived at consensus, a reliability test was conducted on the instrument. Then the questionnaire and accompanying material was mailed to every certified computer teacher listed by the City of Boston School Department. With extensive follow-up procedures, the return rate reached 78%. The computer facilities of the University of Massachusetts (Harbor Campus), using a statistics management program called "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Version X)," treated the received data. The questionnaire asked for two responses to each question: one for current practice ("Does"), and the other for desired conditions ("Should"). For each question, "SSPSx" generated Means, Mean Discrepancies, Standard Deviations, and also made ANOVA comparisons between subgroups which related to school levels taught and to years of experience in teaching Computer Literacy. The data from Boston Computer Literacy teachers ranked the three "Areas of Interest," with "Curriculum" most favorable and "Policies" least favorable. Middle school teachers with longer experience were most content with the current conditions. Those teachers with an average (four to six years) length of experience appeared to be the most disturbed, regardless of the school level at which they worked.

Interdisciplinary research has demonstrated that learning and problem solving with advanced learning technologies (ALTs) such as intelligent tutoring systems, simulations, hypermedia, serious games, and virtual reality can promote and foster the development of 21st century skills (e.g., collaboration, problem solving, self-regulated learning) by measuring and using the interactions between cognitive, affective, metacognitive, motivational, and social (CAMMS) processes. Interdisciplinary researchers focused on self-regulated learning (SRL) have developed several theoretical models which model students' CAMMS processes and their learning behaviors. However, when empirically testing these models, researchers face complicated methodological decisions around modeling, measuring, processing, and analyzing student data. Many of these questions come from examining the interactions of the various processes in relation to overall learning instead of the isolated examination of each process independent of one another. This is especially true when looking across CAMMS (e.g., metacognitive regulation and motivational engagement) and not just within a single CAMMS process (e.g., metacognitive monitoring and control). For instance, metacognition and engagement are often discussed informally in conjunction with one another, however, many models of SRL provide a cursory mention of this relationship at best, if at all. Therefore, comprehensive models of both metacognition and engagement are needed to define future work within this field. Critically, this modeling needs to be specific about the component operationalizations and interactions, the dynamics of the components, and the conditions by which metacognition and engagement may interact. This may be accomplished by utilizing a combination of online dynamic multimodal data captured during learning, reasoning, and problem solving (revealing the what, when, and for how long), and traditional offline self-reports (revealing the why) as we measure, model, and (in the future) simulate learners and their metacognitive and engagement processes.

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