The purpose of this comparative, quantitative study was to explore the relationship of interim test scores among remote and in-person learners, low-income students, and students with disabilities. In March 2020, a portion of students enrolled in a K-12 school in Northeast Tennessee was moved into remote learning until the end of the school year in May 2020. In July 2020, parents were given the option for their child to attend remote or in-person learning. While some chose in-person learning, giving reasons such as child-care, work obligations, or personal preference, others chose for their children to continue to receive online learning due to health concerns brought on by the pandemic. Since these decisions were made, some parents that originally opted for online learning chose to send their child back to school due to perceived obstacles faced within the online environment. This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of online learning in comparison to in-person learning for students grades three – six separated into the following categories: general population, students with disabilities, and low-income students. Comparison of both mathematics and literacy interim third quarter checkpoint data were analyzed using SPSS software to conduct a series of independent t-tests. Data were analyzed at the 0.05 level of significance. Twelve research questions were addressed testing corresponding null hypotheses. Results included third grade online literacy scores significantly exceeding the scores of in-person. Mean literacy and math scores were approximately equal for online and in-person learners. Overall, scores for students with disabilities and low socio-economic students were approximately equal whether the learners were online or in-person.

A literature review was performed to examine the existing research on COVID-19 lockdown as it relates to ADHD child/adolescent individuals, media use, and impact on their educational performance and learning. It was surmised that with the COVID-19 epidemic prompting a transition to remote learning, a less structured and isolated learning environment, combined with increased screen time, would impair ADHD individuals’ performance and learning. A literature search for articles published between 2020 and 2021 from Pubmed, Google Scholar, PsychInfo, was performed. Search phrases and keywords included “covid, ADHD, child, impact, remote learning, media, screen”. Studies primarily utilized parental reports, with very few from the perspective of the ADHD individuals’ themselves. It was found that with the COVID-19 quarantine and transition to online learning, ADHD individuals’ experienced decreased ability to keep focused or adhere to daily routine, as well as increased inattention-related problems, such as careless mistakes or lack of completion in homework, which in turn translated into overall subjective reports of “more difficulty with remote learning.” Increased screen time, television, social media and gaming were noted amongst ADHD individuals. The suggested impact of increased screen time and media use was that ADHD children with problematic digital media use suffer from more severe core symptoms of ADHD, negative emotions, executive function deficits, damage on family environment, pressure from life events, and a lower motivation to learn. With these findings, it would be expected that the number of new ADHD cases, prescriptions for and usage of stimulants for treatment would rise amidst the COVID epidemic. However, data has not been studied or well documented thus far. Further research could extend to studying the impact of remote learning on neurotypical children and the risk for misdiagnosis of ADHD in children and adolescents or over-prescribing medications to youths with and without ADHD.

Lecture recording has become an essential tool for educational institutions to enhance the student learning experience and offer online courses for remote learning programs. Highresolution 4K cameras have gained popularity in these systems due to their affordability and clarity of written content on boards/screens. Unfortunately, at 4K resolution, a typical 45- minute lecture video easily exceeds 2GB. Many video files of this size place a financial burden on institutions and students, especially in developing countries where financial resources are limited. Institutions require costly high-end equipment to capture, store and distribute this ever-increasing collection of videos. Students require a fast internet connection with a large data quota for off-campus viewing, which can be too expensive for many, especially if they use mobile data. This project designs and implements a low-cost presenter and writing detection front-end that can integrate with an external Virtual Cinematographer (VC). Gesture detection was also explored; however, the frame differencing approach used for presenter detection was not sufficiently robust for gesture detection. Our front-end is carefully designed to run on commodity computers without requiring expensive Graphics Processing Units (GPU) or servers. An external VC can use our contextual information to segment a smaller cropping window from the 4K frame, only containing the presenter and relevant boards, drastically reducing the file size of the resultant videos while preserving writing clarity. The software developed as part of this project will be available as open source. Our results show that the front-end module is fit for purpose and sufficiently robust across several challenging lecture venue types. On average, a 2-minute video clip is processed by the front-end in under 60 seconds (or approximately half of the input video duration). The majority (89%) of this time is used for reading and decoding frames from storage. Additionally, our low-cost presenter detection achieves an overall F1-Score of 0.76, while our writing detection achieves an overall F1-Score of 0.55. We also demonstrate a mean reduction of 81.3% in file size from the original 4K video to a cropped 720p video when using our front-end in a full pipeline with an external VC.

For effective remote learning realization we need the complex intelligent remote system, which would keep special and structured material for learning and tests of knowledge. Feedback is the most important thing for learning. In the usual way feedback takes a lot of teacher time, therefore it is very useful to practice electronic system functions for control of feedback and reduction of teachers work time. Creation of complex intelligent eLearning system needs profound knowledge of programming, pedagogical and strategic knowledge, therefore this work would be impossible for one person. The knowledge of study is very important too. Therefore we could use made-up open source remote learning system and readjust for our interests. We use remote learning open source system Moodle and use this system in practice. From practice in lessons of informatics and ECDL learning planning we could propose that this system is really very flexible and useful in learning processes. The suggestion of new well-tried remote learning method – learning with tests show that it is very effective method in learning processes.

There has been a significant increase in the level of remote or distance learning using the Internet, often referred to as e-learning or online education. E-learning is often combined with classroom instruction and on-the-job training and this is referred to as blended learning. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact blended learning has in improving engineering training in the engineering field of industrial automation. This is especially in improving the reaction, achievement and return on investment of learners compared to that of only the traditional classroom or e-learning approaches. One of the gaps in current research is the examination of the impact of blended learning in improving engineering training. The research revealed significant growth in the use of e-learning for engineers and technicians. There would however appear to be a large number of engineers and technicians who were disappointed with their experiences of e-learning. Significant concerns were also identified in the efficacy of e-learning and the lack of hands-on experience in this form of training for engineers and technicians. Suggestions are made as a result of the research into addressing these issues.

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The present study explored student perceptions of instructor support in remote learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand inequities in their learning experiences. Participants self-reported perceptions of instructor support, online learning experiences, mental health symptoms, and wellbeing. Bivariate correlation testing and linear regression modeling were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that students' student-instructor rapport is associated with higher perception of instructor support. Further, higher perceptions of instructor support were associated with significantly lower symptoms of depression, anxiety, and academic-related stress. Higher degrees of students' self-regulated learning behaviors were associated with lower perceived instructor support. There were no gender differences or differences based on first-generation student status in comfort asking instructors for academic support. These findings highlight the importance of developing teaching practices that promote comfort in course engagement, especially in those who report being not feeling comfortable enough to seek instructor support. While the COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to continue disrupting our classrooms for much longer, we can use this time to better understand student experiences in remote learning environments to better suit their needs as this mode of teaching continues to be utilized in the future.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to measure virtually-based objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) pass rates of student pharmacists who received remote, synchronous instruction on medication reconciliation compared with OSCE pass rates from the previous class, who received face to face synchronous instruction and OSCEs. The secondary objective was to measure student perceptions of remote instruction and OSCE preparation. Materials and Methods: Second year student pharmacists attended four online preparatory labs to learn and practice the process of performing a medication reconciliation. A virtually-based OSCE was used to assess student competency of identifying the primary or life-threatening medication related problem (MRP). Failing to identify the MRP represented a “kill point” and an automatic failing grade. A brief 10-item survey designed to measure student perceptions was sent to all participants post OSCE. Results: Seventy-seven students completed the OSCE and the overall pass rates were similar between the 2020 and 2019 class years (97% vs 94%, respectively; p = 0.24). Survey responses showed students lacked confidence, preferred face-to-face learning rather than online and most described their remote environments as not conducive to learning. Conclusion: Online instruction and assessment was at least as effective as traditional face-to-face methods. however the virtual-based platform was not preferred by learners.

Thesis advisor: Mariela Páez / In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated persistent educational inequities and added exponentially to the existing “education debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Public schools’ sudden shift to remote learning marginalized a large population of students, including young bilingual children from immigrant backgrounds. These students are among the most vulnerable when it comes to remote learning not only because of accessibility issues, but also because many of these students’ families live in underserved and under-resourced communities that were negatively affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent systemic racism (Fortuna et al., 2020; Schmit et al., 2020). Hence, there is an urgent need to understand pandemic-related experiences of immigrant families with young bilingual children and to respond with educational strategies that strive to mitigate the negative effects of this educational crisis. This dissertation study comprised of three papers addresses this need through a collaborative project with 20 immigrant families with 42 young bilingual children and two community organizations from the Metro and Greater Boston Area. Paper 1 used sequential mixed methods to provide an in-depth account of immigrant families' remote learning experiences and investigate structural barriers such as lack of support and oppressive practices that hindered the establishment of home-school connections during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Paper 2 employed transformative mixed methods to document the development, implementation, and evaluation of a family engagement and remote learning program—the Home Connection. This program was firmly grounded in the equitable collaboration framework of family engagement to build a strong partnership with the family participants and to recognize the crucial roles of the families as co-designers, co-educators, co-researchers, and co-evaluators. Paper 3 is a practitioner inquiry reflecting on what I have learned as a teacher-researcher implementing culturally sustaining pedagogy to partner with immigrant families and teach young bilingual children from diverse backgrounds during pandemic remote learning. Findings from this dissertation documenting the struggles, resistance, and solidarity of these immigrant families will help inform educators, administrators, and policymakers in their planning and delivering of learning experiences and family engagement initiatives that center on the motivation, needs, and assets of diverse students and their families. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Digital technology has had an increasing impact on higher education and shifted the way of teaching and learning in a fundamental way. The outbreak of Covid-19 urges higher education to shift from traditional learning to digital learning and this made a big change in the education system and the way education is being delivered to students worldwide. Universities and higher education institutes had to use various digital platforms with numerous capabilities and approaches to facilitate learning. In their shift towards digitalized online platforms, higher education institutions ignored important aspects of digitalization in perspective with student’s learning experience. Therefore, this research is going to implement an exploratory aim to define the features and comprehend how higher education can expand student’s learning experience via digitalization by implementing and maintaining dynamic essential technologies in their system in future to expand student’s learning experience. Our finding shows that digitalization does have an impact on the learning experiences of students, and students are getting more reliable on these technologies and wish to continue their studies in a hybrid manner.