In the beginning of 2020, the world was first introduced to the Covid-19 virus. The virus spread from China to all over the globe, causing a global pandemic. Different countries and governments had different strategies in order to stop the spread of the virus. Some countries had a more aggressive strategy with the use of shutdowns and quarantines, and other countries were less aggressive and tried to not make any drastic decisions that would have negative effects on parts of the society. The school during the pandemic went to face many difficult challenges. In most parts of the world schools switched to remote learning on distance. The purpose of this study is to find out how the schools and students were affected by this sudden change in education. To answers this question this study is going to map out and compare how Sweden and Australia acted during the pandemic, and then look over how students’ health, study habits and student achievements were affected by these actions. The method used to find answers to these questions was to use previous studies, research, and publications, In a so called a comparing case-study. The results have shown that the pandemic and remote learning has had negative impact on students learning, health and motivation. Despite the difference in actions between Sweden and Australia there seems to be no obvious difference in how students and school were affected in respective country.

This research project is about the lived experiences of upper secondary school and adult education teachers from a remote region of Sweden, during the global pandemic of 2020 – 2021. Educational change can be understood in terms of experiences, through listening to teachers’ voices, which have the capacity to bring new knowledge for future usage of digital platforms in education. Teaching is an embodied experience and opportunities for movement have become limited in the virtual learning environment. A radical change in the methods of communication has also occured, in particular the verbal and non-verbal clues of oral interaction, which differ in physical and virtual classrooms. Interpersonal relationships have been shown to be of the utmost importance for successful learning, and these need to be formed and maintained both online and offline. Some students are at risk of falling behind academically and socially due to remote learning. The research has shed light on this situation and illustrates how governments should work effectively with teachers to ensure that all students can succeed, regardless of individual setbacks experienced during the global pandemic. This is an ethical responsibility of importance to ensure that no student will be disadvantaged as a result of remote learning.

Introduction: Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate poor health-related behaviors, such as nutrition, compared to their typically developed (TD) counterparts. With the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic and mandatory stay-at-home orders, such health-related behaviors may be complicated and there is a need to focus on feasibility and acceptability of in-person and remote-based nutrition programs. Methods: Eleven high school students with ASD were recruited to participate in a modified nutrition program utilizing Zoom software during COVID-19. The duration was once a week for four weeks, and concepts reviewed included shopping for healthy food on a budget, introducing non-perishable but nutritious food items, and food preparation safety measures. Results: Ninety-seven percent of participants attended the remote-based nutrition program, while 87% attended the in-person nutrition program. While in-person demonstrated benefits including face-to-face interaction and hands-on cooking, the remote-based component demonstrated a high degree of feasibility and acceptability. Half of the students felt their health-related behaviors were negatively impacted by COVID-19 but reported that the implementation of the remote-based nutrition program positively impacted their nutrition choices. Conclusion: The enforcement of health-related behaviors in adolescents with ASD is significant especially during disaster-related situations. Future research should focus on efficacy and intertwining methods of in-person and remote-based learning of a nutrition or other health-related behavioral interventions in this population.

In-person engineering instruction relies on the availability of equipment and space. Cost, safety, and scheduling may pose barriers to conducting in-person labs. Virtual experiments may be used to enhance the student experience by, for example, incorporating pre-labs for in-person experiments and providing access to equipment that cannot be safely used in-person. Virtual learning is used in many fields, but there remain questions as to how it should be employed in engineering, an area largely reliant on in-person lab and classroom setups. Earlier studies reviewed the advantages of virtual labs such as demonstrating hard-to-observe phenomena and allowing unlimited trials. This project attempts to leverage these strengths by developing experiments on three virtual platforms: LabVIEW, MATLAB, and Unity. The first version of the Jet Engine Virtual Laboratory is developed in LabVIEW and implemented in UCF's Measurements 1 course during Summer 2020. Student feedback is sought using a survey that suggests positive reception and informs the creation of a MATLAB version of the Jet Engine Virtual Laboratory which is being implemented in Fall 2020. A Unity version of this experiment is in production. This project is expected to fuel the development of more virtual experiments that enhance engineering education at UCF and beyond.

In recent years, changes to the aerospace engineering curriculum have moved the laboratory classes ahead in the four year program. In an effort to alleviate the introduction of prerequisite and scheduling problems resulting from the curriculum changes, a study into the approach of making laboratory classes more accessible was initiated. Two options are in the process of being implemented as a solution to current and future curriculum obstacles as a result of this study. First, the first semester laboratory class has been successfully converted to an introduction to laboratory procedures class with the option of taking the lecture portion via the Web. Secondly, present preparations are underway to offer the entire introductory laboratory class via the Web. An in-depth analysis into laboratory tasks selected for the introductory class on laboratory procedures is presented, along with methods implemented, current results and suggestions for the future complete conversion into a virtual class.

Engineering education is increasingly becoming considered an important component of STEM integration in formal pre-college settings. Professional development programs take a significant role in helping teachers develop necessary classroom practices to integrate engineering into their curriculum. The COVID pandemic has further complicated instructional conditions, necessitating emergency remote learning methods to continue instruction amidst safety concerns. Combined with a general struggle to scaffold integration of engineering in K-12 classrooms, emergent conditions that restrict instructional choices such as pandemics threaten to repeatedly aggravate future efforts and make it prudent to consider the pedagogical choices teachers are able to make for STEM integration and what future professional development programs should try to do with teachers to enable them. This research aims to describe and explain the conditions and dynamics related to teacher pedagogical choice to employ engineering design activities in their classes both within the context of a partnership program and during the COVID pandemic. Using end-of-program semi-structured interviews with participant teachers in the VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools) program collected in the midst of the pandemic, data was coded with a focus upon identifying connections with a dynamic framework for pedagogical choice as well as identifying and explaining the expansion of practices in the two contexts. The coding process yielded a set of themes for conditions and developments teachers experienced in the process of conducting classes with changes induced by the program and by measures in response to COVID. Findings from the study show that teachers with supports that overcome or nullify inhibitive factors for pedagogical choice will be able to adopt and develop innovative practices. Teachers balance proposed changes with their own sense of professional expectations influenced by internalized, structural, and cultural conceptions of their work. Remote learning modalities and COVID-induced safety measures constrained the ability to teach according to familiar principles of instruction, harming teachers' beliefs and development in the practice of the modalities. Based on these findings, the framework for teacher pedagogical choice showed VT PEERS' effectiveness in its opening presentation and execution to set the stage for teachers to make innovative choices to employ engineering activities, yet it was not as useful in describing how the remote learning measures taken during COVID would not lead to expanded practices for that modality. Thus, there is a need for a model that includes complex interactions between the teachers and their environment that promote or inhibit teacher agency. Such a model would inform a more empowering design and execution of professional development initiatives than feature-dependent frameworks. COVID also demonstrates that preparation will be necessary to equip teachers with more efficacious and flexible practices for remote learning to prevent further damage to student outcomes given that the potential for recurring pandemic conditions in the future makes remote learning more of an expectation than an emergency. / Doctor of Philosophy / Engineering education, the E in STEM, continues to gain attention as a needed subject in pre-college schooling. To do this, teachers primarily receive help from professional development programs to learn how to use engineering in their classrooms. The COVID pandemic created a new condition for instruction that may complicate the process of using engineering, and the restrictions to how teachers teach may adversely affect their choices when it comes to engineering. Understanding the process of teachers making the innovative choices and how they come to do so is an important topic for research. This research aims to describe and explain the choices teachers make for the practices they use in the classroom to employ engineering design activities within the context of a partnership program and during the COVID pandemic. Using end-of-program semi-structured interviews with teachers as part of their involvement in VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools), I looked at teachers' perspectives on their experiences and struggles using a theory of choice-making to inform analysis. Findings from the study show that teachers that receive appropriate support and feel free to choose what they do are able to make innovative choices and become more skillful. Teachers are influenced to make choices by what they believe their job requires of them; the way schools work and how others view the role of schools affects this belief as much as the teachers themselves do. However, when choice is restricted and teachers cannot teach the way they would choose to, such as during COVID with distant and computer-based classes, they are neither growing nor thriving in their job. The theory for teacher choice used to analyze these interviews helped understand the role of the partnership in helping teachers choose to use engineering activities in classrooms, but helped less to understand how teachers struggled during COVID. It appears that when teachers actually have choices, they can be innovative; therefore, professional development programs should consider that promoting teacher choice is a necessary initial step to bring about change in schools, including for engineering education. Furthermore, COVID may not be the last pandemic within this generation, and education reforms (including for engineering education) may need to account for future instances of remote schooling as an expectation rather than considering it to be an unfortunate, one-off issue of education.

In the wake of COVID-19, educators had to adjust their curriculum and pedagogies to create an environment of learning while their students couldn't come into the classroom. As teachers and students alike adapted to this new distance learning, they encountered many obstacles which made it difficult to teach and to learn compared to what they were used to in a traditional in-person classroom setting. This thesis document compiles my research about the advantages and disadvantages of remote learning before, during, and post-pandemic. The research component of this project consists of the commentary of four art educators who share what they experienced and learned from teaching remotely during the pandemic; what they think can continue in the in-person classroom setting; and how remote learning can continue to evolve and be successful after the pandemic.

Over the past three years, there have been changes in learning observed due to COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions that affected young learners who needed support during instruction, raising concerns about their learning progress. As such, this qualitative phenomenological study explored and described the parent and teacher perspectives on the long-lasting impact of COVID-19 on kindergarten students who started formal education virtually during a pandemic. The central research question, "What are the teacher and parent perspectives on learning during the pandemic and their views on the impact of remote instruction on kindergarteners?" was examined from a constructivist and play-based learning theory. The study used purposeful and snowball sampling to obtain five teachers and four parents who virtually completed one-on-one 15- to 30-minute semi-structured interviews. Data was analyzed using Boije's constant comparative approach using three steps: (1) comparison within a single interview, (2) comparison between interviews within the same group, and (3) comparison of interviews from the two different groups. I used an inductive approach using axial coding to interpret results on themes that surfaced from within the participants' interviews. The study findings will benefit educators, school leaders, policymakers, and researchers interested in early childhood education. Limitations of the study include lack of generalizability, exclusive focus on the kindergarten level of study, and the use of previous literature conducted in different contexts and cultures to support the need for the study.

Learning Management Systems have become increasingly used in all levels of education since more people have access to computers and the internet. An important feature of the LMS is to provide students with information about their courses. This information, however, is not always easy to find. Especially when the system does not follow usability guidelines about how to provide your users with information. In this study four different course pages on the KTH LMS Canvas have been evaluated with a moderated usability test to asses how well users find information on the LMS. The results show that some improvements could be made by adhering more to usability guidelines and that the courses that did were easier for testers to navigate. Some conclusions that can be made are that users find things easier when there is a high similarity between link names and the information they are looking for and that users scan web pages rather than read them. This is in line with previous research. The conclusions lead to four recommendations to KTH that can improve the usability of all Canvas course pages. / Utbildningsplattformar används allt mer sen intågen av datorer och internet i människors hem. En viktig funktion på en utbildningsplattform är att ge studenter information om sina kurser. Dock är denna information inte alltid så lätt att hitta. Särskilt inte om plattformen inte följer de riktlinjer som finns för hur man förser användare med information på ett användarvänligt sätt. I denna studie har fyra olika KTH- Canvassidor undersökts med ett modererat användartest för att utvärdera hur lätt användare hittar information på utbildningsplattformen. Resultaten visar att vissa förbättringar kan ske genom att tydligare följa riktlinjerna för användarvänlighet och att kurserna som följde riktlinjerna bättre var lättare att navigera. Slutsater som kan dras är bland annat att det är lättare för användare att hitta information när länknamnet är likt den information som söks och att användare skumläser hemsidor istället för att läsa dem noggrant. Detta överensstämmer med resultat från tidigare studier. Från slutsatserna gjordes fyra rekommendationer till KTH som kan förbättra användarvänligheten för alla Canvassidor.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-01-16T16:19:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 José Neres de Almeida Jr.pdf: 4859603 bytes, checksum: 9dbce45e61e210743a7f153d58448c71 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-16T16:19:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 José Neres de Almeida Jr.pdf: 4859603 bytes, checksum: 9dbce45e61e210743a7f153d58448c71 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation aims to present the Remote Automated Spectrophotometry project, an experiment executed remotely, within the structure and context of the use of a Remote Laboratory with multipurpose applications, that is, a remote sensing laboratory that is developed in PUC / SP, called Webduino, the WebLab of PUC-SP. This experiment presents interdisciplinary characteristics, in the sense of mixing physics contents with areas of Biology, Arts and Photography, given the study of topics such as colorimetric synthesis, color patterns, physiological diseases associated with colors, as well as topics of Physics, referring to the development of the presented experiment, such as diffraction, constructive interference, among others, all presented in a way that is understandable to the target public, that is, high school students and also the common public. In this case, the experiment in question is defined in the study of the chromatic synthesis, based on the spectrometry, be the theoretical part and operation, or in obtaining results of the different intensities of irradiance for the different colors, diffracted by the diffraction grating, which form the original color, coming from LED lamp. To this purpose, this study, and the implementation of the experiment, were carried out with a prototype construction approach, based on the idea of the development methodology, emphasized by Van den Ayken, aiming at a later implementation and verification, with tests of functionality and adequacy to possible user needs, for use in the future project of the Remote Laboratory and verification of possible improvements to the intended target public. In addition, we intend that the methodology behind the environment in which the remote laboratory is located, in the future, will be characterized by a inquiry based learning (IBL) methodology (DIKKE et al, 2015); (DE JONG et al, 2013); (ZACHARIAS et al., 2015), with the contents of the remote environment being oriented towards an idea that guides the user to the understanding of the subject, through scientific method (conceptualization, theory, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion), for the future PhD project . Thus, initially research was carried out to survey the state of art and to survey the theoretical basis of the proposed theme, and according to current needs, the prototype of the experiment was assembled, as well as the adaptation of the network architecture structure created in the past years, to the suitability of the laboratory with remote access, within an environment that is compatible with the intentions of the experiment, aiming at exploring the topics related to the study of colors, especially regarding chromatic synthesis, for this experiment, as well as the possible requirements of professionals in the area, for future projects. Also, in the environment elaborated, the remote laboratory intends to develop didactic resources that allow to use the Arduino board applied to Science Teaching, particularly, in Physics Teaching, in High School. The development platform selected to manage the experiments is WebLab-Deusto, for its intelligibility, functionality and security. Due to the structural issues of a Remote Laboratory, and as pointed out in the researched literature (LIMA et al., 2013), (SILVA, 2007), (NETO, 2012), it is also necessary that the development and the access platform is inserted in the Remote environment of the experiment, affording to parameters that allow the user to learn the concepts studied and the experiences that he will control and collect the data for later analysis. In order to do so, it was re-elaborated and readapted, besides the experiment that specifies the remote laboratory, the environment to contemplate the requirements for the teaching of Sciences, as well as for the learning of the physical concepts of the experience that the user performs / Esta dissertação visa apresentar o projeto Espectrofotometria Remota Automatizada, um experimento executado remotamente, dentro da estrutura e contexto do uso de um Laboratório Remoto com aplicações variadas, isto é, um laboratório de sensoriamento remoto que se desenvolve na PUC/SP, denominado Webduino, o WebLab da PUC-SP. Este experimento apresenta características interdisciplinares, no sentido de mesclar conteúdos de Física com áreas da Biologia, Artes e Fotografia, dado o estudo de temas como síntese colorimétrica, padrões de cores, deficiências cromáticas, além de tópicos de Física, referentes ao desenvolvimento do experimento apresentado, como a difração, interferência construtiva, entre outros, todos eles apresentados de forma que seja compreensível ao público-alvo, ou seja, alunos do ensino médio e também o público leigo. No caso, o experimento em questão, se define no estudo da síntese cromática, com base na espectrometria, seja a parte teórica e funcionamento, seja na obtenção de resultados das diferentes intensidades de irradiância para as diferentes cores, difratadas pela rede de difração, e que formam a cor original, vinda da lâmpada de LED. Para tanto, este estudo, e a implementação do experimento, foram realizados com uma abordagem de construção de protótipo, com base na ideia da metodologia de desenvolvimento, ressaltada por Van den Ayken, visando uma implementação posterior e verificação, com testes de funcionalidade e adequação a possíveis necessidades de usuários, para utilização em projeto futuro do Laboratório Remoto e verificação de possíveis melhorias frente ao público-alvo pretendido. Além disso, pretendemos que a metodologia por trás do ambiente em que o laboratório remoto se encontra, futuramente se caracterize por uma metodologia de aprendizagem baseada em investigação (DIKKE et al, 2015); (DE JONG et al, 2013); (ZACHARIAS et al, 2015), com os conteúdos do ambiente remoto se orientando para uma ideia que guie o usuário para a compreensão do tema, via método científico (conceitualização, teoria, hipótese, experimento, conclusão), para o projeto futuro de doutorado. Sendo assim, inicialmente foram realizadas pesquisas de levantamento do estado da arte e do levantamento da fundamentação teórica do tema proposto, e conforme as necessidades atuais, procedeu-se à montagem do protótipo do experimento, bem como a adaptação da estrutura de arquitetura de rede criada para a adequação do laboratório com acesso remoto, dentro de um ambiente que seja condizente com as necessidades do experimento, visando exploração dos tópicos relacionados ao estudo das cores, principalmente no que se refere à síntese cromática, para este experimento, bem como à possíveis necessidade pedagógicas dos profissionais da área, esta última para projeto futuro. Ainda, no ambiente elaborado, o laboratório remoto pretende desenvolver recursos didáticos que permitam utilizar a placa Arduino aplicada ao Ensino de Ciências, em particular no Ensino de Física, no Ensino Médio. A plataforma de desenvolvimento selecionada para gerenciar os experimentos é o WebLab-Deusto, por sua inteligibilidade, funcionalidade e segurança. Devido às questões estruturais de um Laboratório Remoto, e como apontado na literatura pesquisada (LIMA et. al., 2013), (SILVA, 2007), (NETO, 2012), também é necessário que a plataforma de desenvolvimento e acionamento esteja inserida no ambiente remoto do experimento, conforme parâmetros que possibilitem ao usuário a aprendizagem dos conceitos estudados e das experiências que ele venha a controlar e coletar os dados para posterior análise. Para tanto, foi reelaborado e readaptado, além do experimento que especifica o laboratório remoto, o ambiente para contemplar as necessidades para o ensino de Ciências, bem como para a aprendizagem dos conceitos físicos, da experiência que o usuário realiza