Important Things to Know Before Developing Artificial Intelligence-Based Drone Learning Systems

Tests have been vastly used for the assessment of learning in educational contexts. Recently, however, a growing body of research have shown that the practice of remembering previously studied information (i.e., retrieval practice) is more advantageous for long-term retention than restudying that same information; a phenomenon often termed “testing effect”. The question remains, however, whether such practice can be useful to improve learning in actual educational contexts, and whether in these contexts specific types of tests are particularly beneficial. We address these issues by reviewing studies that investigated the use of retrieval practice as a learning strategy in actual educational contexts. The reviewed studies adopted from free-recall to multiple-choice tests, and involved from elementary school children to medical school students. In general, their results are favorable to the use of retrieval practice in classroom settings, regardless of whether feedback is provided or not. Importantly, however, the majority of the reviewed studies compared retrieval practice to repeated study or to “no-activity”. The results of the studies comparing retrieval practice to alternative control conditions were less conclusive, and a subset of them found no advantage for tests. These findings raise the question whether retrieval practice is more beneficial than alternative learning strategies, especially learning strategies and activities already adopted in classroom settings (e.g., concept mapping). Thus, even though retrieval practice emerges as a promising strategy to improve learning in classroom environments, there is not enough evidence available at this moment to determine whether it is as beneficial as alternative learning activities frequently adopted in classroom settings.

Abstract. Spacing repeated study phases across multiple sessions instead of studying and restudying the learning material in one session only is an effective strategy to promote lasting learning. However, most studies demonstrating the spacing effect were conducted in the laboratory, using simple verbal material. Learning in educational contexts differs regarding the complexity and coherence of the learning material and concerning the role of motivational and affective learner characteristics. Studies conducted in educational contexts suggest that the spacing effect is not as robust here. For example, acquiring mathematical skills or nonrepeated, consecutive information does not reliably benefit from spacing. After an overview of studies addressing the spacing effect in the laboratory and in educational contexts, we discuss various open questions that need to be addressed by future research before recommending spacing as a learning strategy to promote meaningful and lasting learning at schools and universities.

Augmented reality (AR) is a new technology that combines digital content with the real world and enhances our perception of reality. The most important quality of augmented reality is that it overlays digital content on top of the real world. AR has a significant impact on school teaching in different subjects and school levels. AR has the potential to transform traditional learning methods and pedagogical practices by providing an immersive and interactive experience that engages students in dynamic ways and fosters deeper understanding, creativity and collaboration. AR offers several advantages in educational settings, and vignettes and anecdotes are suitable research tools. The Impact of AR Technology on Teaching and Learning in Educational Contexts: Exploring its Pedagogical Implications.

The COVID-19 pandemic led higher education institutions to transition to online learning. The present study was designed to investigate students' self-regulated learning strategies on academic performance in online learning. We analyzed the differences in college students' self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies according to their grade point average (GPA). The study included 1,163 students at a distance education university in China. Two online questionnaires were used to determine online SRL strategies. GPA scores were obtained from the university exam database to determine academic performance. The analysis showed that there are great differences between different self-regulated strategies and between different students when accepting the online learning. The analysis also showed that self-evaluation, metacognitive self-regulation, and effort regulation were positive predictors of academic progress, besides, self-evaluation and effort regulation had mutual influence effect on the improvement of GPA in online learning. These data will help teachers, education policymakers, and education administrators adopt and implement online learning services to improve students' academic performance.

Even though play has been widely recognized as a social and cultural practice where children naturally learn, evidence shows that international school practices have tended to reduce spaces for play, relegating it to nearly sporadic levels. Teaching practices in initial education have become increasingly scholastic; despite being recognized as a foundational principle, play has been left to the side of central learning activities, which may affect the development of children. For Chile, a country where standardized assessments have permeated the entire educational system, research has reported a schema of classes centered on adulthood that progressively structure and stiffen classroom activities. Play makes its appearance only as an instructional resource (instructional play), and does so with no measurable certainty of its effectiveness on impacting learning. Given such a gap in the literature regarding how teachers understand play-based education and their motivations toward implementing it at school, this work aimed to explore teacher motivations toward game-based learning in educational contexts under a mixed-methods sequential design. The first stage of the research design surveyed 221 primary education teachers (87.8 % women; average, 29.05 years ± SD 8.74; average teaching experience, 3.67 years ± SD 6.15) with the Motivation Scale for the use of educational games (Munoz & Valenzuela, 2014) based on the Expectancy Value motivational theory. In the second stage, four focus groups were formed to inquire about the conceptions that these teachers hold regarding play in school settings. Focus group participants were, in total, 29 currently-active primary education teachers (6 men, and 23 women; average age, 41 years ± SD 11.16). Quantitative results show high valuation for different components of motivation, though with significant differences. The most valued dimension corresponded to utility , while the least were expectancy and cost components. No differences were observed by sex or by years of professional experience. These results are consistent with teacher self-reports, who indicate that time, cost, and lack of knowledge in implementing games are inhibiting factors for effective inclusion in the classroom. Moreover, teachers tended not to recognize themselves as players, or engage in play with students; rather, they believe their function is to observe and monitor to maintain order. Within costs , teachers also included loss of control in the classroom as a relevant element: the freedom (or even chaos) that classroom play can lead to is seen as a threat to the teacher. Additionally, teachers have a vague, non-specific –or even idealized– conception of games. They may see play as a series of classroom activities that are decidedly not within educational play; or, even if characterizing games as spontaneous, voluntary, dynamic, and entertaining activities, do not recognize these attributes when placing games in educational contexts. Indeed, games are seen as tools rather than a methodology in itself. Some also idealize play from “the way things used to be”, arguing that children no longer know how to play and blaming new technologies as responsible for this “lack of play” in present childhood. This background highlights the need for explicit evidence-based training of future teachers in the use and incorporation of games as an educational resource.

Even though play has been widely recognized as a social and cultural practice where children naturally learn, evidence shows that international school practices have tended to reduce spaces for play, relegating it to nearly sporadic levels. Teaching practices in initial education have become increasingly scholastic; despite being recognized as a foundational principle, play has been left to the side of central learning activities, which may affect the development of children. For Chile, a country where standardized assessments have permeated the entire educational system, research has reported a schema of classes centered on adulthood that progressively structure and stiffen classroom activities. Play makes its appearance only as an instructional resource (instructional play), and does so with no measurable certainty of its effectiveness on impacting learning. Given such a gap in the literature regarding how teachers understand play-based education and their motivations toward implementing it at school, this work aimed to explore teacher motivations toward game-based learning in educational contexts under a mixed-methods sequential design. The first stage of the research design surveyed 221 primary education teachers (87.8 % women; average, 29.05 years ± SD 8.74; average teaching experience, 3.67 years ± SD 6.15) with the Motivation Scale for the use of educational games (Munoz & Valenzuela, 2014) based on the Expectancy Value motivational theory. In the second stage, four focus groups were formed to inquire about the conceptions that these teachers hold regarding play in school settings. Focus group participants were, in total, 29 currently-active primary education teachers (6 men, and 23 women; average age, 41 years ± SD 11.16). Quantitative results show high valuation for different components of motivation, though with significant differences. The most valued dimension corresponded to utility , while the least were expectancy and cost components. No differences were observed by sex or by years of professional experience. These results are consistent with teacher self-reports, who indicate that time, cost, and lack of knowledge in implementing games are inhibiting factors for effective inclusion in the classroom. Moreover, teachers tended not to recognize themselves as players, or engage in play with students; rather, they believe their function is to observe and monitor to maintain order. Within costs , teachers also included loss of control in the classroom as a relevant element: the freedom (or even chaos) that classroom play can lead to is seen as a threat to the teacher. Additionally, teachers have a vague, non-specific –or even idealized– conception of games. They may see play as a series of classroom activities that are decidedly not within educational play; or, even if characterizing games as spontaneous, voluntary, dynamic, and entertaining activities, do not recognize these attributes when placing games in educational contexts. Indeed, games are seen as tools rather than a methodology in itself. Some also idealize play from “the way things used to be”, arguing that children no longer know how to play and blaming new technologies as responsible for this “lack of play” in present childhood. This background highlights the need for explicit evidence-based training of future teachers in the use and incorporation of games as an educational resource.

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) are used to document the needs of students with disabilities and outline provisions with which to support access and inclusion in educational settings. However, often the programs focus on students’ specific needs rather than giving agency to students or considering how wider ecosystems impacts students’ ownership of learning. This study adopted Bronfenbrenner's Systems Model (BSM) to support two Australian general secondary education students with low vision to identify factors which impacted access and participation in the process of codesigning their IEPs. Using Bronfenbrenner's Systems Model (BSM) both students were able to identify factors which impacted access and participation in their educational context. Additionally, the model was useful to gain information about their learning needs from pertinent stakeholders within their ecosystem. Results from the two case studies show positive benefits from using the Systems Model within the educational context to give voice to the individual student and to understand intersecting factors impacting students with disability in their education contexts. Information gained from the IEP co-design process, using the BSM, can be used to personalize the student's learning in educational contexts.

Immersive Virtual Reality (I-VR) is becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society and is a technology that is being used more and more in educational contexts and whose potential for learning has been widely discussed. Taking into account the latest research in neuroscience, we want to explore the potential of using immersive virtual environments to facilitate deep learning in educational contexts that invoke the value of experience, imitation and repetition. Neurodidactics seems to offer the most interesting insights into how participation in a virtual reality session can positively affect learning processes: this suggests that it is worth focusing on the learning processes that can be generated by this emerging technology. The paper concludes with some practical suggestions for design, addressing both the didactic experience and the learning objects.

In recent years, the use of information technology to promote active learning in higher education has raised great interest. Teachers are continuously challenged to identify new research-informed approaches and educational practices for supporting students to actively learn and apply their knowledge. The present study tests the effects on students’ learning outcomes of an ad hoc developed learning tool (QLearn) which integrates three active learning strategies, previously empirically validated in face-to-face educational contexts. By using the QLearn software, students can generate questions, explain and develop answers, receive feedback from teacher and test their knowledge. Using a quasi-experimental design, we analyzed whether, in various course settings and instructional contexts, the students who use QLearn, as a support in their learning process, demonstrate a different learning performance compared to students who learn the same content by using their preferred learning strategies. The interventions were offered on a voluntary basis and implied participants from different fields (computer science, psychology) and different study levels (undergraduate and master’s level). The results showed that some groups of our participants significantly benefits from the use of QLearn platform. The outcomes of the present research advanced our understanding of the efficiency of technology-sustained learning in educational contexts and offer a promising strategy for facilitating the active involvement of students in the learning process.

Innovative educational technologies have revolutionized the methods of teaching and learning. Recently, with advancements of artificial intelligence, higher education has begun to adopt new technologies. This conceptual review paper aims to investigate the emergence of using artificial intelligence in teaching and learning in education. It examines the educational consequences of emergent technologies on how institutions teach and the way students learn. This study intends to predict the role of artificial intelligence in the future nature of education in a world. The effective application of artificial intelligence methods is considered as a means of improving the quality of teaching and learning. However, the challenges of integrating artificial intelligence in educational institutions is addressed. Moreover, the challenges faced by students in adopting artificial intelligence in terms of students’ support, teaching, learning, and administration are discussed. This paper presents a concise overview of the most recent studies to showcase the application of artificial intelligence in educational contexts. The implications and directions for further research are suggested.

This chapter will review the range of ethical considerations that have arisen over the past fifteen years alongside research into the increasing use of personal, mobile devices as learning tools in formal educational contexts. Issues that range from an irresponsible use of images to active cyberbullying, from jealousy driven by a classmate’s upgraded device to fear of an invasion of privacy plague educators’ approaches to teaching through mobile learning. In addition to the challenge of incorporating these potentially disruptive (Sharples in International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life Long Learning: 12: 504–520, 2002) tools and maintaining their classes’ focus on the task at hand, there are also concerns for teachers over the devices’ accessibility and affordability for students. One common approach found in countries across the globe is to resolve potential issues by simply banning mobile devices from the educational institution itself. For schools are likely to ban things they believe (a) encourage students to adopt improper moral values or (b) enable students to waste time that should be spent pursuing the school’s learning goals (Thomas in What schools ban and why. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2008) and both of these can be applied to the case of mobile phones. However, that does no-one a service, it prevents students from benefiting from mobile learning opportunities which Dyson, Andrews, Smyth, and Wallace (The Routledge handbook of mobile learning. Routledge, New York and London, pp. 405–416, 2013) go so far as to describe in itself as unethical and does not enable teachers and lecturers to demonstrate responsible use. In order to support teachers and lecturers in designing and successfully implementing mobile technologies in their current teaching practice, the chapter will also present an overview of guidelines drawn from different educational contexts in the UK that encourage their students to ‘bring their own device’.

Mind, brain and education (MBE) is a transdisciplinary field aiming at better understanding learning and at providing a grounding of education in research. Some challenges persist, such as increased time commitments, training needs, ethical, and logistical considerations. Addressing these challenges is essential to avoid the threat of implementing new practices without a clear understanding of theory, or of educational contexts. This paper proposes five main solutions to these challenges, corresponding to Pedaste et al.'s (2015) five phases of inquiry‐based learning: Orientation: Co‐creating glossaries to share common vocabulary, knowledge and theory; Conceptualization: Co‐defining research questions; Investigation: Building an institutional research culture, evaluating the project's ecological validity and context; Conclusion: Reviewing theories; Discussion: Sharing successes and challenges. Exploring methodological and epistemological assumptions is essential to work through these solutions. It is hoped that this paper will support the development of projects that have the potential to inform practice in naturalistic educational contexts.

The failure of self-regulation lies at the core of academic procrastination, which poses a serious threat to academic success. This study examines the direct impact of self-regulated strategies on academic procrastination and academic success among university students. Additionally, it explores the mediating role of academic procrastination in the relationship between metacognitive strategies, time management, effort regulation, and students’ academic success. A fully quantitative study was conducted among 239 university students who learn English as a foreign language. In order to examine how self-regulated learning strategies can help university EFL students overcome academic procrastination and enhance academic success, 10 hypotheses were put to the test. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) implemented in AMOS 23.0. Bootstrapping with bias-corrected confidence intervals was employed to evaluate the model’s path coefficients and mediation effects. The results reveal that there is a significant positive correlation between metacognitive strategies and academic success. Learning strategies such as effort regulation, metacognitive strategies, and time management are negatively associated with academic procrastination, and academic procrastination is negatively related to academic success. Regarding the mediation effects, it was found that effort regulation and time management have a significantly positive indirect influence on student’s academic success through the mediation of academic procrastination. Meanwhile, academic procrastination does not mediate the relationship between metacognitive strategies and students’ academic success. This study offers significant empirical evidence underscoring the critical role of self-regulated learning in academic success, while emphasizing the necessity of implementing targeted interventions to mitigate academic procrastination as a key impediment to student success. The implications of this study can assist educators or teachers in guiding students to appropriately apply self-regulated learning strategies and models to English learning.

In this modern era, easy access to digital media and the internet is a big challenge in reading habits. This research investigates internet usage patterns and reading habits among English students in contemporary educational settings. Drawing on data from a questionnaire survey administered to 53 students at an Islamic college in Jambi, Indonesia, the study explores students' online activities, reading preferences, and perceptions of digital reading materials. The findings show a significant reliance on the Internet for academic and leisure activities, with online news being the main driver of students' reading interest. Despite concerns about content relevance and readability, digital reading materials, especially e-books, and online platforms, have the potential to foster reading engagement and literacy skills. The study also highlights the diverse nature of students' online activities, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches to promote reading habits in the digital age. By adopting innovative teaching methods and utilizing digital resources, educators can create immersive reading experiences that help students navigate and critically evaluate digital information effectively. This research contributes valuable insights into the evolving landscape of reading preferences and the role of technology in shaping literacy practices, informing evidence-based strategies for promoting reading engagement and lifelong learning in educational contexts.

The chapter addresses how multilingual learning can be supported in educational contexts. We argue that all children need support for their languages and opportunities to become familiar with linguistic diversity. We briefl y defi ne multilingualism and highlight selected linguistic and cognitive features of multilingual children. Then we zoom in on educational solutions in three very diff erent contexts, two in the EU (Poland and Finland) and one in the USA (California). With the provided contextual background we discuss some of the challenges that learners might experience at school, depending on how support for multilingual learning is implemented in a given context. Finally, we argue that supporting multilingual learning can be enhanced in everyday practices and discuss solutions for supporting multilingual learning from the perspective of teachers and teacher training.