Distance Teaching Research Articles

The ‘wellbeing’ in spite of everything: small sharing spaces with families or peer educators during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the difficult period caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a workshop was implemented online, leading a study about the effectiveness of the 'Salotti del BenEssere©' model among students and future educators. This course is the result of the collaboration between the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples and ASL Napoli 1 Centro. It’s a model of salutogenesis that specifically proposes a multicentre space for the evaluation and spread of healthy lifestyles. Due to the pandemic and the consequent social isolation, the 'keys' to access the main topics for the healthy lifestyle promotion were explored online in order to overcome social isolation; at the beginning of each lesson on the Salotti del BenEssere©, audio files were provided to guide the students through the experience of each “key”: Breathing, Nutrition and Emotions.The lessons were carried out through distance teaching on the online platform called “Google Meet”. For evaluation purposes, questionnaires that were originally created in paper format were transferred to the online opensharing platform “Google Forms”. The general aim of the evaluation is to establish whether the educational process formulated by the “Salotti del BenEssere©” has an impact on self-perception in relationships. The specific aim of this study is to verify whether there were differences between the results achieved by the students who were able to experience the face-to-face lessons and those who were forced to attend the lessons online and, if so, to record which ones are significant.We believe that these innovative and digital techniques can become a tool for future educators, especially in emergency situations, to overcome social isolation.

Analisys of teaching elements on technical and mathematical disciplines in modern distance education

The object of research is the quality of teaching technical and mathematical disciplines in modern distance education. One of the most problematic areas is communication, dialogue between a teacher and a student, personality problems in the teacher-student dyad, and the effectiveness of feedback. The idea of distance learning, obviously, is that the interaction between teacher and student takes place in a virtual space. The more efficiently this interaction is built by using a variety of techniques, methods, the better a teaching process. Distance teaching is essentially a person-centered form of education. This is a separate modern educational technology that provides a choice for the teacher, the ability to select educational material depending on the information needs of students. In the course of the study, the main possibilities for improving the effectiveness of feedback between the student and the teacher and the forms of implementing such communication were considered. The organizational and pedagogical conditions for the use of the system of certain elements of distance learning in the process of vocational training have been substantiated. Modern information technologies and innovative teaching methods in training specialists are described. It is proposed to use more actively such elements as an interactive whiteboard, interactive processing of students’ statements during a survey, both in the form of tests or a forum, and in the form of a «word cloud». The use of these interactive elements has proven itself in practice. As a tool for objective assessment of the level of feedback, a comparative analysis of statistical data is proposed, which concerns the distribution of marks at the beginning and at the end of the distance learning course. This data can also be interpreted as an indicator of the quality of teaching. In particular, the analysis of school preparation of students for mastering mathematical disciplines in higher education was carried out. Comparative analysis substantiated, in particular, the need for additional classes for students with poor preparation.

The ‘wellbeing’ in spite of everything: small sharing spaces with families or peer educators during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the difficult period caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a workshop was implemented online, leading a studyabout the effectiveness of the ‘Salotti del BenEssere©’ model among students and future educators. This course isthe result of the collaboration between the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples and ASL Napoli 1 Centro.It’s a model of salutogenesis that specifically proposes a multicentre space for the evaluation and spread of healthylifestyles. Due to the pandemic and the consequent social isolation, the ‘keys’ to access the main topics for the healthylifestyle promotion were explored online in order to overcome social isolation; at the beginning of each lesson onthe Salotti del BenEssere©, audio files were provided to guide the students through the experience of each “key”:Breathing, Nutrition and Emotions.The lessons were carried out through distance teaching on the online platformcalled “Google Meet”. For evaluation purposes, questionnaires that were originally created in paper format weretransferred to the online opensharing platform “Google Forms”. The general aim of the evaluation is to establishwhether the educational process formulated by the “Salotti del BenEssere©” has an impact on self-perception inrelationships. The specific aim of this study is to verify whether there were differences between the results achievedby the students who were able to experience the face-to-face lessons and those who were forced to attend the lessonsonline and, if so, to record which ones are significant.We believe that these innovative and digital techniques canbecome a tool for future educators, especially in emergency situations, to overcome social isolation.

Characteristics of Sleep Quality of Nursing Students in Bali During Pandemic Covid-19

Introduction: Corona Virus Disease-19 (COVID-19) has spread to 34 provinces in Indonesia. Indonesia first confirmed the case of COVID-19 in March 2020. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has made the teaching and learning process shifted to distance teaching. This activity-limiting measure in response to curbing the spread of COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented change in human behavior around the world. One of the changes in human behavior is sleep. Sleep is a physiological process that is highly dependent on the environment and social and varies greatly with stress levels. This study aimed to know the characteristics of sleep quality of nursing students during pandemic Covid-19 in Bali.
 Methods: This study is a descriptive study using univariate analysis. The population in this study is approximately 1,500 nursing students. Sampling technique used in this research is purposive sampling with 422 sample. Data collection tools in the form of questionnaires that are used is a sleep quality questionnaire from the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).
 Results: The results show that most of the nursing students’ age ranged from 15-25 (94.1%), female (79.1%) and currently undergoing Bachelor of Nursing education (68%) and students of Nursing in Bali mostly have poor sleep quality (97.4%).
 Conclusion: Students of Nursing reported to have poor sleep quality over the last month.

The Use of a Synthesis Approach to Develop a Model for Training Teachers’ Competencies in Distance Teaching

The purpose of the study was to design and test a comprehensive model that synthesizes and converges the strong points of the examined models of competence development. This is for use in the competency-based training of teachers, including distance instruction. The study used descriptive research methods, such as a self-assessment survey for teachers, observation checklist for video recorded live online sessions, a self-observation questionnaire, and a course satisfaction questionnaire, to investigate how the designed model influences the teachers’ competencies in distance teaching. The variables were the levels of competence of teachers in distance teaching and the levels of sampled teachers’ satisfaction with a professional refresher course. A comprehensive model of teacher competence development, used to deliver the reshaped refresher course, positively influenced the teachers’ competencies in distance teaching. The course participants provided complimentary feedback to evaluate the course using a convergent instructional model. The teacher trainees improved their skills in the adaptation of the lesson materials, for use in a live virtual environment, engaging students in learning through an e-learning platform, conferencing software and messengers (Zoom, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook), creating a forum for both teacher-student and student-student interactions. The sampled teachers seemed to enhance their skills in accommodating students’ learning needs, abilities (or disabilities), and learning styles. They appeared to update their skills, using the approaches to create rapport, motivate and inspire students, and involving students in shaping the lesson plan.

The effectiveness of constructive learning strategy in teaching social studies and citizenship on developing historical thinking skills for middle school students in the Holy Capital: فاعلية استراتيجية التعلم البنائي في تدريس الدراسات الاجتماعية على تنمية مهارات التفكير التاريخي لدى طالبات المرحلة المتوسطة بالعاصمة المقدسة

The research examined the effectiveness of the constructive learning strategy in teaching social studies and citizenship on developing historical thinking skills of second-grade intermediate students. The researcher used a semi-experimental approach, and the sample consisted of (50) students from the 13TH Intermediate School in Makkah (Saudi Arabia) distributed randomly to: (25) control group, and (25) experimental group. The experimental group was taught using the constructive learning strategy, while the control group was taught in the usual way. To achieve the research goal, a teacher’s guide was prepared to teach the “Umayyad State Unit” using the constructive learning strategy, and a list of historical thinking skills appropriate for the age stage, and an achievement test in the Umayyad State Unit. Results: There were statistically significant differences at the level of 0.05 between the mean scores of the experimental group students in the pre-post measurements of the historical thinking skills test in favor of the post measurement, - existence of statistically significant differences at the level of 0.05 between the mean scores of the students of the control and experimental groups in the post-measurement of the historical thinking skills test favoring the experimental group. Recommendations: The researcher suggested a number of recommendations such as: Using the constructive learning strategy in teaching social studies and citizenship to develop historical thinking skills at all school levels, - creating an educational and classroom environment that supports the constructive learning strategy in teaching social studies and citizenship to develop historical thinking skills, making use of educational platforms in distance teaching using a constructive learning strategy, - provide opportunities to train teachers to implement strategies and models of constructive learning.

Challenges for a New Role and New Teacher Competencies: Distance Teaching Experiences

The results of researches on distance teaching from the teacher’s aspect during the state of emergency are presented in this paper, there are the teachers of primary schools, from the territory of Vojvodina (Serbia). The aim is to answer questions about how the respondents assess competencies for distance learning, job satisfaction, and how demanding are the different teaching platforms. The sample consisted of 574 teachers. The questionnaire The teacher’s and educator’s thoughts and experiences on distance teaching during the state of emergency was used. The questionnaire was distributed online. The data was collected from April 2020 until the end of the school year. Respondents assess that they have technical and IT competencies, acquired in informal education and that they need further education. Distance teaching is a professional challenge and is stressful, and the vast majority of respondents prefer regular teaching. The stress level is higher, more work, student engagement, and clarity of expectations from teachers are reduced. Respondents most often used already known communication channels during distance teaching: mail and Viber.

An English Learning System Based on Mobile Edge Computing Constructs a Wireless Distance Teaching Environment

The development of information technology and the progress of the educational information process provide technical support for the construction of a distance learning environment for learning English. Online teaching mode is a new thing for people, and it is more and more accepted by people familiar with it. We summarize and analyze the texts of short messages generated by students’ online learning, so as to fully understand students, make effective adjustments to the classroom, guide teachers’ teaching practices, optimize the classroom, and improve students’ learning, practical, and innovative abilities, in order to study the effect of online teaching on improving the ability and skills of learning English efficiently. This paper builds wireless distance teaching based on the English learning system of mobile edge computing and uses the method of case analysis and literature analysis to collect data from the database. A model was built based on online teaching, and a large number of relevant documents were read and analyzed through the literature survey method. The results of the study show that online teaching can effectively improve students’ oral and reading abilities. Students’ oral and reading abilities are about 30% higher than traditional teaching methods, and the awareness of cooperation among students has also increased by 80% compared to before, which solves the problem of popularization and improvement. The contradiction and the resolution of polarization and the transformation of underachievers, so that students’ personalities can be brought into full play and development, and college education will be on the track of quality education. This shows that the wireless long-distance teaching environment constructed by the English learning system based on mobile edge computing can play an excellent role in improving English ability.

Assessing Language Learners’ Knowledge and Performance during Covid-19

The new reality created by the COVID-19 caused a lot of changes in the educational sphere. The transition from face-to-face to distance learning was not smooth in Ukraine because distance learning was not a common practice in the country before and teachers were unprepared for teaching online. This unusual situation prompted us to start our qualitative research primarily to get insights into the altered daily routines of teachers and educators. In particular, we were interested in how they assessed their students’ performance online. This article focuses on secondary school language teachers (n=65) and language tutors at the tertiary level (n=18). The research findings have revealed that teachers gave feedback through different digital applications like Google Classroom. Oral performance was evaluated either synchronously or asynchronously. The most crucial implication is that teachers should improve and further develop their digital skills and distance teaching and assessing skills in order to provide quality education in the modern form.

A Learning Design for Deep Learning for a Distance Teacher Education Programme

Self-learning materials (SLM) generally lack the mechanisms for ensuring deep learning but help address the learning needs of large number of learners. Hence, it was retained as the key instructional component for a distance in-service teacher education programme offered by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India. However, for the programme’s personal contact programme, a learning design was developed with the aim of addressing the SLM’s pedagogic limitations. This study aimed to determine how learners were using the SLM for learning while the design was being implemented at multiple units of analysis. It used the case-study method, and the findings suggested that the learning design encouraged deep learning processes that included the use of workplace learning as a context for interrogating the SLM and evaluating their relevance. Findings of qualitative studies are not generally generalisable. Nevertheless, this study will help in making informed decisions favouring ‘learning designs’ instead of instructional designs for IGNOU’s future teacher education programmes.

An Investigation of Visual Arts Teachers’ Attitudes towards Distance Education in the Time of COVID-19

In the fight against the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, countries have replaced traditional face-to-face education with distance education as a defense tool. Distance education is not only education and training but also is related to individuals. In today's world, where we are faced with a new development, the conveniences provided by distance education technologies have been used in all areas of education. Therefore, technological developments cause changes in all areas of education systems. These changes affect the quality and functions of art education directly and indirectly. In this study, visual arts teachers’ attitudes towards distance teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated. For this purpose, the attitudes towards distance education were examined by gender, age and school type variables. The study, which was carried out in the survey model, was carried out with 165 visual arts teachers working in public and private secondary and high schools in Konya, Aksaray, Karaman and Niğde provinces. Distance education attitude scale was used to collect the research data. Findings revealed that visual arts teachers’ attitudes towards distance education were generally negative. In addition, the participating teachers’ attitudes towards distance education differed based on the school type, gender and age variables.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Design of Distance Teaching Platform for Network English Course of Communication Engineering Specialty

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Design of Distance Teaching Platform for Network English Course of Communication Engineering Specialty

Sustainable Teacher Training via Distance Education: The Effect of Study Centers, Gender and Economic Demographics on Academic Performance

We examine the effectiveness and sustainability of the distance teacher education program established by the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana, by investigating the differences in the academic performance of students who are trained in the teacher education program via traditional and distance education modes, respectively, from 2011 to 2015. Close attention is paid to the factors that affect the academic performance of students in the distance mode. Our findings confirm that traditional mode students perform better than their distance mode counterparts in terms of cumulative GPAs. Gender and economic demographics of distance study centers are found to affect the academic performance of distance education students significantly. The policy implications of these findings are discussed and directions of further action are outlined.

Bridge over Troubled Water: Induction pointers for Teacher leadership

The first years of teaching are decisive to shape teachers’ motivation and attitudes, as adaptive professionals that respond to fast changing contexts. This career stage should provide acculturation in collaborative professional communities that discuss and tackle growing challenges for learners’ improvement. Induction support can be key for the personal, social, and professional development of beginning teachers, fostering their leadership to influence and initiate practice change. It needs to be flexible and sensitive to specific education contexts, but it benefits from transversal principles grounded on common European policies. Induction should be embedded in a continuum approach that links it to other career stages - relying on broad, common teacher requirements. The COVID 19 crisis has foregrounded the competences teachers require to ensure equitable learning. Among European Key Competences, the Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Competence and the Digital Competence can play a crucial role for teachers grappling with distance teaching and unpredictable professional conditions. While Digital competence is fully acknowledged to be key for teacher professionalism, Personal, Social and Learning to Learn is now becoming crucial for teachers’ motivation, innovation, and distributed leadership, to face problematic scenarios.

What Early User Involvement Could Look Like—Developing Technology Applications for Piano Teaching and Learning

Numerous technological solutions have been proposed to promote piano learning and teaching, but very few with market success. We are convinced that users’ needs should be the starting point for an effective and transdisciplinary development process of piano-related Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (TaHIL) applications. Thus, we propose to include end users in the initial stage of technology development. We gathered insights from adult piano teachers and students through an online survey and digital interviews. Three potential literature-based solutions have been visualized as scenarios to inspire participants throughout the interviews. Our main findings indicate that potential end users consider posture and body movements, teacher–student communication, and self-practice as crucial aspects of piano education. Further insights resulted in so-called acceptance requirements for each scenario, such as enabling meaningful communication in distance teaching, providing advanced data on a performer’s body movement for increased well-being, and improving students’ motivation for self-practice, all while allowing or even promoting artistic freedom of expression and having an assisting instead of judging character. By putting the users in the center of the fuzzy front end of technology development, we have gone a step further toward concretizing TaHIL applications that may contribute to the routines of piano teaching and learning.

Swiss Primary Teachers' Professional Well-Being During School Closure Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During sudden school closures in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers had to move to distance teaching. This unprecedented situation could be expected to influence teacher well-being and schools as organizations. This article reports a qualitative study that aims at understanding how changes in teachers’ professional lives that were related to school closure affected Swiss primary teachers’ professional well-being. In semi-structured online-interviews, 21 teachers from 15 schools sampled by snowball method reported their experiences during school closure and distance teaching and how this situation influenced their professional well-being. Results showed that medium to high levels of teacher well-being could accompany a general negative evaluation of the move to distance teaching. Factors such as high work-load, social distancing and feelings of lack of competence and self-efficacy were among the most aversive aspects of distance teaching and associated with deteriorating professional well-being. Among a plethora of factors that supported teachers in maintaining their well-being, contextual work-related aspects such as school resources, collegial support or leadership support along with individual aspects such as resilience, coping strategies, and clear work structures were important. Additionally, it was found that teacher well-being was nourished by positive experiences with the new forms of distance teaching and feelings of professional mastery. Despite methodological limitations (snowball sampling, retrospective interviews), the findings of this study could inform schools and authorities about what is needed to support teacher well-being and might help to develop organizational strategies that aim at preventing harmful declines in teacher well-being during challenging and difficult times such as a pandemic.

Design of Decision Support System for Distance Learning Based on Data Mining

Since the existing system cannot assess the quality of distance education, the credibility and efficiency of decision support results are low, and the stability of the system is also poor. Combined with data mining technology, a remote learning decision support system based on data mining is designed and proposed. First, the actual situation of each university is analyzed, the system is designed in combination with the B/S architecture, and the various components of the system are described in detail. Then, the C4.5 algorithm of the decision tree algorithm is used to establish a distance teaching quality evaluation model, and the corresponding classification rules are extracted to effectively realize the teaching quality evaluation. Finally, a simulation test is carried out. The experimental results show that the designed system can comprehensively improve the stability and execution efficiency of the system, enhance the credibility of decision support results, and have certain practical applicability.

It's a Challenge, Not a Threat: Lecturers' Satisfaction During the Covid-19 Summer Semester of 2020.

The summer semester had just begun at Austrian and German universities when Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Thus, in March 2020, all universities closed their campuses, switching to distance learning within the span of about a single day. How did lecturers handle the situation? Were they still able to turn the situation into a positive one? What were the main obstacles with this difficult situation, and where there conditions which helped them to overcome the new challenges? These are research questions of the present survey with a sample of 1,152 lecturers at universities in Austria and Germany. The survey focuses on the lecturers’ appraisals of the novel situation as challenging or threatful. These appraisals are important for approaching a situation or shying away from it. However, how well a person adjusts to a novel situation is also influenced by personal and environmental resources which help to overcome the situation. The present survey focused on four possible sources of influence: internal assessments of the situation determining it to be threatening and/or challenging, personal resources, attitudes, and support by the organization. It was investigated to which degree these sources of influence could contribute to the lecturers’ satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with their teaching processes. A multiple regression with three criterion variables describing university lecturers’ perceived satisfaction with distance teaching was carried out. Predictor variables were the lecturers’ appraisals of challenge and threat, perceived support by the university and sense of belonging to the university, temporal resources, proficiency in using digital technologies, length of teaching experience, and gender. Lecturers were mostly satisfied with their teaching activities. Together with the perception of a low threat potential, challenge appraisals contributed strongest to satisfaction. In comparison, assessments of actual personal resources, skills in the use of digital technologies, teaching experience, and temporal resources were important but contributed less to satisfaction than challenge appraisals. It seems that lecturers were only able to use these resources when the technological resources were available and when the lecturers were confident in their technical abilities.

Voice symptoms in teachers during distance teaching: a survey during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland

PurposeDue to the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), teachers during the pandemic have had to adapt to online teaching at short notice. This study aims to investigate the voice symptoms and their environmental risk factors as well as the work ability associated with distance teaching and to compare these with symptoms in previous contact teaching.MethodsWe conducted a survey of 121 primary and secondary school teachers across Finland. The survey was advertised online through social media and the replies collected from voluntarily participating teachers.ResultsDuring distance teaching vocal symptoms appeared less often than in school with 71% teachers experiencing them in regular teaching and 44% in distance teaching, VHI result decreased from 7.88 in school teaching to 4.58 in distance teaching. Acoustic conditions were reported to be more suitable in distance teaching with 73% of teachers finding them adequate during distance teaching in comparison to 46% for those in regular teaching. Background noise was the most disturbing factor for a teacher’s voice in the classroom and in distance teaching and this was even more conspicuous in the classroom. Also, subjectively experienced poor indoor air quality at school influenced the voice negatively. Further, voice problems were associated with increased subjective stress levels and reduced ability to work.ConclusionDistance teaching has affected teachers’ voices in a positive way compared with regular teaching. This difference is likely to be due to better acoustics and indoor air quality in distance teaching conditions.

DISTANCE EDUCATION EXPERIENCES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL MATH TEACHERS DURING THE PANDEMIC: A NARRATIVE STUDY

All schools in Turkey have quickly entered into the process of distance education because of the Covid-19 outbreak. In this process, mathematics teachers have become an associate of this process to teach math lessons at a distance. The subject of the current study is the experiences of teachers in this process of distance teaching of math, which is a compulsory subject in all secondary schools. The participants of the current study designed as a narrative study are 15 math teachers experienced on the subject. As a result of the study, a total of five super-themes emerged. The first super-theme includes codes related to the general structure of the math course. The second super-theme is theme of hardware and Web 2.0 tools. This sub-theme includes codes related to their experiences of EBA TV, EBA Internet and other alternative tools of distance education. The third sub-theme is the Socio Cultural super theme. This theme is consisted of sub-codes including political issues, state of the student, state of the parent and socio-economic situations. The fourth sub- theme includes the codes related to psychological states arising from the extraordinary situation emerging in the pandemic (period of pandemic, cyber bullying, emotional links). The fifth sub-theme is related to the readiness of teachers.