Remote Schools Research Articles

Principals as Protagonists: Practices Beneficent for Indigenous Education in Rural Schools

The participation and performance of Indigenous students in Australia's schools is below that of other students and is a matter of national concern. Evidence suggests that the impact on student learning of school principals' leadership is significant. What then, can school principals do to improve schooling outcomes for Indigenous students? Herein, we discuss research that investigated school principals' professional practices associated with their leadership of Indigenous education in rural, regional and remote (RRR) schools. Qqualitative research was undertaken using interpretive methodologies and document analysis techniques. Data collected in the period 2012-2014 through evaluations of Indigenous education in thirty one Australian primary, secondary and combined schools, from diverse RRR locations, was used for the research. Principals' professional practices described in the 'Australian Professional Standard for Principals' provided the overall framing for analysis of the data (AITSL, 2014). Principals' extant practices that shape the ecology of education for Indigenous students in rural schools were identified. Educational leadership that authentically values the culture, agency and beliefs of Indigenous people; that places Indigenous students' physical, mental, cultural and spiritual wellbeing at the centre of the schools' activities; that actively develops collaborative relationships and networks based on reciprocity, trust, cooperation and civility; that is guided and sustained by humanistic endeavour, makes a significant contribution towards the participation and achievements of Indigenous students. The article concludes with a framework for leadership of Indigenous education in RRR schools which locates the principal in the role of 'protagonist', building bridging social capital around the practices that contribute holistically to the education of Indigenous students.

Missing Piece Study protocol: prospective surveillance to determine the epidemiology of group A streptococcal pharyngitis and impetigo in remote Western Australia

IntroductionGroup A β-haemolytic Streptococcus (GAS), a Gram-positive bacterium, causes skin, mucosal and systemic infections. Repeated GAS infections can lead to autoimmune diseases acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease...

The Challenges of Remote Area Elementary Schools in Thematic Curriculum Implementation

The Challenges of Remote Area Elementary Schools in Thematic Curriculum Implementation

Vida sem escola e saúde mental dos estudantes de escolas públicas na pandemia de Covid-19

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ mental health during part of the suspension of in-person classes. The study is a cross-sectional survey carried out from October2020 to December 2020. An online self-report questionnaire was answered by thirteen- to twenty-year old students, from the 9th grade (Middle School) to high school, who followed remote school activities in 21 state and municipal public schools located in peripheral areas of the cities of São Paulo and Guarulhos. Two linear regression models were used in the analysis, considering as dependent variables the depression scores as provided by the Child Depression Inventory and anxiety by the SCARED (Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders). The time of exposure to the screens, the inversion of sleep periods and the female gender, along with the difficulties of remote education and other social markers (such as color/race and cases of COVID-19 at home) are associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety during the first wave of the COVID-19 in the Metropolitan area of São Paulo. The findings reinforce the importance of school routine in the lives of those young people and the challenges posed to schools to promote students’ mental health in the post-pandemic reality.

Attracting Teachers to Rural and Remote Schools

This article examines the teacher recruitment policies of Laos and Malawi in relation to rural teaching motivation. It evaluates the policies and analyzes the main issues affecting such policies. The study is qualitative, largely relying on available literature such as policy documents from education ministries in Laos and Malawi, UNICEF, UNESCO and World Bank education reports, published journal articles, and any supplementary material available in both the print and online media among others. The study finds that strategies to attract teachers to the rural and remote schools in both countries mainly include rural or hardship allowances and housing schemes. However, due to lack of financial capacity, the strategies have not been fully effective. Thus, the study recommends for improvement of the strategies through readjustment and extension of the benefits to include better housing schemes, provision of in-service training to rural and remote teachers, improved promotion criteria for rural teachers, and increment of the rural or hardship allowances.

Tele-Assessments in Rural and Remote Schools – Perspectives of Support Teachers

Tele-assessments may enable specialist evaluation of students in schools and their progress following intervention. The aim of this project was to evaluate the feasibility of using videoconferencing technology to assess students with reading difficulties in the school setting and obtain the perspectives of teachers supporting the students during the assessment. Teachers ( n = 57) of 71 primary school age students participated in the study. Teachers provided feedback on the tele-assessment by completing questionnaires about students’ behaviours and the quality of the technology and assessment process. Randomly selected teachers ( n = 24) were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview to provide qualitative feedback. Tele-assessments were completed in 93.4% of the sample. Support teachers reported satisfaction with the audio and visual quality as well as the assessment process. The majority of students completed the tele-assessment with good compliance, engagement and attention. Feedback from support teachers also reflected the strengths of tele-assessments, such as better access to service, cost saving and convenience. Barriers to tele-assessments included technical difficulties, assessment limitations and equipment issues at schools. Tele-assessment is a feasible method of objectively measuring outcomes of students following an intervention. Tele-assessment at school is largely accepted by teachers who supported students in this study. Feedback obtained from this research may be used to offer guidance on undertaking tele-assessments with students in the school setting.

Development of Brief Video Intervention to Promote Physical Activity among Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

ABSTRACT Background Obesity and physical inactivity are serious public health concerns in the United States (US) and globally. COVID-19 restrictions are resulting in decreased physical activity (PA) levels among children. Purpose To determine barriers and challenges to PA promotion among children during COVID-19 and inform a PA promotion video. Methods An explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to collect data from adults who have influence over the PA levels of children. Analysis included descriptive statistics of the quantitative data and a rapid qualitative analysis of qualitative data. Results Quantitative and qualitative data indicated that space, eq\\uipment, and virtual learning environments, among others, were key barriers to PA promotion, and that movement activities, game ideas, and brain breaks would be helpful video content. Discussion Considering the content and features desired by participants, PA promotion video content can be used in various settings. Translation to Health Education Practice We developed an animated video to promote PA in children and made it freely available on a variety of social media sites. The video may be used to enhance children’s PA levels in remote learning, school, and family environments. Participation in movement will contribute to children’s overall wellbeing and help prevent obesity.

What attracts teachers to rural and remote schools? Incentivising teachers’ employment choices in New South Wales

Staffing rural and regional schools remains an intractable problem. This study identifies effective incentives for attracting teachers to difficult-to-staff rural and remote schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Compared to their urban counterparts, students in these schools are disadvantaged by teacher staff shortages, inexperience and attrition. The research investigated the ability for existing incentives of the NSW Department of Education, other education systems and other professions to attract professionals to rural and remote appointments using a discrete choice experiment methodology. The findings identify ways of attracting teachers of differing levels of experience and commitment to work in such areas.

Blended Learning in Rural and Remote Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

With the development of technology in education, various methods of teaching have been adopted across the world. Many countries have made technology an integral part of their classroom, and some nations have worked hard to incorporate it in various ways. Through a literature review, this paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of blended learning in rural and remote schools. This study finds how blended learning helps school districts balance teacher demand and supply issues in rural and remote areas. The present study revealed that blended learning is considerably more favorable than face-to-face only, home-schooling, and pure online education and offers several benefits for learners such as no teacher retention issues and schools available in their community. This research concludes that blended learning is an excellent approach to teaching and learning in rural areas regarding teachers’ availability, students’ time to travel to the city, and students’ interaction with their teachers and colleagues.

Validity and reliability of resiliency measures trialled for the evaluation of a preventative Resilience-promoting social-emotional curriculum for remote Aboriginal school students.

PurposeWe aimed to test the reliability and validity of two brief measures of resilience adopted for the evaluation of a preventative social-emotional curriculum implemented for Aboriginal middle school students from socially disadvantaged remote communities in Australia’s Northern Territory. The questionnaires chosen were intended to measure psychological resilience and socio-cultural resilience as complementary dimensions of the capacity to cope in circumstances of significant life stress and risk of self-harm.MethodsConfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess construct validity of the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), a measure of psychological resilience, and the 12-item Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-12), a measure of socio-cultural resilience, with a sample of 520 students. Associations between resilience and psychological distress and emotional and behavioural difficulty were analysed in relation to life stressors to assess criterion validity of the scales.ResultsCFA provided support for the validity of the respective constructs. There was good fit for both scales. However, assessment of criterion validity of the scales suggested that the adapted measure of socio-cultural resilience (CYRM-12NT) showed higher reliability and a clearer indication of predictive validity than the measure of psychological resilience (CD-RISC-10).ConclusionsThe CYRM-12NT appears to be a more useful measure of resilience among Aboriginal youth exposed to significant life stress and disadvantage. However, both measures may require further development to enhance their validity and utility among potentially at-risk adolescents in socially, culturally and linguistically diverse remote Aboriginal communities.

Teachers’ Perception About MOOCs and ICT During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Technological advances such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) allow the construction of new spaces where students consult the information at any time, take the online exams and communicate with the participants of the educational process from anywhere. This quantitative research analyzes the perception of the teachers about the organization of the school activities in MOOCs and use of ICT considering machine learning and decision tree techniques (data science). The participants are 122 teachers (58 men and 64 women) from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who took the “Innovation in University Teaching 2020” Diploma. The academic degree of these educators is Bachelor (n = 35, 28.69%), Specialty (n = 4, 3.28%), Master (n = 58, 47.54%) and Doctorate (n = 25, 20.49%). The results of machine learning (linear regressions) indicate that the organization of the school activities in MOOCs positively influences the motivation, participation and learning of the students. Data science identifies 3 predictive models about MOOCs and ICT through the decision tree technique. According to the teachers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the organization of the school activities in MOOCs and use of ICT play a fundamental role during the COVID-19 pandemic. The implications of this research promotes that educators use MOOCs and ICT to improve the educational conditions, create new remote school activities and build new virtual learning spaces. In conclusion, universities with the support of technological tools can improve the teaching-learning process and update the course during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, MOOCs represent a technological alternative to transform the school activities in the 21st century.

Does Performance Pay Enhance Social Accountability? Evidence from Remote Schools in Indonesia

Does Performance Pay Enhance Social Accountability? Evidence from Remote Schools in Indonesia

ГОТОВНОСТЬ ПЕДАГОГОВ СЕЛЬСКИХ ШКОЛ К РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ИНКЛЮЗИВНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ: ОПЫТ КЫРГЫЗСТАНА

The introduction of inclusive education in the post-Soviet countries takes place unevenly within the framework of the historical approach to the development of special education for children with disabilities. A long way has been done in the Kyrgyz Republic over the past 20 years, but the formation of an inclusive education system is at the very beginning. This is due to many objective reasons; however, one of the most important is the training of qualified personnel, psychological, pedagogical, methodological and moral readiness of educational specialists to work with children with developmental disabilities. This article is devoted to the study of the readiness of teachers of rural secondary schools for inclusive education. The main focus of the study was on identifying the level of personal and motivational readiness, which includes the level of effective empathy, social and pedagogical tolerance, the level of readiness to interact and accept the educational characteristics of children with disabilities and developmental disabilities, especially with mental disabilities. And it was especially important to identify how ready teachers working in rural remote schools are. In the course of the study, such methods as questionnaires and surveys of primary school teachers were used, as well as the focus group method was used. The results of the study showed a difference in the preparation of teachers for the implementation of inclusive education in cities and villages of the Kyrgyz Republic.Recommendations are given on the need to improve (strengthen) the content of professional development programs for teachers living at a distance from special education centers with practice-oriented modules for preparing for inclusive education and interacting with children with developmental disabilities, including disabilities and/or mental disorders.

Enabling Remote School Education using Knowledge Graphs and Deep Learning Techniques

An automated question-answering system allows students to learn as an integral part of digitized learning. This system responds to queries using text. We also include a knowledge graph, which significantly enhances the model's intrigue and improves learners’ understanding. The features of knowledge entity extraction, information point evaluation and analysis, knowledge graph construction from unstructured text, and knowledge entity integration are all explored. The question-answering paradigm we suggest in this study uses knowledge graphs and BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) to provide diverse learners with quick feedback on the subject. In order to facilitate non-native learners’ understanding, we also include an English to Hindi translation. As a result, access to and continued learning can be very beneficial for educators.

Continuing the Journey of Education, Training and Research

Continuing the Journey of Education, Training and Research

Problems in the Utilization of Educational Technology in Remote Schools

Background: Education has always been a common conversation that we hear almost every day. The whole world considers education to be a problem that never ends. Because education feels less satisfactory, both in terms of learning and from the way of teaching. Even in developed countries, the problem of disding becomes a very complicated problem.Aim: The purpose of our research is to be able to find out the Problems of Using Educational Technology in Remote Schools, we want to provide an overview of how this educational technology can be used in every circle and during a pandemic that some schools implement online schools using digital media.Method: In this study, we used qualitative methods and library research from several journals and articles.Findings: The results of this study that the Problems of Using Educational Technology in Remote Schools, are still very less than optimal with various obstacles and current conditions. There are still many parents and even teachers complain about the lack of internet network, internet quotas that do not match their needs, and also the parents' lack of understanding with technology

In-House Professional Development Activities to Support English Language Teacher Development in Remote Schools

Professional development (PD) can have a profound effect on teachers’ teaching quality and student’s learning outcomes. PD activities can take place both within and outside educational institutions and range from formal to informal learning activities, including training and peer teaching. Many educational institutions encourage their teachers to take part in these PD activities; however, not all educational institutions can support their teachers to participate in external PD activities. To address this issue, some institutions, particularly those in remote areas, develop their own PD activities and offer them to their teachers internally. This article aims to elaborate on four in-house PD activities that have been implemented at one private English school in remote Cambodia. These PD activities include: (1) general English courses, (2) regular in-service workshops, (3) teaching methodology courses, and (4) informal collaboration in teaching and learning. The article concludes with implications for future research.

Opportunities to Enhance Children's Communication Development at School in Underserved Communities.

Alternative service delivery approaches are required to provide support for children with communication difficulties in underserved communities. Schools have a unique set of assets that can be utilized to provide this support. This study explored what the education sector and classrooms in the early years of schooling offer as support for children with communication difficulties in an underserved Majority World country, the Maldives. The objective was to identify opportunities to enhance support provided for these children. A qualitative multimethod approach was used involving (a) 520 min of classroom observational data from four remote schools, (b) interviews with four special education needs teachers, and (c) an interview with a Ministry of Education official. Classroom observational data were analyzed using the Communication Supporting Classroom Observation Tool. Deductive content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The support system aimed to reflect the Inclusive Education Policy of the Maldives. The Ministry of Education official and teachers raised concerns regarding lack of allied health services such as speech-language therapy in schools. Teachers frequently used certain communication supporting interactions such as imitation in classrooms. Missed opportunities to enhance communication were observed, including limited use of some interaction features such as modeling language, limited planned opportunities for children to interact in class, and limited resources in the environment to develop communication in Grade 1 and 2 compared to preschool. Findings suggest building capacity among teachers and training teachers on identified classroom communication support areas to enhance support for children with communication difficulties. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17003980.

Lessons from Remote School and Work

Lessons from Remote School and Work

The impact of school opening model on SARS-CoV-2 community incidence and mortality.

The role that traditional and hybrid in-person schooling modes contribute to the community incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections relative to fully remote schooling is unknown. We conducted an event study using a retrospective nationwide cohort evaluating the effect of school mode on SARS-CoV-2 cases during the 12 weeks after school opening (July-September 2020, before the Delta variant was predominant), stratified by US Census region. After controlling for case rate trends before school start, state-level mitigation measures and community activity level, SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates were not statistically different in counties with in-person learning versus remote school modes in most regions of the United States. In the South, there was a significant and sustained increase in cases per week among counties that opened in a hybrid or traditional mode versus remote, with weekly effects ranging from 9.8 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.7-16.1) to 21.3 (95% CI = 9.9-32.7) additional cases per 100,000 persons, driven by increasing cases among 0-9 year olds and adults. Schools can reopen for in-person learning without substantially increasing community case rates of SARS-CoV-2; however, the impacts are variable. Additional studies are needed to elucidate the underlying reasons for the observed regional differences more fully.