Produced from experiences at the outset of the intense times when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began in March 2020, this collaborative paper offers the collective reflections and analysis of a ...group of teaching and learning and Higher Education (HE) scholars from a diverse 15 of the 26 South African public universities. In the form of a theorised narrative insistent on foregrounding personal voices, it presents a snapshot of the pandemic addressing the following question: what does the ‘pivot online’ to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL), forced into urgent existence by the Covid-19 pandemic, mean for equity considerations in teaching and learning in HE? Drawing on the work of Therborn (
2009
: 20–32;
2012
: 579–589;
2013
;
2020
) the reflections consider the forms of inequality - vital, resource and existential - exposed in higher education. Drawing on the work of Tronto (
1993
;
2015
; White and Tronto
2004
) the paper shows the networks of care which were formed as a counter to the systemic failures of the sector at the onset of the pandemic.
The shutdown of schools in response to the rapid spread of COVID-19 poses risks to the education of young children, including a widening education gap. In the present article, we investigate how ...school closures in 2020 influenced the performance of German students in a curriculum-based online learning software for mathematics. We analyzed data from more than 2,500 K-12 students who computed over 124,000 mathematical problem sets before and during the shutdown, and found that students' performance increased during the shutdown of schools in 2020 relative to the year before. Our analyses also revealed that low-achieving students showed greater improvements in performance than high-achieving students, suggesting a narrowing gap in performance between low- and high-achieving students. We conclude that online learning environments may be effective in preventing educational losses associated with current and future shutdowns of schools.
Summary
This paper presents a personal account of developments in research on online learning over the past 30 years. Research on how to design online instruction represents an example of applying ...the science of learning to education. It contributes to the science of learning (as exemplified by developments in cognitive load theory, the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, and incorporating metacognitive, motivational, and affective aspects of learning), the science of instruction (as exemplified by the continuing development of research‐based principles of instructional design), and the science of assessment (as exemplified by supplementing self‐report surveys and retention tests with multilevel transfer tests, log file data during learning, and cognitive neuroscience measures of cognitive processing during learning). Some recurring themes are that learning is caused by instructional methods rather than instructional media, so research should focus on features that are uniquely afforded by digital learning environments; instructional practice should be grounded in rigorous and systematic research, including value‐added experiments aimed at pinpointing the active ingredients in online instruction; research in online learning should identify boundary conditions under which instructional techniques are most effective; and research in online learning should test and contribute to learning theory.
The perception of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students toward the significance of distance learning practice in EFL teaching at university is essential to provide suggestions for enhancing ...distance learning practice in the context of EFL teaching. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perception towards distance learning practice at University of Muhammadiyah Gresik, especially in Words in Contexts class as the main course for learning vocabularies. Therefore, this study explored several aspects that needed in the implementation of distance learning practice. The subjects of this study were 34 first semester students of English education department who had applied distance learning practice. Questionnaire was used as research instrument to collect data from the respondents who had been selected. In addition, interview was also conducted to confirm the result of questionnaire. After the data were collected, they were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis method. The finding indicated that students had average perception towards the implementation of distance learning practice, since distance learning practice provided advantages for their learning process. However, there were setbacks and problems such as students’ participation, internet connectivity, and material clarity that needed to be solved in order to improve the quality of distance learning practice.
•This study attempts to identify the challenges faced by accounting education during the COVID-19 pandemic.•Our results raise important questions regarding the TL system in place before the ...crisis.•Significant differences exist between the perspectives among the countries, which provides insights regarding the pandemic’s effect on our educational systems and a true picture of universities’ educational performance.•This study provides insights, recommendations, and valuable information on responses to the pandemic that can benefit educational systems in the future.
The main objective of the current study is to examine the perspectives of undergraduate accounting students on the transition to distance learning (DL) as emergency remote learning from traditional learning (TL) during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the learning dimensions of DL compared to TL. The sample includes 782 responses from six countries (France, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia, and the UK). In accordance with prior studies, we construct a questionnaire that explores the perceptions of students regarding the TL-to-DL transition process and the learning dimensions of DL vs. TL. The majority of respondents believe that the DL transition process, due to the pandemic, has generated concerns to some extent in all countries. However, in terms of the dimensions of DL vs. TL, significant differences exist between the perspectives among the countries, which provides insights regarding the pandemic’s effect on our educational systems and a more accurate picture of universities’ educational performance. Our results raise important questions regarding the TL system in place before the crisis, as well as highlighting the importance of using technology to deliver educational services. This study provides cross-country evidence, from the perspective both of developed and developing countries, on the impact of the pandemic on students’ learning habits and educational methods.
This study aims to determine the key factors affecting students' and instructors' continuance satisfaction with e-learning in the higher education context. In order to identify the factors that ...impact e-learning continuation in higher education institutions, a systematic review of the literature was conducted, revealing that the majority of studies have reported the essential role of satisfaction in mediating the relationship between 11 factors and users' decisions to continue using e-learning systems. This study then proposed that users, both students and instructors, must continually be satisfied with the e-learning systems offered by higher education institutions if they are to continue using them. We term this 'e-learning continuance satisfaction.' The formation of a unified perspective of instructors and students on the core factors that impact e-learning continuance was then investigated, in addition to the causal relationships between these factors and e-learning continuance satisfaction. The Fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method was used to analyze data collected from 9 instructors and 38 students via an interview survey and the results yielded five core factors - information quality, task-technology fit, system quality, utility value, and usefulness - that influence users' e-learning continuance satisfaction. Several different causal relationships between the factors identified from both students' and instructors' perspectives were also identified and used to form a single viewpoint. Our findings provide new insights into how higher education institutions can promote continuance satisfaction in order to ensure continuation of e-learning.
Although past research has sought to identify the factors of student engagement in traditional online courses, two questions remained largely unanswered with regard to Massive Open Online Courses ...(MOOCs): do the factors that could influence student engagement in traditional online courses also apply to online courses that are massive and open? What factors do students consider important in terms of their perceived ability to promote a satisfying or engaging online learning experience? This paper reports a case study of three top‐rated MOOCs in the disciplines of programming languages, literature, and arts & design in order to address these very questions. Using a mixed methods approach that combines participant observation with analysis of reflection data from 965 course participants, this paper seeks to understand the factors behind the popularity of these MOOCs. Five factors were found. These include the following, ranked in terms of importance: (1) problem‐centric learning with clear expositions, (2) instructor accessibility and passion, (3) active learning, (4) peer interaction, and (5) using helpful course resources. The specific design strategies pertaining to each factor are further discussed in this paper. These strategies can provide useful guidance for instructors and are a worthwhile subject for further experimental validation.
Various hypotheses of information representation in brain, referred to as neural codes, have been proposed to explain the information transmission between neurons. Neural coding plays an essential ...role in enabling the brain-inspired spiking neural networks (SNNs) to perform different tasks. To search for the best coding scheme, we performed an extensive comparative study on the impact and performance of four important neural coding schemes, namely, rate coding, time-to-first spike (TTFS) coding, phase coding, and burst coding. The comparative study was carried out using a biological 2-layer SNN trained with an unsupervised spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) algorithm. Various aspects of network performance were considered, including classification accuracy, processing latency, synaptic operations (SOPs), hardware implementation, network compression efficacy, input and synaptic noise resilience, and synaptic fault tolerance. The classification tasks on Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) and Fashion-MNIST datasets were applied in our study. For hardware implementation, area and power consumption were estimated for these coding schemes, and the network compression efficacy was analyzed using pruning and quantization techniques. Different types of input noise and noise variations in the datasets were considered and applied. Furthermore, the robustness of each coding scheme to the non-ideality-induced synaptic noise and fault in analog neuromorphic systems was studied and compared. Our results show that TTFS coding is the best choice in achieving the highest computational performance with very low hardware implementation overhead. TTFS coding requires 4x/7.5x lower processing latency and 3.5x/6.5x fewer SOPs than rate coding during the training/inference process. Phase coding is the most resilient scheme to input noise. Burst coding offers the highest network compression efficacy and the best overall robustness to hardware non-idealities for both training and inference processes. The study presented in this paper reveals the design space created by the choice of each coding scheme, allowing designers to frame each scheme in terms of its strength and weakness given a designs' constraints and considerations in neuromorphic systems.
Education has been one of the major areas disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on users’ (students and faculty members) learning in higher ...education, examining how engineering students and faculty perceived the abrupt transition in comparison to other colleges. The current research aims to investigate the outcomes of enforcing eLearning to facilitate teaching and learning processes in higher education after this unprecedented pandemic and identify the most significant challenges and opportunities the users face. This study uses a quantitative approach; it included 1713 respondents, 227 full-time faculty members, and 1486 students at the University of Sharjah. The survey analysis indicated general agreement that the most significant advantage of online learning implementation was its flexibility in place and time, with 77.2% of users providing positive feedback. Moreover, the accessibility and effectiveness of the assessment and communication methods used showed a positive trend in the hypotheses, 80.3% of the users. The sudden implementation of eLearning during the COVID-19 pandemic had discouraging implications for users' mental health and socialization, where 55.6% of the sample agreed that they had been affected negatively. 75% of the users prefer a flexible model blending face-to-face and e-learning techniques rather than solely depending on either of them. Therefore, A Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) is recommended for the university to apply based on the nature of the courses.
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