The Targeted Reading Intervention: Face‐to‐Face vs. Webcam Literacy Coaching of Classroom Teachers

The targeted reading intervention (TRI) is a professional development program for rural kindergarten and first grade classroom teachers to help them provide effective reading strategies with struggling readers. In two randomized controlled trials, the TRI was delivered two ways: (1) literacy coaches provided support for classroom teachers through face‐to‐face classroom meetings or (2) coaches provided support to classroom teachers through live webcam technology. The purpose this study was to examine how face‐to‐face versus webcam coaching was related to teacher and struggling reader outcomes. Regression results suggested greater benefits with webcam literacy coaching for teacher fidelity and efficacy. Both struggling reader groups made equivalent gains across literacy measures, although there were greater gains on one child literacy measure in the webcam group.     

New approaches,new vision: capturing teacher experiences in a brave new online world

The paper is an exploration of how a group of tutors involved in a major e‐learning project reacted to developing and teaching in this environment for this first time. All were experienced face‐to‐face teachers but had different levels of experience in using technology. Our aim was to capture their individual views on working in an online environment. The import of this cannot be under‐estimated, as different views on learning influence the role and potential of technology in an e‐learning environment.

As the research is an exploration in understanding the impact that e‐learning can have on the role of the teacher, it seemed appropriate to frame the work in a grounded theory approach and to deal with themes as they emerged. The data for the paper are the product of focus groups, questionnaires and observation. The sample for data collection was the total population of tutors in seven institutions involved in the delivery of the course. The questionnaire captured tutors’ profiles (experience of information technology, e‐moderating, e‐learning, gender, college, module taught), their personal online tutoring style, their opinions on pedagogy and the student learning experience, training and development issues and general reflections on being an online tutor. The initial findings reveal varied reasons for becoming involved with online learning and a wide variety of styles for interacting online with students. All respondents were keen to keep an element of face‐to‐face teaching in their modules and felt it was difficult to gauge depth of learning without ‘normal face‐to‐face interactions at some point’. A number of staff felt that e‐delivery is much more difficult than they envisaged and challenged them in ways that face‐to‐face teaching did not. Materials and approaches that work well in a classroom environment are not always effective online. Tutors faced challenges in both design and delivery.     

Scientific collaboratories in higher education: exploring learning style preferences and perceptions of technology

Scientific collaboratories hold the promise of providing students access to specialized scientific instruments, data and experts, enabling learning opportunities perhaps otherwise not available. However, evaluation of scientific collaboratories in higher education has lagged behind their development. We conducted a repeated‐measures study that provided data regarding social interaction learning styles and perceptions of a scientific collaboratory system from 40 university science students working face‐to‐face and remotely. Students with a strong competitive learning style preference or who worked with a student with a strong competitive learning style reported a slightly more positive perception of the relative advantage, compatibility and complexity of the collaboratory system. Students with a strong individualistic learning style preference or who worked with a student with a strong individualistic learning style reported a more negative perception of the observability of the system. No relationships were found between students’ cooperative learning style preference and their perceptions of the system after using it face‐to‐face or remotely.     

Measuring The Business Impact of E‐Learning: An Empirical Study

This study fills a gap in the current HRD literature of return on investment (ROI) analysis of technology‐based learning interventions. Using a Type IV control group method as defined by Wang (2002), the study empirically analyzed and measured the learning effectiveness and the business impact of an e‐learning system implemented in General Electric Company. The e‐learning system under study demonstrated significant economic returns in regard to reduced learning response time and reduced project cycle time. The study shows that e‐learning, as a means of technology‐based HRD intervention, can be highly effective as a performance support learning mechanism, although the results also suggest that e‐learning alone is not sufficient to replace the traditional face‐to‐face learning platforms.     

Executive Function Coaching for College Students with Learning Disabilities and ADHD: A New Approach for Fostering Self‐Determination

Given growing numbers of college students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and/or learning disabilities (LD), it is important to understand why these students choose ADD (“executive function”) coaching to enhance their academic success when more traditional forms of campus support already offer this help. Fifty‐four undergraduates with ADHD and/or LD participated in a study of their experiences with coaching. To better understand students’ perspectives on the manner in which coaching helped them minimize executive function challenges while addressing academic goals, a purposive sample of seven of these students participated in two interviews. All seven described highly self‐determined approaches to goal attainment that they associated with coaching. These students also reported that, in contrast to traditional campus services, coaching focused primarily on supporting their emerging autonomy, helping them develop and manage their executive function skills and promoting their self‐efficacy and confidence about future success. Findings are linked to recommendations for additional research and service delivery options.     

Technology Readiness, Learning Goals, and eLearning: Searching for Synergy

More and more business schools are offering classes online or classes using a mix of face‐to‐face and online elements. In this article, we focus on how technology readiness and learning‐goal orientation influence students' preference toward these mixed classes. We conducted a large‐scale survey to determine whether students who are technology ready would place higher utility on enrolling in mixed classes and/or whether there exists a participation bias such that students with low learning‐goal orientation place higher utility on enrolling in mixed classes. We found that overall students who are more technology ready do place higher utility on enrolling in mixed classes, but that learning‐goal orientation does not influence this decision. We conclude with implications and recommendations for business schools that are interested in offering mixed classes.     

Course Management Systems and Blended Learning: An Innovative Learning Approach

This article utilizes Rogers ’ innovation‐decision process model (2003) and Beckman and Berry's innovation process model (2007) to create an innovative learning map that illustrates three learning methods (i.e., face‐to‐face learning, online learning, and blended learning) in two types of innovation (i.e., incremental innovation and radical innovation) that exhibits the behavior and dynamics on a two‐dimensional area of learning changes (i.e., change in learning model and change in technological infrastructure). The behavior and dynamics of face‐to‐face, online, and blended learning are depicted in the innovative learning map. Blended learning is identified as a radical innovative learning method in the innovative learning map. A course management system (CMS) is an information and communication technology (ICT) tool that can be used to facilitate and balance communication channel within a blended learning environment. Two propositions are proposed in this article: (1) CMS facilitates communication channel, enhances learning practice for learners and instructors, and is an enabler for blended learning; and (2) adopting CMS is suitable for blended learning practice. A case study to a college System Analysis and Design (SA&D) course reflects that the adoption of CMS in a blended learning environment is acceptable.     

LINKING STUDENTS AND CLASSES: STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING LEARNING AND THINKING

Research in cognitive and social psychology is beginning to suggest strategies which will allow us to improve students’ learning and thinking skills. Classroom studies using four teaching strategies based on research in these areas will be described. The four techniques are: using modified cooperative learning groups within classes; linking upper‐ and lower‐level classes for metacognitive instruction; using short‐term, coached cooperative learning groups; and using student mentors. A common factor in the four techniques is that students think aloud in groups as they solve problems or discuss controversial issues. Modified cooperative learning groups were successful in upper‐level courses. Thinking and learning skills improved in these classes. However, in lower‐level courses, particularly those which contained underprepared students, more guidance (modeling, coaching and structure) was needed than was available within most peer cooperative groups. Modeling and coaching were provided by linking students from upper‐level courses with lower‐level students on short‐term, issue‐based projects and for semester‐long classes. Such arrangements result in what Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) have termed cognitive apprenticeships. Cognitive apprenticeships lead to improved attitudes toward the content area, perception of improved cognitive skills and some gains in content mastery.     

A simple,low‐cost stereographic video capture and viewing solution for teaching psychomotor skills using online delivery

It is recognised that the teaching of complex psychomotor skills using online delivery is difficult without the support of either face‐to‐face coaching and tuition or a stereoscopic viewing system that provides users with a feel for the spatial nature of the skills being taught. To date, the limitations of bandwidth, and the high cost and sophistication of existing three‐dimensional video production and viewing technologies have limited the use of stereoscopic video imaging to highly funded fields, such as sports and medical research or military applications. The advent of desktop video editing software, along with personal video players (such as the Apple iPod and iPhone) with small screens utilising efficient video codecs, means that high‐quality video podcasts can now be effectively created and delivered via the Internet. Combining these new video technologies with a conventional analogue stereo viewing and capture system makes the production of stereoscopic video potentially much more accessible to educators as a practical teaching tool. This paper seeks to alert educational designers to an exploratory study into a potentially useful methodology for the capture, production, dissemination and viewing of stereoscopic video images using existing, low‐cost technologies. Aside from the production of a simple viewer, the process is straightforward and requires only basic and readily available equipment. Applications in education as well as vocational and sports training are self‐evident.     

Student variables in the evaluation of mediated learning environments

This paper discusses the results of the student dimension in an evaluation applied to an educational teleconferencing system in a Mexican higher education institution. Traditionally, this institution has gained prestige for its face‐to‐face programs, and students are not used to mediated or distance learning. Courses offered through this system are based on a pedagogical model which emphasises the active role of the learner. Therefore, student variables such as perceptions of the self, and self‐regulatory processes become key components in this learning environment. Conclusions here presented correspond to: (i) students’ expectations; (ii) perceptions of efficacy for self‐regulated learning, and perceptions of the course, and of the teacher's and learner's work.

Results indicate students’ expectations focus on ‘learning more than in face‐to‐face situations’, followed by ‘using technology’, and ‘having freedom and initiative’. Perceptions of efficacy for self‐regulated learning were high overall. Nevertheless, analyses of individual items indicate specific areas requiring improvement. Qualitative data on perceptions of the course, and teachers’ and learners’ work suggest that these courses are more demanding than the face‐to‐face ones they are taking. Students’ responses include attitudinal and cognitive adjustments needed for these learning environments. These results have led to improvements, which are presently being applied. The importance of considering these student variables in evaluations of mediated learning environments is discussed.     

A vision of successful schooling: Ghanaian teachers’ understandings of learning,teaching and assessment

This article reports on an empirical study exploring Ghanaian teachers’ understandings of teaching, learning and assessment. It argues that received views of poorly trained teachers with untheorized and badly reasoned professional practices may mask a more complex situation. In defining learning, teachers in the study reproduced models consistent with transmission or behaviouristic theories. However, when asked to describe their most successful experiences, teachers’ understandings were more in accord with social constructivism. Also, their aspiration towards interactive models of classroom assessment was circumscribed by the normal context of assessment discourse and by bureaucratic requirements. The article concludes that, given the right circumstances, teachers can reflect on their experiences and produce a more sophisticated account of teaching and learning. It suggests ways in which in‐service work might make use of these insights, recommending further attention to the discursive frames of teachers’ professional reflections within dialogue and active engagement through school‐based coaching.     

What Happens During Language and Literacy Coaching? Coaches’ Reports of Their Interactions With Educators

Research Findings: This study investigated coaches’ interactions with educators in the context of a large-scale, state-implemented literacy professional development (PD). We examined log data and open-comment reports to understand what coaches found salient about their interactions with educators as well as how those reports aligned with the initial design of the PD. Coaches reported spending a large proportion of their interactions with educators completing administrative tasks. Our findings also indicate that coaches disproportionally targeted instructional content from the PD while also adding unrelated instructional content to their coaching. Although coaches reported focusing on relationship building, they reported using less efficacious coaching strategies (e.g., observation and discussion) more frequently than coaching strategies demonstrated to be more efficacious (e.g., modeling and coteaching). Practice or Policy: Our findings suggest an explanation for the mixed evidence around coaching, as coaches in the study seemed to move beyond the specifications of the PD in their coaching interactions. This work has implications for the design of PD for both improving coach training and allowing some flexibility to meet educators’ learning needs that may be secondary to the content of the PD. Findings also support the need for more nuanced mechanisms for investing in coaching and coaching outcomes.     

Distance education and distance learning: some psychological considerations

Face‐to‐face education and distance education, viewed as differing sets of organisational provisions for the fostering of learning, emphasize different kinds of learning processes, and depend upon somewhat different psychological properties in learners. Nonetheless, all practical learning settings, whether they are labelled ‘school’, ‘adult education’, ‘distance education’, or something else, involve a mixture of face‐to‐face learning and distance learning. The psychological difference between the two kinds of setting is thus note purely qualitative in nature, but is also quantitative: for instance, certain learner characteristics which are useful in face‐to‐face learning (discussed in detail in the body of the present paper) are indispensible for distance learning, while certain processes which are at the heart of distance learning (also dis‐cusssed in detail later) are often given little emphasis in face‐to‐face settings, although they are in principle possible and even desirable there. The question thus arises of whether it would not be desirable to give more emphasis in face‐to‐face settings to psychologically desirable aspects of distance learning.     

Coaches' and New Urban Teachers' Perceptions of Induction Coaching: Time,Trust, and Accelerated Learning Curves

Approximately 80% of new teachers have mentors, yet mentoring typically fails to foster new teachers' professional learning—particularly in high-poverty schools. This qualitative study was situated within an urban teacher residency context and explored how six first-year urban teachers and the two induction mentors with whom they worked perceived and experienced induction coaching. This study also seeks to understand the characteristics of mentored induction (called coaching) that facilitate or impede learning. Results indicate that mentoring contributed to new teachers' professional learning and that (a) trusting relationships were foundational to the coaching process and developed over time; (b) coaching was aligned with new teachers' needs and context; and (c) coaching was a scaffolded process that enhanced new teachers' ability to respond to immediate needs, as well as identify and work toward long-term instructional goals. Insights and recommendations are provided to guide the development of or strengthen induction programs. As mentored induction in high-poverty schools is typically insufficiently enacted, this study depicts how mentored induction can be conceptualized and executed in order to make a difference in new teachers' professional learning.     

Implementing a case‐based e‐learning environment in a lecture‐oriented anaesthesiology class: Do learning styles matter in complex problem solving over time?*

This study explores how students' learning styles influence their learning while solving complex problems when a case‐based e‐learning environment is implemented in a conventional lecture‐oriented classroom. Seventy students from an anaesthesiology class at a dental school participated in this study over a 3‐week period. Five learning‐outcome tests and two course‐satisfaction surveys were implemented during the case‐based instruction using a blended approach (online and face‐to‐face). The results of one‐way ANOVAs with repeated measures revealed that the four learning styles (active–reflective, sensing–intuitive, visual–verbal, sequential–global) did not influence students' learning experience and learning outcomes during the implementation of case‐based e‐learning. However, the pattern of the students' performance graph and further analysis with a liberal approach implied that the active–reflective learning style may influence learning outcomes slightly at an earlier time during the case‐based learning implementation; however, as time passed, this learning style no longer influenced their learning at all. Thus, learning styles may not be considered important or may be considered only during the early stages of instructional implementation in order to facilitate the students' transition to the new case‐based learning environment. It is more efficient to encourage students to adapt to different learning environments than to design adaptive systems in order to embrace diverse learning styles.     

Evaluation of e‐learning outcomes: experience from an online psychotherapy education programme

SEPTIMUS is a one‐year Europe‐wide postgraduate theoretical course for psychotherapists and counsellors provided entirely via the Internet. It may be used as part of a training course, with face‐to‐face elements provided locally, or for continuing professional development. The course was developed at the University of Sheffield in collaboration with psychotherapy training institute partners in seven other European countries. Two studies involving 167 SEPTIMUS students and 60 comparable face‐to‐face students were undertaken. ? Study 1. Drop‐out rates for the SEPTIMUS programme were found to be low, and comparison between those dropping out and those completing did not highlight any significant factors linked to distance learning. However, students cited finance, distance from training centre, lack of practical experience, family commitments and the intensity of their working weeks as having been barriers to taking face‐to‐face learning courses in the past.

? Study 2. SEPTIMUS students (e‐learners) were compared with students taking comparable attending (face‐to‐face) theoretical courses also being provided by partners in the project to psychotherapy trainees. Significant differences were found in distance from training institute and ability to visit training institute. SEPTIMUS students had higher levels of computer ownership, frequency of Internet use and IT skills than attenders; these factors when examined in Study 1 did not have an impact on the drop‐out rate of e‐learners.

e‐Learning can overcome barriers to traditional learning in psychotherapy, particularly distance from a training centre, without loss of student satisfaction or student performance. Factors sometimes thought to be obstacles to e‐learning, such as information technology skills, were not found to be significant barriers – although they may have affected recruitment. Certain aspects of e‐learning, such as the tendency to facilitate self‐disclosure, were found to be very beneficial, particularly in the context of psychotherapy programmes.     

Developing competent e‐learners: the role of assessment

We know assessment plays a major formative role in driving student learning appropriately, but what implications does this have for online courses? Is it more important than in a face to face context, or less so? Should we reconceptualize the ways in which we assess students, or are existing methods, tried and tested in conventional teaching and learning situations, appropriate? This paper discusses the practical implications of implementing these online pedagogies and illustrates the powerful formative effects, both intended and unintentional, of assessment on student learning and behaviour. It draws on examples from recent research on two e‐learning courses at UK Open University.     

The use of self,peer and teacher assessment as a feedback system in a learning environment aimed at fostering skills of cooperation in an entrepreneurial context

Education is criticized for producing inert knowledge and for paying too little attention to skills such as cooperating and problem solving. Powerful learning environments have the potential to overcome these educational shortcomings. The goal of this research was to find out ways in which a ‘learning enterprise’ can best be supported (coached) in order to constitute a powerful learning environment aimed at teaching certain cooperative skills in a business context. This ‘learning enterprise’ constitutes an entrepreneurial context in which students in secondary or higher education are working together to conceptualize and eventually commercialize a product. In this research, the impact of different ways of supporting a learning enterprise will be compared. These ways are based on existing guiding principles for the design of powerful learning environments and on a further elaboration of these principles in what is conceptualized as an ‘equilibrium model’. In this model, the balances that are needed between motivating students, activating them towards self‐regulated learning, coaching, structuring and steering the learning processes have been elaborated. Based on this model a differentiation between a ‘student‐controlled’, a ‘teacher‐controlled and a ‘coached approach’, as an equilibrated way between the various approaches to coaching a learning enterprise, has been worked out. We hypothesize that the coached approach will give the best learning results in relation to cooperative skills. A combination of self, peer and teacher assessment of these skills, and an adequate feedback‐strategy based on these assessments, should be an important part of approaches used. These approaches were put into practice in a design experiment, and the impact was compared by means of a pre‐test/post‐test design. Results confirmed the postulated hypotheses that there will need to be a balance between, on the one hand giving students enough freedom for self‐discovery and self‐regulation, and on the other hand steering the students in such a way that certain problems can be avoided and that every student can get optimal learning chances. An adequate assessment‐strategy is needed to search for this balance. Further, a systematic action research of the design experiences resulted in more information on how best to coach a learning enterprise. This information has been summarized in the form of general guidelines.     

Using electronic portfolios

The digitized collections of artifacts known as electronic portfolios are creating solutions to a variety of performance improvement needs in ways that are cost‐effective and improve both individual and group learning and performance. When social media functionality is embedded in e‐portfolios, the tools support collaboration, social learning, collection and sharing of best practices, and coaching. By eliminating the constraints of time and geography, electronic portfolios can support organizations' performance management and talent management strategies.