Laboratory activity is closely related and yet is essential in the process of science teaching-learning. The hands-on laboratory experiment is the one normally used in school. Particularly with the state of online schooling, it is quite challenging to perform a hands-on laboratory activity. The combination of inquiry-based learning with virtual…

The aim of this article is to increase understanding of the development of spatial practices in virtual learning environments. The spatial change and development in 38 small-group e-discussions taken from a data set of a yearlong 8th-grade humanities course are described and analyzed. We show that the focus on spatial changes in computer-supported…

A year of COVID-19 quarantine required educators to switch from in-person to virtual learning platforms, causing a dramatic reimagining of their daily praxis. Their experiences are likely to influence new norms for K-12 education. While virtual learning can be effective, student engagement, student retention, and student attention can be…

Faced with school closures in the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, middle level teacher candidates were left with no way to finish their field experiences. The challenge continued into the fall with many schools providing only virtual learning and some not allowing visitors on campus. This article describes the steps one university middle level…

The science learning environment is an important factor in students' attitudes toward their science experiences in school, as well as toward science courses. This study compares how learning in different laboratory environments (hands-on or virtual) influences these attitudes for middle school (7th grade) students. Participants were 143…

Mission HydroSci (MHS) is a 3D game-based learning environment and curriculum that supports middle school student learning of water systems science and scientific argumentation. MHS is a rigorous, coherent and engaging 6 to 8-day curriculum with all learning activities and social interactions taking place in the virtual world and with teachers…

This work presents the results of two-year-long pedagogical research, the aim of which was to demonstrate the applicability of the usage of a new strategy in education--Integrated e-Learning (INTe-L)--through its introduction into project-based physics teaching in Slovakia. The INTe-L strategy is built around the role of experiments and…

This paper examines the differences and challenges encountered when trying to create informal blended (virtual and hands-on) engineering design STEM activities. It contrasts the creation of STEM activities for formal and informal learning environments, stressing that the differences extend far beyond the length of the activity or depth of any…

This mixed-method study evaluates P-12 principals' and district officials' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic amid the abrupt change to virtual leadership. Professional learning needs are identified in relation to the three domains of leadership as seen in literature: school management, instructional leadership, and program administration.…

The purpose of this action research was to improve reading comprehension and student engagement in a hybrid learning environment as measured by performance on reading comprehension assessments and student self-reporting surveys. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted classes for the 2020-2021 school year in a hybrid model. In my ninth grade…

This article uses fixed effects models to estimate differences in contemporaneous and downstream academic outcomes for students who take courses virtually and face-to-face--both for initial attempts and for credit recovery. We find that while contemporaneous outcomes are positive for virtual students in both settings, downstream outcomes vary by…

Technology is causing our world to change quickly. As a result, there has been a push to teach 21st century skills. This shift has caused school districts to increase expectations of teachers to use digital technologies to help student learning. To prepare teachers for the instructional shift, schools have increased opportunities for professional…

Connections Academy is a full-time, tuition-free, virtual public school program that served more than 70,000 K-12 students in 27 states in the 2017-2018 school year. Pearson sought to explore how Connections Academy schools perform compared to the alternatives. This Research Report presents findings from two research studies: one…

Recent interest in online assessment of scientific inquiry has led to several new online systems that attempt to assess these skills, but producing models that detect when students are successfully practising these skills can be challenging. In this paper, we study models that assess student inquiry in an immersive virtual environment, where a…

Prior studies on scaffolding for investigative inquiry practices (i.e. forming a question/hypothesis, collecting data, and analyzing and interpreting data [21]) revealed that students who received scaffolding were better able to both learn practices and transfer these competencies to new topics than were students who did not receive scaffolding.…