The problem this qualitative case study addressed is how poor online teacher communication has resulted in students enrolled in full-time virtual schools underperforming academically with assignment completion. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions of how their online communication strategies contribute to the timeliness…

This case study explored the relationship between levels of content choice in three high school online English language arts courses and evidence of student motivation in student work and students' thoughts about motivation. These courses were designed around the main components of Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness) and…

Most existing autograders used for grading programming assignments are based on unit testing, which is tedious to implement for programs with graphical output and does not allow testing for other code aspects, such as programming style or structure. We present a novel autograding approach based on machine learning that can successfully check the…

Distance learning has grown in popularity due to convenience and flexibility (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Baki, & Jones, 2010). Using a modified time management technique and the model of improvement framework, the purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of the time management technique on the completion and submission of online…

This study focuses on creating a reliable and valid instrument to measure high school students' perceptions of academic challenge. The research is divided into four phases: qualitative analysis, item development, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and validation. Initial data from college students' retrospective views and high school students'…

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore public school teachers' knowledge and use of student reflection as a pedagogical tool in a small public school district in the Southwestern United States. Reflection is reviewing and evaluating your own work or the work of others. The theoretical framework for this study is based on…

The problem addressed in this qualitative phenomenological study was how poverty affected educators in teaching literacy achievement in secondary high school classrooms. The purpose addressed the experiences of educators to create a model of their lived experiences. Using sociocultural theory, a multilayered environment was analyzed using a…

Secondary course assignment substantially determines a teacher's day-to-day work life, incentivizing them to realize their personal desires, which prior work shows tend to be working with more advanced students. Teachers have varying abilities to enact these desires, potentially due to their political capital, which is largely influenced by…

This study sought to investigate how students access and how teachers foster creativity in the curriculum and find solutions to student and teacher disengagement with creative alternatives to traditional assignments and assessments at a public school in the Northeast of the United States. The inability of many public school teachers to properly…

Inspired by a recognition of high school students' frequent disengagement during reading and their lack of comfort and confidence with finding ways to engage with texts, the purpose of this research was to examine the impact of social-media formatted low-stakes writing tasks in the high school English classroom. Drawing from research on writing…

As a tangible and motivating medium for students to engage in computational thinking, robotics has drawn interest from educators and researchers as K-12 schools continue to integrate STEM into curriculum. Through this mixed methods study, the researcher sought to explore the effects of robotics instructional methods (task-based and project-based)…

Opportunity and learning gaps between upper-middle-class students and lower SES students that impact academic performance and social development are widening. The purpose of this Action Research study was to understand the interests of students, as well as the academic support most needed, to cultivate the development of 21st century skills and…

The M.S. Chemistry -- Chemical Education Specialization program at South Dakota State University provides in-depth general chemistry coursework to in-service high school science teachers in a virtual format. The goal of the program is for the teachers enrolled to become more effective teachers while gaining content knowledge in chemistry; in…

Written scientific argumentation is a common practice among scientists, yet it is relatively absent from science K-12 classrooms (Applebee & Langer, 2013). However, recent research shows that opportunities to engage in collaborative discourse and argumentation provide students enhanced conceptual understanding and reasoning. Since one of the…

This study utilizes action research to examine the design and implementation of inquiry-based teaching in a middle school social studies classroom. As a practitioner, fulfilling the role of teacher and researcher, I sought to better understand my teaching practices. To do so, I collected multiple forms of data that would help me understand…