Despite increased interest in K-12 online education, student engagement deficits and the resulting student attrition remain widespread issues. The Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework theorizes that two groups support online student engagement: the personal community of support and the course community of support. However, more…

Learner engagement correlates with important educational outcomes, including academic achievement and satisfaction. Although research is already exploring learner engagement in blended contexts, no theoretical framework guides inquiry or practice, and little consistency or specificity exists in engagement definitions and operationalizations.…

In this article we share the Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework, which describes a student's ability to engage affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively in an online or blended course independently and with support. Based on Vygotsky's (Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press,…

This study examines the relationship between log data of student activity in learning management systems and self-reported student engagement survey scores. Log data has the potential to serve as a meaningful proxy for survey scores. Should this be the case, log data could be used as a minimally disruptive and scalable approach to quickly identify…

Teacher preparation programs have been slow to answer calls to prepare teachers for the online learning environment, leaving many online teachers needing to learn on the job. However, little research has examined how online teachers grow as educators while teaching online. One way to better understand this growth is to examine the changes online…

As school closures require educators to transition to remote teaching, relevant models for supporting students are necessary. This article discusses Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE), a framework identifying two communities to help support student engagement: (a) the course community associated with course or school (teacher, peers,…

Research has suggested that independent study students in online courses may benefit from engaging with a proximate community of engagement (PCE) and that students perceive that such engagement will help them succeed. Independent Study students were surveyed at the completion of their course to assess the level at which they actually interacted…

This article describes the crossroads between learning analytics and learner engagement. The authors do this by describing specific challenges of using analytics to support student engagement from three distinct perspectives: pedagogical considerations, technological issues, and interface design concerns. While engaging online learners presents a…

In this exploratory study we used an intensive longitudinal approach to measure student engagement in a blended educational technology course, collecting both self-report and observational data. The self-report measure included a simple survey of Likert-scale and open-ended questions given repeatedly during the semester. Observational data were…

This paper describes the Adolescent Community of Engagement (ACE) framework as a lens to guide research and design in adolescent online learning environments. Several online learning frameworks have emerged from higher education contexts, but these frameworks do not explicitly address the unique student and environmental characteristics of the…