Learner Engagement in Online Learning During Covid-19 Period for Future Projections

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic process, which is spreading rapidly all over the world, on health as well as on social life, and education, with this process, determining the factors affecting the participation of university students in the online learning process is important. In line with this purpose, it was tried to determine the factors affecting the online learning participation of university students. Within the scope of the research, data obtained from 588 university students were analysed statistically. When the findings were examined, it was seen that the most important variable affecting online learning participation in the Covid-19 pandemic period was internet access and speed in the regions where students live. It was observed that as access to the internet and internet speed increased, university students' participation in online learning increased. It was concluded that as the factors restricting access to online learning decreased, students' participation in learning increased. Another important finding of the research is that students' level of feeling comfortable in the environment they are in during the online learning process increases social interaction, integrative behaviour and group interaction during online lessons. In the online learning process, the level of social interaction between students shows that it significantly increases learning participation. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Beyond the Pandemic Reflections on Teacher Competencies

This paper highlights the critical role of teacher education, and reflects on ESD competencies in teacher education post COVID-19. For this purpose, an in depth literature review was conducted on the most recent published literature to reveal different perspectives on what need to be considered when preparing prospective teachers to act as agents of change, bearing in mind the profound impact of the pandemic. The results demonstrate a shift in perceiving ESD competencies in the lenses of the transformation witnessed during the pandemic, with more focusing on the digital competence as a means to innovation in educational practices. © 2021 IEEE.

REFLECTIONS ON MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (MOOCS) DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A BIBLIOMETRIC MAPPING ANALYSIS

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been around for some time, but several studies highlighted different issues associated with them, including quality. The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed their second blooming, where MOOCs have seen a surge in enrollments since March 2020. This study intended to explore how this enrollment reflected on the research studies included in scientific publications, indexed by Web of Science. Specifically, the bibliometric mapping analyses of 108 studies have revealed an ongoing trend in the countries contributing to the MOOCs research, namely USA, China, UK and Spain. Additionally, MOOCs research coming from US, UK and other western countries was decreasing before the pandemic and showed a continuous dramatic reduction also during the COVID-19 pandemic. Growing attention in MOOCs research among less represented countries was also observed. Besides, most of the topics focused on by MOOCs research during the pandemic were mainly related to education and engineering. © 2022. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. All Rights Reserved.

Evaluation of the situations of international students in the dormitories in the online education model during the pandemic process

Covid 19 as pandemic condition has affected the way of life in societies. International students whose were away from countries and living in dormitories have affected in both social and educational aspects. In the near future, it is predicted that online education will become the main ground of education instead of being an alternative or a support function for face-to-face learning, The lessons learned from the early widespread digital learning experience, which has been passed with a rapid adaptation due to the COVID-19 pandemic,Online education experiences of international students were examined in the research study. In this respect, this research aims to determine situation of international students in pandemic process. Qualitative research was employed in the research that online interview form was conducted to collect data. This research revealed that most the students are satisfied from food support or food packages, technical support for educational purposes, free hospital service by the university, financial support from various private and public organizations as well as psychological support for students living in the dormitories. Some of the students believed that face-to-face education is more effective than online education. But some of them acknowledged that online education was the best option to avoid loss of education during the pandemic. International students underlined that they were mostly informed in the dormitories and the cafeterias on protection from COVID-19 through brochures, oral seminars or via the Internet. It is concluded that socialization and education services of international students have done regarding to the higher education responsibilities. © 2021, National Defence University - Carol I Printing House. All rights reserved.

Remote special education during COVID-19: A combined bibliometric, content and thematic analysis

While massive research has been conducted to see how remote learning and teaching is conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, less focus has been paid on remote special education for students with disabilities. Therefore, it is still not clear how those students learned and what types of challenges they faced. To fill this gap, this study first collected data from the literature via a systematic literature review, and from both 51 teachers and 21 students with disabilities who were involved in this remote teaching and learning experiences via surveys. It then conducted bibliometric, content and thematic analysis to draw conclusions. The obtained findings highlighted that online and offline remote teaching methods from home were applied. Additionally, different learning assessment methods, such as mini-projects and simple quizzes were adopted by teachers to assess the gained knowledge of students remotely, but none of these methods relied on emerging technologies, such as big data and learning analytics. Finally, parents were a core actor to maintain remote learning from home for students with disabilities. © 2021 IEEE.