Improving elementary students social-emotional health through an after-school mentorship physical activity program

Children's poor social-emotional functioning has been an increasing concern prior to and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Childhood and adolescence are critical stages of life where they acquire key cognitive and social-emotional skills that shape their future mental health. When a student's social-emotional health suffers, so do their relationships, academics, and physical health. The theory of improvement hypothesized that students' social-emotional health can be improved via fostering trusting relationships, boosting self-esteem, and promoting healthy role models and positive adult-child relationships. To address the problem of practice, the primary investigator implemented a social-emotional learning (SEL)-infused, 8-week physical activity after-school program with a strong mentor/role model component. The following inquiry questions guided this dissertation in practice project: 1) How does students' social-emotional health change after participating the after-school social-emotional learning-infused physical activity program? And 2) What are faculty, staff, and parent perceptions of the impact of a social-emotional learninginfused physical activity program on third grade students? Measures included time sample observations during the program of n=7 at-risk students with behavioral or emotional challenges, field notes compiled by the primary investigator throughout the program, and focus groups with key stakeholders (i.e., n=8 teachers, n=8 parents, and n=12 mentors) conducted post-program. The patterns in changes of student behavior over time were reported as case-study narratives for each observed student. Focus group transcripts and field notes were coded using content analysis v method and analyzed for key categories and themes. Overall, students' time sample data showed positive improvements in social-emotional health as well as on-task behavior. Three themes were identified in the qualitative data, including: 1) Growing and thriving together: benefits of the afterschool program 2) Trial and error: reflecting on what went well and didn't go well in the program and 3) Onward and upward: Fine tuning the program for the future. This program demonstrated initial success for improvements in 3rd grade children's social-emotional health. Implications for practice include improved training for all stakeholders in social-emotional learning, inclusion of mentorship, and additional administrative buy-in, including logistical support and funding. Future research can investigate the effect on mentor and student overall mental health and academic achievement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Coming off mute: A case study of elementary students' perceptions of remote learning during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to understand how elementary students perceived their learning and engagement in a remote learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five students elected to join the study with parental permission, ranging in grades 3rd-5th. Interviews were conducted on Zoom with the students as well as their teachers and the students were observed during synchronous learning times. Data analysis identified three areas of themes: the remote learning experience, control and power struggles, and preferences for or against remote learning. Within the first area, the remote learning experience, students identified ways to personalize their home learning environment and stay organized. They also found ways to build flexibility into an intense schedule. Teachers provided both asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities that were largely based on their previous activities from in-person learning. In the second area, control and power struggles, the school and teachers found ways to exert control over the students physical at home. The students, in turn, found ways to fight against the control and battle to oversee their behavior, actions, and learning. The final area, preferences for or against remote learning, showcased a split in opinion on remote learning. While all but one student enjoyed remote learning, the content area impacted their opinion. Their opinions were also swayed by the lack of social interaction they experienced as well as being isolated from others outside of the school day. Last, students wanted interactive and collaborative activities online, something they did not feel they were able to experience. The findings suggest multiple ways to improve remote learning including building additional support for students and teachers online, evaluating the technology used for remote learning, and enhancing online instruction with authentic learning activities. A focus on pedagogy and technology for teacher professional development as well as online course design would benefit students as well. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Universal SEL implementation to improve community and prosocial skills: A pilot study

In the past several years, social and emotional learning (SEL) has become a widely discussed and more frequently addressed area of need in schools. SEL curricula can enhance behavioral practices at the universal tier to be able to comprehensively address the social, emotional, and behavioral needs in school buildings. With the COVID-19 pandemic, these SEL needs have become more pronounced. This case example presents a pilot evaluation of the Open Circle SEL curriculum implementation, delivered universally, at Tier 2 for all students. Universal SEL instruction was conducted weekly across an entire elementary school in the southeastern United States which had other universal, preventative strategies in place. Across the year, pre- and post-implementation teacher ratings of student SEL skills and teacher perceptions of school climate and school-level descriptive outcomes (e.g., academic achievement, office discipline referrals, attendance) were evaluated. Results indicated that the universal SEL implementation yielded differential effectiveness noted by grade level, with the intervention being more effective in increasing prosocial skills for third grade students. There were also moderate improvements in teacher perceptions of school climate and the school-level variables across grade levels. Implications for future research and practice are presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

A case study exploring how K-12 students learn to use social media for civic good

This case study explores what K-12 students learn from a 13-week class activity about attracting attention to civic issues on social media. This research responds to calls by scholars of civic education to expand notions of civic engagement and digital citizenship, which often have focused on urging students to protect their reputations in digital spaces. In contrast, the learning activity examined here encourages community-oriented digital citizenship, preparing students to inform and possibly empower social change. This study is grounded in Cognitive Flexibility Theory, which focuses on learning in ill-structured domains such as public social media. Further, the study builds on the increasingly popular idea of the Fifth Estate, which posits that people acting in civic ways in public spaces can be a powerful check on government, playing a role similar to that of journalism institutions, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate. Data collected in this study included a pre-survey, a written reflection and post interviews with 4 students as well as artifacts such as social media posts. Students employed two main strategies to draw attention to civic issues on social media: audience-signaling and networking. Further, students learned to seek credible and diverse information using class accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Finally, students offered definitions of digital citizenship and shared thoughts about how schools should teach it via social media. This study fills a gap in the research literature about K-12 teaching with social media;few prior studies take advantage of social media's affordance as a bridge between the classroom and communities outside the school. This study also illuminates learning as schools globally moved online in response to the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Connecting during COVID: Meeting social and emotional needs of vulnerable elementary students during a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated school buildings to close in March of 2020 across the United States. From that time forward, many students remained in virtual learning environments, unable to step onto campus. The remote environments were isolating and struggled to support the academic or social and emotional needs of many students. The inability to access the supports from the physical school environment caused additional challenges for certain student populations, especially those who are considered at-risk academically or described as vulnerable due to conditions within the home environment. This mixed methods action research study, framed around the theoretical foundations of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the Science of Learning and Development model, measured the impact of a social and emotional learning, online mentoring framework on levels of student engagement and connectedness. Teachers met virtually with small groups of students for six weeks, implementing lessons that focused on CASEL's social and emotional learning competencies. Both qualitative and quantitative data from surveys and focus groups measured the impact of these lessons. While the implementation of the framework did not significantly impact levels of engagement, it did yield a substantial impact on connectedness within the elementary environment. The study also explored how professional development can support staff in meeting specific needs of vulnerable students. The findings indicated that comprehensive professional development was needed to meet the needs of this population of students. Such professional development should focus on student need and support fostering relationships within the school environment in order to mitigate the educational inequities that result from isolated, remote learning environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Korean immigrant parents' ways and reasons to support their elementary-aged children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic

U.S. society perceived some Asian immigrants as a model minority, even assuming that Asian students would be good at mathematics. However, the narratives and experiences of Korean immigrant parents and their children were not discussed in these perspectives. The purpose of this study is to understand the interactions and reasoning of Korean immigrant parents about their children's mathematical meaning-making at home. The study investigates the following research questions: How do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Why do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the theory of belonging, model minority stereotypes, and meaning-making, this study critically examines Korean immigrant parents and children how and why negotiate the meaning of U.S. mathematics. Narrative inquiry is used to understand the diverse experiences of the five participants' families through interviews, observations, and debrief sessions. The findings report how and why Korean immigrant parents support their children's mathematical meaning-making using code-switching and cultural negotiation that addresses conceptual differences across language and culture. On a personal level, Korean immigrant parents' desire to belong in U.S. society guides them to put effort into their children's education. On a societal level, the parents in this study wish for their children to overcome perpetual foreigner stereotypes, myths, and glass ceilings around them. Yet because of their limited connectedness to mainstream society, they feel they lack the information needed for their children to be successful. Their voices demystify the model minority stereotypes and counter the argument that mathematics education serves as an absolutely inclusive subject. Recommendations from this point on the school districts and educational system are to have explanatory sessions for immigrant parents to help their understanding of the U.S. curriculum, and at the same time, teachers also can take advantage by having listening sessions about multiple ethnic parents to learn the cultural meaning-making to make a connection between school children and their culture in the curriculum. Furthermore, the higher education system could recruit more diverse pre-service teachers to create more belonging for diverse learners. Last but not least, school teachers can learn and practice immigrant experiences and try to demystify racial stereotypes in classrooms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Online collaborative learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: An international perspective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, K-5 teachers and students rapidly transitioned to an online learning modality. Both the swift conversion and lack of preexisting research left educators and families underprepared for fostering virtual interaction and learning. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of K-5 online student collaboration, participation, and engagement. The current research explored these student interactions using a conceptual framework based on collaborativist learning theory and social constructivism. The research included semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers working at international schools to provide data for this qualitative study. The findings support the essential role of the teacher within the K-5 virtual learning community, emphasize the importance of families' impact on online learning, suggest the need for social-emotional learning, and examine teacher expectations and workload during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there is still a gap in the research concerning the K-5 online learning environment, the present research seeks to provide a foundation for future research and explore the capacity for collaboration, participation, and engagement to positively impact learning outcomes for students of all ages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

A case study exploring how K-12 students learn to use social media for civic good

This case study explores what K-12 students learn from a 13-week class activity about attracting attention to civic issues on social media. This research responds to calls by scholars of civic education to expand notions of civic engagement and digital citizenship, which often have focused on urging students to protect their reputations in digital spaces. In contrast, the learning activity examined here encourages community-oriented digital citizenship, preparing students to inform and possibly empower social change. This study is grounded in Cognitive Flexibility Theory, which focuses on learning in ill-structured domains such as public social media. Further, the study builds on the increasingly popular idea of the Fifth Estate, which posits that people acting in civic ways in public spaces can be a powerful check on government, playing a role similar to that of journalism institutions, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate. Data collected in this study included a pre-survey, a written reflection and post interviews with 4 students as well as artifacts such as social media posts. Students employed two main strategies to draw attention to civic issues on social media: audience-signaling and networking. Further, students learned to seek credible and diverse information using class accounts on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Finally, students offered definitions of digital citizenship and shared thoughts about how schools should teach it via social media. This study fills a gap in the research literature about K-12 teaching with social media;few prior studies take advantage of social media's affordance as a bridge between the classroom and communities outside the school. This study also illuminates learning as schools globally moved online in response to the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Mobile Smart Parenting Teacher (MSPT) Application to Improve the Life Skills of Parents, Teachers, and Elementary School Students

One of the technological advancements in the era of 4.0 is the android based mobile phone. Android-based mobile phone technology allows users to connect with the source of information available in android anytime, including for educational purposes. The study aims to: 1) produce an android application (Mobile Smart Parenting Teacher) as media to deliver information about life skill facing limited face-to-face learning in Covid-19 era;2) asess the validation process of Mobile Smart Parenting Teacher as media in improving life skill education;3) describe the effectiveness of Mobile Smart Parenting Teacher application in providing knowledge about lifeskills to students, teachers, and parents. The study employed the 4D (Define, Design, Develop, Disseminate) developmental research method. The Mobile Smart Parenting application was assessed by experts of information and technology experts, teachers of Psychology and Guidance in Education, and teachers of elementary school. Before conducting a field trial, groups of 45 parents, 45 teachers, and 45 students were given a pretest. At the end of the field trial, the posttest was distributed. Findings show that using the Mobile Smart Parenting Teacher application significantly affects teachers, parents, and students' understanding of conceptual life skills to face the limited face-to-face learning in the Covid - 19 era. The gain score (N - gain) from the normalized test performed on pretest and post test scores were in the high category (0.85). © 2023 Eskisehir Osmangazi University. All rights reserved.

Sustaining BEST in CLASS: Teacher-Reported Evidence-Based Practice Use with Students at Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic.

There is growing evidence of the efficacy of evidence-based interventions in improving the academic and social outcomes of children who exhibit challenging behaviors during program implementation periods. However, less is known about the extent to which practices learned as part of these interventions are sustained after these projects end, when funding is paused temporarily, and in less-than-ideal conditions. This study used qualitative methods to investigate whether teachers previously trained in the BEST in CLASS-Elementary intervention continued to use the program's evidence-based practices with students 1-2 years after completing the program and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also examined teachers' perceptions of the impact of practice use on students' academic and social outcomes. Thirteen BEST in CLASS-Elementary teachers from elementary schools in two southeastern states in the USA where the program was implemented completed semi-structured interviews on the topic. Data were coded thematically, and the results indicated that over 50% of teachers reported using "rules," "supportive relationships," and "praise" frequently with their students. However, "precorrection" and "opportunities to respond" were reportedly used less often. Teachers also perceived that their use of these evidence-based practices was linked to increases in their students' academic engagement and academic performance and knowledge, improvements in students' behaviors, their relationships with teachers, and general comfort and self-confidence. The discussion highlights modality-specific patterns noted in the results that might influence sustainment and the implication of these findings for interventions and programs aimed at promoting positive behavioral outcomes for early elementary school students.

Assessment of Changes in Sleep Habits in Elementary Students during Covid_19 Lockdown

Introduction: Government limitations were initially established around the world in March 2020 in reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic. Objective(s): The objective of study is to see how sleep patterns alter in elementary kids during COVID 19 Lockdown. Material(s) and Method(s): The study data were collected by cross-sectional survey method. The study used an online poll to collect data from September 10 to September 25, 2021. The number of participants in the study was (844) parents. After reading the informed permission form and giving their explicit approval to participate in the study, parents answered the anonymous online question. The "CSHQ" is a parent-report survey that is extensively used to assess sleep habits and patterns in school-aged children. Result(s): shows that the absolute majority were male students whose ages were less than 9 years. And the students of the government school were higher than the eligibility, and the majority of the sample, that is, students living in the city, and more than the middle of the sample suffers from sleep problems during the healthy urban period. Conclusion(s): The study concluded that the researchers examined the links between sleep habits, parental traits, and children's lifestyle risk factors. It was found that sleep habits and increased physical inactivity were more correlated. Copyright © 2022, Medico Legal Society. All rights reserved.

Connecting during COVID: Meeting social and emotional needs of vulnerable elementary students during a pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated school buildings to close in March of 2020 across the United States. From that time forward, many students remained in virtual learning environments, unable to step onto campus. The remote environments were isolating and struggled to support the academic or social and emotional needs of many students. The inability to access the supports from the physical school environment caused additional challenges for certain student populations, especially those who are considered at-risk academically or described as vulnerable due to conditions within the home environment. This mixed methods action research study, framed around the theoretical foundations of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the Science of Learning and Development model, measured the impact of a social and emotional learning, online mentoring framework on levels of student engagement and connectedness. Teachers met virtually with small groups of students for six weeks, implementing lessons that focused on CASEL's social and emotional learning competencies. Both qualitative and quantitative data from surveys and focus groups measured the impact of these lessons. While the implementation of the framework did not significantly impact levels of engagement, it did yield a substantial impact on connectedness within the elementary environment. The study also explored how professional development can support staff in meeting specific needs of vulnerable students. The findings indicated that comprehensive professional development was needed to meet the needs of this population of students. Such professional development should focus on student need and support fostering relationships within the school environment in order to mitigate the educational inequities that result from isolated, remote learning environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Korean immigrant parents' ways and reasons to support their elementary-aged children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic

U.S. society perceived some Asian immigrants as a model minority, even assuming that Asian students would be good at mathematics. However, the narratives and experiences of Korean immigrant parents and their children were not discussed in these perspectives. The purpose of this study is to understand the interactions and reasoning of Korean immigrant parents about their children's mathematical meaning-making at home. The study investigates the following research questions: How do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Why do Korean immigrant parents of elementary-aged students support their children's mathematical meaning-making at home during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the theory of belonging, model minority stereotypes, and meaning-making, this study critically examines Korean immigrant parents and children how and why negotiate the meaning of U.S. mathematics. Narrative inquiry is used to understand the diverse experiences of the five participants' families through interviews, observations, and debrief sessions. The findings report how and why Korean immigrant parents support their children's mathematical meaning-making using code-switching and cultural negotiation that addresses conceptual differences across language and culture. On a personal level, Korean immigrant parents' desire to belong in U.S. society guides them to put effort into their children's education. On a societal level, the parents in this study wish for their children to overcome perpetual foreigner stereotypes, myths, and glass ceilings around them. Yet because of their limited connectedness to mainstream society, they feel they lack the information needed for their children to be successful. Their voices demystify the model minority stereotypes and counter the argument that mathematics education serves as an absolutely inclusive subject. Recommendations from this point on the school districts and educational system are to have explanatory sessions for immigrant parents to help their understanding of the U.S. curriculum, and at the same time, teachers also can take advantage by having listening sessions about multiple ethnic parents to learn the cultural meaning-making to make a connection between school children and their culture in the curriculum. Furthermore, the higher education system could recruit more diverse pre-service teachers to create more belonging for diverse learners. Last but not least, school teachers can learn and practice immigrant experiences and try to demystify racial stereotypes in classrooms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Making Engineering Real: Elementary Teachers' Virtual Engineering Instruction

National and state science standards emphasize student understanding of and engagement in engineering. However, many teachers do not have robust understandings of engineering and their students may not have opportunities to engage in engineering. The COVID-19 Pandemic has likely further decreased opportunities for elementary students to engage in engineering as their teachers grappled with reduced contact time, integration of new technologies and pedagogical approaches, and remote/virtual learning. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe how an elementary teacher attended to engineering instruction during virtual learning despite the barriers presented by the pandemic. Aleshia was purposefully selected from a larger sample of 22 grade K-6 teachers because she included engineering in her virtual instruction. Data sources, including interviews, surveys, observations, and lesson artifacts were analyzed using an inductive approach in which the teacher's data corpus was holistically analyzed and interpreted to make meaning and answer the research question (Merriam, 1998). Aleshia's case demonstrates how an elementary teacher leveraged the affordances of digital technology to engage students in engineering design tasks despite the barriers presented by the pandemic. Aleshia's high baseline confidence and beliefs about technology integration may explain why she was able to implement technology-enhanced engineering instruction during virtual instruction. The results have implications for the design and development of PD to support engineering integration into elementary science teaching and the importance of developing elementary teachers' confidence integrating technology into instruction. Ultimately, Aleshia's case demonstrates the resilience, resourcefulness, and creativity of an elementary teacher integrating engineering instruction during the COVID-19 Pandemic when supported through PD initiatives that include a coaching component. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

#Blackgirlmathmagic: A mixed methods study examining African American girls in standardized mathematics testing

Black women have been making successful strides in mathematics for decades;however, they continue to be underrepresented in mathematics and other STEM fields. According to Young et al. (2017), Black girls and women perform lower in mathematics than all other racial gender groups except for Black males. Considering the stakes for Black girls and women in mathematics, this study sought to address this group's challenges early in their secondary education experiences, focusing on standardized testing.The purpose of this explanatory-sequential mixed-methods study was to determine how different mathematics item types impacted the performance of African American girls, especially multiple-select multiple-choice (MSMC) items. The participants were 18-sixth grade African American girls and two mathematics teachers from an urban charter school in the Southeastern United States. Procedures included administering a 15-item Expressions and Equations mathematics assessment with three types of test items, including single-select multiple-choice (MC), MSMC, and short-answer constructed-response (CR) items. The assessment was followed by retrospective think-aloud student interviews of the MSMC items and supplemental teacher interviews for additional context. Five of the original students from the mathematics assessment completed the interview. Given the extenuating circumstances related to the coronavirus pandemic, their teachers were able to highlight factors that may have contributed to their students' performance.The results and findings were multifaceted. Using Friedman's nonparametric test, a statistically significant difference was detected for the Black girls' performance on MSMC items compared to MC and CR items;MSMC items had the lowest performance overall. From the girls' retrospective think-aloud interviews, four themes were uncovered: the use of Standards for Mathematical Practices (SMPs), inaccurate mathematics language, mathematical misunderstandings, and lack of testwiseness strategies. Next, regarding the pandemic school year, teachers revealed an overall lack of student participation, high student absences, technical difficulties with online learning, and the limited capacity to meet student needs either in-person or virtually. The cumulative findings supported the quantitative assessment results. Overall, the findings suggest that Black girls are currently disadvantaged, even more so during the pandemic, due to lack of instructional support, minimal to late testwiseness training, and misaligned assessment experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Physical activity and academic achievement: an analysis of potential student- and school-level moderators.

BACKGROUND: Many children do not engage in sufficient physical activity, and schools provide a unique venue for children to reach their recommended 60 daily minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Prior research examining effects of MVPA on academic achievement is inconclusive, and few studies have investigated potential moderators of this relationship. This study examined whether student-level characteristics (gender, race/ethnicity, free/reduced-price lunch status) and school-level characteristics (proportion of students qualifying for free/reduced-price lunch, physical activity environment and opportunities) moderate the relationship between MVPA and academic achievement. METHODS: In a large, diverse metropolitan public school district in Georgia, 4,936 students in Grade 4 were recruited from 40 elementary schools. Students wore accelerometers to measure school-day MVPA for a total of 15 days across three semesters (fall 2018, spring 2019, fall 2019). Academic achievement data, including course marks (grades) for math, reading, spelling, and standardized test scores in writing, math, reading, and Lexile (reading assessment), were collected at baseline (Grade 3, ages 8-9) and at follow-up in Grade 4 (ages 9-10). Standardized test scores were not measured in Grade 5 (ages 10-11) due to COVID-19-related disruptions. Multilevel modeling assessed whether student-level and/or school-level characteristics were moderators in the cross-sectional and longitudinal MVPA-academic achievement relationship. RESULTS: Cross sectional analyses indicated that the MVPA and AA relationship was moderated only by student Hispanic ethnicity for Grade 4 fall spelling marks (ß = -0.159 p < 0.001). The relationship for Grade 4 fall spelling marks was also moderated by school physical activity opportunities (ß = -0.128 (p < 0.001). Longitudinally, there was no significant moderation of the MVPA-academic achievement. A relationship by student gender, free/reduced-price lunch status, race/ethnicity; nor for school-level factors including proportion of students qualifying for free/reduced-price lunch, physical activity environment, and physical activity opportunities. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results did not suggest that student- or school-level characteristics moderate the MVPA-academic achievement relationship. While statistically significant results were observed for certain outcomes, practical differences were negligible. In this population, school-based MVPA does not appear to differently affect academic performance based on student gender, race/ethnicity, free/reduced-price lunch, nor school characteristics. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study was registered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) ClinicalTrials.gov system, with ID NCT03765047 . Registered 05 December 2018-Retrospectively registered.

Crowd Inspection of Compliance with Covid-19 Safety Protocols in Schools

In this paper, we report on the design and development of a collaborative application for mobile devices, built by elementary and undergraduate students, whose goal was to help comply with Covid-19 protocols on the occasion of the resumption of face-to-face classes in schools in the city of Macaé, in Rio de Janeiro. Collective intelligence guided both the problem-solving activity (application construction) and collective inspection by students (application use) of the actions needed to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus. © 2022 IEEE.

It's Challenging but Doable: Lessons Learned from a Remote Collaborative Coding Camp for Elementary Students

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted many U.S. schools from in-person to remote instruction. While collaborative CS activities had become increasingly common in classrooms prior to the pandemic, the sudden shift to remote learning presented challenges for both teachers and students in implementing and supporting collaborative learning. Though some research on remote collaborative CS learning has been conducted with adult learners, less has been done with younger learners such as elementary school students. This experience report describes lessons learned from a remote after-school camp with 24 elementary school students who participated in a series of individual and paired learning activities over three weeks. We describe the design of the learning activities, participant recruitment, group formation, and data collection process. We also provide practical implications for implementation such as how to guide facilitators, pair students, and calibrate task difficulty to foster collaboration. This experience report contributes to the understanding of remote CS learning practices, particularly for elementary school students, and we hope it will provoke methodological advancement in this important area. © 2022 ACM.

Elementary Students Learn How To Engineer Online (RTP)

The educational disruptions caused by COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 were vast. Schools utilized a variety of instructional methods from paper packets to varying amounts of online synchronous and asynchronous instruction. One Nashville independent elementary school provided lesson plans each day for students to complete, with the assistance of their parents, largely asynchronously. To combat the difficulties encountered by families with two working parents and children frustrated by this type of learning, a zoom-conference based class consisting of three second grade children was created. Each day Monday through Thursday the children were presented a hands-on engineering design challenge that utilized materials found in their homes. The children had not been previously exposed to the engineering design process (EDP). The theoretical framework for this study lies in the areas of engineering identity as well as teamwork and feedback through engineering discourse. The research questions for this study were the following: 1) What are the impacts of teaching the engineering design process online via zoom conference on development of children's ability to use engineering discourse? Are students able to master the steps of the engineering design process? How do students learn to receive and implement feedback from their peers and the teacher over zoom? How is teamwork affected as compared to in-person experiences? 2) If any how do children develop their engineering identity through a series of zoom conference-based engineering design challenges? To answer these questions, data were derived from recordings of the online sessions and observations of student behavior and statements, the PowerPoint slides that were used to facilitate the course, photos and videos created by parents of the students' designs, and interviews with the children. Qualitative data analysis followed an inductive approach. The utilization of multiple data sources allowed for a complete picture of what is taking place during the sessions and how it impacted the children's understanding and practice of the engineering design process. The children became very facile with the EDP and its steps. They looked forward to the design challenge each day, often using it as motivation to get through their required schoolwork before starting the challenge. At times they struggled to give and especially to receive feedback from their peers, particularly when it involved criticism. All three children reported believing that they are an engineer, an indicator of a forming engineering identity. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Augmented reality (AR)-based sharia financial literacy system (AR-SFLS): a new approach to virtual sharia financial socialization for young learners

PurposeThis study aims to examine financial socialization based on augmented reality (AR) technology for elementary school students, which it is hoped will improve their sharia financial knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe experimental method with pre- and post-test and control groups was used to test the improvement in the young learners’ sharia financial knowledge. This study used AR for sharia financial socialization on elementary school students and focused on sharia’s basic concepts, which include earning money, balanced spending, borrowing, saving, investment, payment methods, financial technology and the concept of protection.FindingsThis study finds empirical evidence that the treatment group, who received sharia financial socialization via the AR media, increased their sharia financial knowledge to a greater extent than the control group did.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides encouraging evidence about the potential of sharia financial education for elementary school students using the appropriate learning strategies and media. The weakness in this study is that it was only carried out in one elementary school, with the children of middle- to upper-income parents. Further research should be undertaken at several schools with the children of parents with different income levels.Practical implicationsA shift in learning styles from verbal or visual to virtual encourages the use of AR-based learning media. Financial concepts can be ones, and AR-based learning media is able to present intangible virtual elements so they become more concrete and tangible.Social implicationsThe global COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects. One of the most severe and likely to be multiyear ahead is the financial aspect. Therefore, this research is expected to be a preparation for the younger generation as early as possible to strengthen social benefits in order to improve sharia financial literacy.Originality/valueResearch into the financial literacy, especially sharia financial literacy aimed at elementary school students, is still very limited. The teaching of financial literacy will be more effective if educators use the appropriate strategies and media. This study used financial socialization strategies and AR learning media that are aligned with the learning styles of young learners.