Four times a year, we send out a digest of published scholarship in the area of K-12 online and blended learning. Below you will find abstracts to several recently published articles ā hand-picked by our Institute's researchers ā with links to the full text if you are interested in reading more.
Enrollment in online courses in Michigan has steadily increased since legislation passed in the late 2000s requiring online experiences for Michigan K-12 students and establishing online charter schools. During the 2020-21 school year ā as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting emergency remote instruction ā online enrollments grew at previously unseen rates. Even before that, however, 8% of Michigan public school students took at least one online course, a number that increased to 29% of students in the 2020-21 school year (Freidhoff, 2020; 2022). While 8% may seem like a small percentage of students, this number accounts for more than 120,000 Michigan K-12 students. Depending on race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, and special education status, however, these students had markedly different outcomes in their online courses. This report is intended to explore K-12 online education from an equity perspective, and, more thoroughly, to understand if all Michigan K-12 students are receiving equitable education online.
Blended learning programs in Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) classrooms are growing in popularity; however, previous studies assessing their effects have yielded inconsistent results. Further, their effects have not been completely quantitatively synthesized and evaluated. The purpose of this study is to synthesize the overall effects of blended learning on K-12 student performance, distinguish the most effective domains of learning outcomes, and examine the moderators of the overall effects. Results revealed that blended learning can significantly improve K-12 students' overall performance [g = 0.65, pā<ā0.001, 95% CI = (0.54ā0.77)], particularly in the cognitive domain [g = 0.74, pā<ā0.001, 95% CI = (0.61ā0.88)). The testing of moderators indicates that the factors moderating the impact of blended learning on student performance in these studies included group activities, educational level, subject, knowledge type, instructor, sample size, intervention duration and region. The results indicate that blended learning is an effective way to improve K-12 students' performance compared to traditional face-to-face (F2F) learning. Additionally, these findings highlight valuable recommendations for future research and practices related to effective blended learning approaches in K-12 settings.
Florence Martina, Nicole Shanley, Nicole Hite, David Pugalee, Manuel Perez-Quinones, Lynn Ahlgrim-Delzell & Ellen Hart
Based on a current Research to Practice Partnership (RPP) between a southeastern public university and a state virtual public school in the United States, ten high school teachers from a virtual school who teach Computer Science (CS) online participated in a summer workshop to collaborate through a participatory action research project regarding design, facilitation, and evaluation strategies to be included in effective professional development. The questions were posed through an online collaborative Jamboard during the summer workshop. The teacher posts were qualitatively analyzed to identify common themes. Recommendations for professional development on design included CS content, how to teach CS, and CS tools and activities. For facilitation, they recommended resources for supplemental instruction and feedback tools for providing feedback in various modalities and a tool repository. For assessment, they recommended content knowledge assessments, including lab assignments, single and pair programming, and coding assessments. Overall recommendations for a professional development course to teach CS online were also offered.
Dan Goldhaber, Thomas J. Kane, Andrew McEachin, Emily Morton, Tyler Patterson & Douglas O. Staiger
Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person (although there was some widening in reading gaps in those areas). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020-21 will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on academic recovery to help students recover from pandemic-related achievement losses.
This research examines the effects of a computer reading program as a supplement to classroom instruction for Kindergarten students across Study 1 and Study 2 (Nā=ā55 and 88, respectively). Students attended schools in suburban settings and all students received their typical balanced literacy programming. Students in the treatment condition used the Ooka Island computer program (Scholastic F.I.R.S.T.TM, 2017) as a supplement to classroom instruction. The computer program targets phonological awareness, word reading, and reading comprehension. Across both studies, students in the treatment group (nā=ā26 and 49 for Study 1 and 2, respectively) had better outcomes for phonological blending, word reading, reading comprehension, and book-reading levels than the business-as-usual control group (nā=ā29 and 39). There were no group differences for phonological segmentation. The findings demonstrate that early-reading computer programs, such as Ooka Island, have the potential to supplement classroom instruction toward building foundational reading skills.
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Explore over 1,000 publications in our Research Clearinghouse
Though we only feature four or five resources per newsletter, we encourage you to visit our Research Clearinghouse to search for citations that may be of use to you. The Clearinghouse currently houses over 1,000 citations in the field of online and blended learning, and over 100 new citations are added each year.
If you have any questions about how to navigate this resource, please check out our "Getting Started Guide."
What else do you want to see?Please feel free to offer any feedback on the Clearinghouse or any other MVLRI initiatives by emailing us at mvlri@michiganvirtual.org. Thank you!
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