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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the effects of online learning on student engagement as a result of a shift from face-to-face to online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown in New Zealand.

The reflection expresses the accounting lecturers’ observations and experiences of student engagement in online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown focussing on the three facets of student engagement; social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence.

The focus on social and teaching presence in online learning by Unitec academic staff had a positive impact on cognitive presence as student course success rates and course ratings were similar to rates achieved from face-to-face delivery despite a rapid transition to online learning.

This reflection is based on the experiences of three academic staff in one tertiary organisation.

The findings of this study can be helpful for tertiary institutions that are planning to adopt blended learning in the future. Academic staff may revisit teaching pedagogies to design new strategies and institutions may develop blended learning guidelines and tools to support academics to embrace blended learning.

The reflection shows the respect, support and care provided by academics to students building a sense of belongingness and supporting students’ mental well-being in a period of fear and anxiety about COVID-19.

This is a reflection on students’ online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has not been addressed previously in the academic literature.

Although technology is a defining characteristic of distance education, assessment of the applicability of such resources in knowledge dissemination is greatly warranted to ensure effectivity. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess the viability of a novel tool in teaching practical chemistry online.

Here, a resource named “virtual chemistry lab space” (VCLS), which allowed the learners to virtually engage in practical activities, was administered among learners enrolled in a practical chemistry course at the Open University of Sri Lanka and feedback was collected to ascertain the learner perception on the resource.

In total, 76% of respondents indicated familiarity with the VCLS, while 59% indicated that they were interested in engaging in activities provided through this resource during the pandemic lockdown. Also, 70% indicated that the VCLS was helpful to understand the course content during the pandemic period, while 82% indicated that they are likely to use it in the future.

The prevalent problems related to using the VCLS were lack of Internet access, physical interactions and time. However, the overall opinion on the VCLS was notably positive, while a majority indicated that flexibility to the learners, access to learning resources and use of technology in education will improve due to the use of this novel tool.

Online course delivery has been greatly restricted to areas of education where distant delivery could be easily adopted while it is seldom found in areas such as practical chemistry. Hence, the study indicates novelty and notable originality within the ODL system.

This article aims to explore student views from a UK higher educational institution about the concept of remote online higher educational delivery. Students were asked about opinions towards working remotely and the psychological impact this had upon students and students' studies. The research provided students with the opportunity to reflect upon whether the practice of delivering education remotely continues to provide students with a beneficial student learning experience.

The research adopted a case study methodology utilising a mixed methods approach via questionnaire-based research. In total, 894 students completed the questionnaire. The aim of the research was to obtain a wide breadth of student opinion from multidisciplinary backgrounds to ascertain whether students' learning experience differed per subject area.

The research identified some interesting findings, namely that certain participants considered that learning remotely online was beneficial for instant feedback, supported motivation and fostered communities of practice. Negative perspectives related to feeling isolated, unmotivated and a preference towards face-to-face (F2F) delivery. One of the main areas of conflict identified from this study is that the aspect of engagement can impact students' online learning both positively and negatively.

The study provides an in-depth multidisciplinary student tertiary perspective relating to online remote learning. The findings from this study can be useful for educators to reflect upon and inform educational policy in relation to how best to facilitate and support the student learning experience off-campus.

This paper examines the pedagogical features of massive open online courses (MOOCs) for language learning–known as language MOOCs. The mainstream pedagogy of MOOCs typically involves the provision of short videos and reading materials for self-study; discussion forums, mostly for peer-to-peer interaction on course content; and machine-graded quizzes for self-assessment. For language learning, which has been conventionally understood as skill development, the pedagogical features of relevant MOOCs have yet to be comprehensively surveyed.

This study surveyed a total of 123 language MOOCs from the major MOOC platforms. The pedagogical features shown in these courses were identified and categorised according to the types of course materials and learning activities as well as the participation of learners and instructors.

English was the most common language taught in the courses. Over 80% of the courses took not more than six hours to complete. Most of these courses followed the typical approach of xMOOC delivery, with video watching, reading and auto-graded assessment being the most common learning activities. Less than half of the courses included discussion as part of learning, and instructors were involved in less than 30% of the discussion.

The findings show that, despite the technological advances in course delivery, current language MOOCs do not differ substantially from conventional distance language learning. Yet, the utilisation of computer-assisted language learning technology and the massive student base of MOOCs for creating a virtual social community are opportunities for developing learners' language proficiency on this learning environment.

District-university partners increasingly rely on “grow-your-own” licensure programs to address teacher shortages. Because vacancies in special education represent a chronic issue, our district-university partnership developed LEAP – the Licensed Educators’ Accelerated Pathway, successfully preparing 26 paraprofessionals as special education teachers (SEs). We describe a model university-district partnership in which we collaborated to design and implement paraprofessionals’ SE licensure program.

In this general review, we describe a district-university partnership collaboration that resolved barriers experienced by paraprofessionals working toward licensure in special education (Essential #4, Reflection and Innovation). The specialized design and partnership solutions were grounded in SE preparation research literature.

25 (28 entered the program and 25 completed) paraprofessionals from one large urban and several regional districts completed special education licensure through LEAP. Slightly more than half of LEAP participants were Black or Hispanic (see Table 1), contributing to the diversification of SE workforce. University-district partnership was successful in designing and delivering a program that allowed participants: a) to remain employed, b) attend evening classes in their geographic region or online, c) complete all field experiences in sponsoring districts (Essential #2) and d) receive concierge advising from a “completion coach.” We describe solutions to barriers experienced by paraprofessionals and advocate for district-university collaboration to address chronic teacher shortages.

Limitations include lack of data on success of program completers during their first year of teaching as they began this work in Fall 2023. Further, because the participating district was large and urban, generalization of program details for small and rural districts is difficult.

Practical tips for developing grow-your-own special education licensure programs are providing. Detailed descriptions of barriers candidates experienced and ways the district-university partners resolved these issues are included. Programs like the one described has the potential to positively impact teacher pipeline issues.

The program described provided highly-trained teachers to fill chronic vacancies in special education in three participating districts/agencies. Because students receiving special education services are at risk for school failure and are disproportionately impacted by teacher turnover, addressing this area through grow-your-own licensure programs represents a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative. Further, upskilling diverse paraprofessionals to licensed teacher roles represent an economic boost, which they might not otherwise have achieved.

Available research literature signals alarm over persistent teacher shortages in hard-to-staff districts and lack of diversity in the teacher workforce, but few published accounts describe successful programs. Partner collaboration fostered a re-imagining of course formatting and delivery to accommodate adult learners, avoiding problems often reported with alternative programs.

This study aims to identify the gap between the requirements of the accreditation bodies and the widely used learning management systems (LMSs) in assessing the intended learning outcomes (ILOs). In addition, this study aims to introduce a framework, along with the evaluation of the functionality of the LMS, for measuring the ILO.

A qualitative method was deployed to examine the gap between the requirements of the accreditation standards and the LMS functionalities. The researchers collaborated to design a mechanism, develop a system architecture to measure the ILO in alignment with the accreditation standards and guide the development of the Moodle plugin. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the plugin were evaluated within the scope of assessment mapping and design. Focus group interviews were conducted to collect feedback from the instructors and program leaders regarding its implementation.

The results of this study indicate that there is no standardized mechanism to measure course and program ILO objectively, using the existing LMS. The implementation of the plugin shows the appropriateness and effectiveness of the system in generating ILO achievement reports, which was confirmed by the users.

This study proposed a framework and developed a system architecture for the objective measurement of the ILO through direct assessment. The plugin was tested to generate consistent reports during the measurement of course and program ILO. The plugin has been implemented across Gulf University’s program courses, ensuring appropriate reporting and continuous improvement.

This study investigated the effect of cooperative learning on the performance of female college students enrolled in “writing and research” courses at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia). Cooperative learning (CL) activities were employed in place of traditional lectures and group activities. Two populations were compared, one with the CL methodology and one with traditional methodology. The results were assessed by final exam scores, final course grades, the number of students passing, pre and post-tests and a self-report survey. We found that this sample of Arab college students performed at a higher level in the CL classes than in the traditional classes. Findings suggest that CL is an effective method for teaching Arab college students.

Legal education, like any other discipline in higher education, necessitates in use of various teaching and learning pedagogies in order to provide a sustainable teaching and learning experience. This article aims to examine the feasibility of implementing flipped learning method as a pedagogy on legal students at the Open University of Sri Lanka, as well as the perceptions of students and lecturer on the teaching and learning process in a flipped class in preparation for future implementation.

A mixed research method was used. A survey and a semi-structured interview were used to collect student perceptions, and observations of the lecturer were used to document the lecturer's perception.

According to the information gathered from both qualitative and quantitative data, the flipped learning pedagogy enhances the prior learning and student-centered learning of open and distance learning (ODL) and offers a new perspective on the existing pedagogies used in legal education. This article also emphasizes that an equitable implementation of designing and delivering a flipped class will ensure the effectiveness in teaching and learning law in Sri Lanka through ODL.

Despite the fact that there is substantial academic literature on flipped pedagogy, including in legal education, this article will create an original contribution by incorporating reflections from Sri Lankan legal education as well as ODL.

The purpose of our research is to better understand inquiry-based pedagogy in the context of leadership education. Specifically, we sought to learn about how leadership learning is characterized in an immersive inquiry course, and how inquiry-based pedagogy is experienced by students engaged in interdisciplinary leadership learning.

We used a case study approach as an overarching methodology. The research methods employed to collect data were World Cafe and episodic narrative interview. Further, we used collocation analysis and systematic text condensation as analytical strategies to interpret data.

Our findings led us to four primary conclusions: (1) inquiry-based learning helps to foster an inquiry mindset amongst leadership education students; (2) the challenges and tensions associated with inquiry-based learning are worth the learning gains for leadership students; (3) the opportunity to learn in relationship is beneficial for leadership development outcomes and (4) students’ experiences of inquiry-based learning in leadership education often included instances of transformation.

Limitations of the research were: (1) it is a case study situated within a unique, particular social and educational context; (2) demographic data were not collected from participants, so results cannot be disaggregated based on particular demographic markers and (3) the small sample size involved in the study makes it impossible to generalize across a broad population.

This research has enabled a deep understanding of structural and relational supports that can enable effective inquiry-based learning in leadership education. It also offers evidence to support institutional shifts to inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education.

Our research demonstrates that use of inquiry-based pedagogy in leadership education has long-lasting positive effects on students' capacity for applied leadership practice. Consequently, participants in this type of leadership learning are better positioned to effectively lead social change that is pressing in our current global context.

There is scant (if any) published research that has focused on using inquiry-based pedagogies in leadership education. This research makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of leadership education.

The article aims to share the viewpoint of the author on the impact of the innovative teaching pedagogy adopted by him in teaching the accounting courses on the satisfaction of the participants in a premier Indian Business School.

The experiment was carried over by introducing an innovative teaching approach by the author among the first-year participants of the Management Program. At the end of the experiment, the participants were asked to rate the teaching approach on a five-point scale besides offering the qualitative feedback on the impact of the experiment on their learning outcomes.

The paper concludes that the participants were highly satisfied with the teaching approach adopted by the author.

The study contributes to the theory and practitioners on accounting education in many ways. First, it is offering evidence on the impact of teaching pedagogy on the satisfaction of the participants of the accounting courses of an emerging market business school. Second, the accounting educators of the emerging countries may replicate the experiment in their institutes. Third, the educators of other courses in the business schools may make an effort to measure the impact of the teaching approach on the feedback of their learners.