Search Results (9)

This qualitative action research case study explored how a blended literacy learning intervention combining the flipped classroom model with youth-selected multimodal texts influenced sixth-grade Academic Intervention Services (AIS) students’ comprehension of figurative language. The study was conducted over four months in a New York State middle school and involved seven students identified as at-risk readers. Initially, students engaged with teacher-created instructional videos outside of class and completed analytical activities during class time. However, due to low engagement and limited comprehension gains, the intervention was revised to incorporate student autonomy through the selection of multimodal texts such as graphic novels, song lyrics, and YouTube videos. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, journal entries, surveys, and classroom artifacts, and then analyzed using inductive coding and member checking. Findings indicate that students demonstrated increased the comprehension of figurative language when given choice in both texts and instructional videos. Participants reported increased motivation, deeper engagement, and enhanced meaning-making, particularly when reading texts that reflected their personal interests and experiences. The study concludes that a blended literacy model emphasizing autonomy and multimodality can support comprehension and bridge the gap between in-school and out-of-school literacy practices. Full article

Classroom engagement, a critical factor in enhancing learning outcomes and personal development, serves as a direct manifestation of students’ agency in learning. Understanding its developmental trajectory facilitates the efficient implementation of pedagogical activities. It also promotes students’ holistic development. This study aims to delineate the dynamic evolution of classroom engagement by constructing a network-based knowledge map, thereby revealing overarching research trends and shifts in this field. Systematically reviewing literature on classroom engagement since 1975, this research employs CiteSpace to visualize 919 articles sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection, offering valuable insights for theoretical exploration and practical applications in this domain. Key findings indicate: (1) a consistent increase in classroom engagement research over the past five decades; (2) the United States as the leading contributor; (3) Arizona State University, Texas A&M University College Station, and the University of California System as the most prolific institutions; (4) Fitzpatrick C as the most representative high-output author, with Fredricks JA being the most frequently cited scholar; (5) core journals including Journal of Educational Psychology, Review of Educational Research, and Child Development; and (6) emerging research hotspots such as flipped classroom, language, online education, and three focal themes: students with disabilities, interpersonal relationships, and student engagement. Full article

Medical education acknowledges our need to teach our physicians about “social determinants of health” and “health care disparities”. However, educators often lack actionable training to address this need. We describe a faculty development activity, a health disparities journal club, using the jigsaw strategy with the intent of increasing awareness, encouraging self-directed learning, and inspiring future teaching of the subject to health professional learners. We completed six workshops at six individual hospitals, with 95 total attendees in medicine and numerous other health professions. Our evaluation asked trainees to: report the number of journal articles about health disparities they had read, excluding the assigned journal club articles, in the past 12 months, and to predict future plans for reading about health disparities. In total, 28.9% responded they had “never read” a prior article on health or healthcare disparities, while 54.2% responded “1–5 articles”. Many (60%) reported they would continue to investigate this topic. Our experience has demonstrated the utility and positive impact of a “flipped classroom” jigsaw method, showing it can be used successfully in Inter-Professional (IPE) Faculty Development to increase active exposure and discussion of the content. Additionally, this method promotes individual reflection and enhances continued collective engagement. Full article

The aim of this research is to examine the EFL flipped classroom trend before and during COVID-19 by the frequent types of research designs and topics investigated in the studies. For this purpose, a content analysis was used as the research methodology. A content analysis was implemented for each article regarding research design and subject. A total of 44 research papers from journals listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Springer, and Scopus were analyzed. Only recent studies between 2017 and 2021 were reviewed because this study aims to analyze papers published immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. First, the results showed writing skills were investigated more than speaking and listening skills. Next, the flipped classroom positively affected EFL learners’ writing, grammar, and speaking anxiety. In addition, the most commonly used research method was the mixed method (n = 25), and the least used was the qualitative method (n = 3) during the years 2017–2021. The findings also revealed that the trend decreased from 2017 to 2018; however, it increased rapidly after 2018. This paper implicates that the recent research trend on flipped classrooms during emergency online L2 education focused on EFL writing, more research is needed to examine other language skills. Full article

Audiovisual content is highly employed in modern education curricula. This study aimed to identify students’ perceptions regarding the use of video in the courses they attend. Quantitative research was conducted among students of journalism and communication studies. Four courses were used for this study that employ video-based and video-assisted teaching strategies for active learning. Students used videos in different educational settings for flipped learning, blended learning, and autonomous self-paced learning. Their perceptions were examined through an extended form of the Technology Acceptance Model, encompassing more parameters (such as self-efficacy, perceived enjoyment, satisfaction, attitude, and intention of use) to identify causal relationships. In addition, the roles of technical parameters, such as internet connection, audio quality, and video quality, along with the duration of a video, were explored. The findings reveal students’ positive attitudes towards videos, and all factors were significantly related to the intention of use. In addition, the technical aspects of the video did not constitute a problem in the educational process, most likely due to contemporary quality in internet connections and audiovisual productions along with playback equipment. The duration of the videos was also not presented as an issue as there are flexible ways to embed videos in the learning process. Overall, videos can be used in multiple active learning scenarios to enhance students’ motivation and engagement and provide a joyful, collaborative, and hospitable learning environment. Students are familiar with digital tools and technologies and seem to enjoy audiovisual material in the learning process. Full article

As Open access (OA) is often perceived as the end goal of scholarly publishing, much research has focused on flipping subscription journals to an OA model. Focusing on what can happen after the presumed finish line, this study identifies journals that have converted from OA to a subscription model, and places these “reverse flips” within the greater context of scholarly publishing. In particular, we examine specific journal descriptors, such as access mode, publisher, subject area, society affiliation, article volume, and citation metrics, to deepen our understanding of reverse flips. Our results show that at least 152 actively publishing journals have reverse-flipped since 2005, suggesting that this phenomenon does not constitute merely a few marginal outliers, but instead a common pattern within scholarly publishing. Notably, we found that 62% of reverse flips (N = 95) had not been born-OA journals, but had been founded as subscription journals, and hence have experienced a three-stage transformation from closed to open to closed. We argue that reverse flips present a unique perspective on OA, and that further research would greatly benefit from enhanced data and tools for identifying such cases. Full article

Gigantic particle accelerators, incredibly complex detectors, an antimatter factory and the discovery of the Higgs boson—this is part of what makes CERN famous. Only a few know that CERN also hosts the world largest Open Access initiative: SCOAP3. The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics started operation in 2014 and has since supported the publication of 20,000 Open Access articles in the field of particle physics, at no direct cost, nor burden, for individual authors worldwide. SCOAP3 is made possible by a 3000-institute strong partnership, where libraries re-direct funds previously used for subscriptions to ‘flip’ articles to ‘Gold Open Access’. With its recent expansion, the initiative now covers about 90% of the journal literature of the field. This article describes the economic principles of SCOAP3, the collaborative approach of the partnership, and finally summarizes financial results after four years of successful operation. Full article

Die-rolling is the cryptographic task where two mistrustful, remote parties wish to generate a random D-sided die-roll over a communication channel. Optimal quantum protocols for this task have been given by Aharon and Silman (New Journal of Physics, 2010) but are based on optimal weak coin-flipping protocols that are currently very complicated and not very well understood. In this paper, we first present very simple classical protocols for die-rolling that have decent (and sometimes optimal) security, which is in stark contrast to coin-flipping, bit-commitment, oblivious transfer, and many other two-party cryptographic primitives. We also present quantum protocols based on the idea of integer-commitment, a generalization of bit-commitment, where one wishes to commit to an integer. We analyze these protocols using semidefinite programming and finally give protocols that are very close to Kitaev’s lower bound for any $D\ge 3$ . Lastly, we briefly discuss an application of this work to the quantum state discrimination problem. Full article

In this article we argue that the current endeavors to achieve open access in scientific literature require a discussion about innovation in scholarly publishing and research infrastructure. Drawing on path dependence theory and addressing different open access (OA) models and recent political endeavors, we argue that academia is once again running the risk of outsourcing the organization of its content. Full article