This study examined the effects of a music methods course offered at a Cypriot university on the singing skills of 33 female preservice kindergarten teachers. To systematically measure and analyze student progress, the research design was both experimental and descriptive. As an applied study which was carried out "in situ," the normal…

My research is rooted in improving K-12 educational practice using motivational facets made possible through adaptive tutoring systems. In an attempt to isolate best practices within the science of learning, I conduct randomized controlled trials within ASSISTments, an online adaptive tutoring system that provides assistance and assessment to…

Machine Learning methods for Performance Prediction in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) have proven their efficacy; specific methods, e.g. Matrix Factorization (MF), however suffer from the lack of available information about new tasks or new students. In this paper we show how this problem could be solved by applying Transfer Learning (TL),…

This article exposes surprisingly close historical parallels in the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) based on biologically inspired ACT-R theories and dynamically adaptive tutoring systems based on operationally defined cognitive constructs that serve as a foundation for the Structural Leaning theory (SLT). The article begins with…

While the issue on the existence of shadow education institutions (SEI's) has only recently been the subject of investigation in studies in various countries worldwide, it is clear that its market is a huge industry in much of Asia and is growing fast elsewhere. Capitalizing on the annual number of SEI's gathered from key government agencies and…

In this article, we describe our collaborative work with the Moçambique Ministry of Education in reimagining primary literacy teacher preparation through an initiative that promotes closer personal (literacy focused) relationships between preservice teachers (formandos) and primary-aged students during the formando's preparation program. Our work…

This article analyses and compares the motivations and (re)actions of the education authorities and parents in South Korea and mainland China towards schooling reform. The focus is on two policy initiatives -- Free Semester Programme in South Korea and Comprehensive Practical Activity Curriculum in China. Applying the theoretical constructs of…

Students with chronic illness generally have higher school needs than their healthy peers. The research to date examining school support for these needs has been limited to qualitative methods. We collected quantitative data to compare the school needs and supports received by 192 students with chronic illness and 208 students without chronic…

STEM Education is sweeping the United States, prompted primarily by the recent adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards. The surge in interest in STEM Education is beneficial for local schools and communities, and promises to positively impact students, teachers, school leaders, community members, and the future workforce. Unfortunately,…

The falling learning outcome is one of the major challenges faced by most of the educational systems. Adaptive educational systems (AESs) are viewed as catalyst to reinforce learning. Several AESs have been developed considering only single aspect of learners, for example, learning styles. The impact of learning style-based AESs in terms of…

Effective teaching and learning strategy is one of the most important topics in the field of teachers' professional development. Teachers' education and pre-service teachers' training programmes provide necessary coursework, field experience, and student teaching internship experience to pre-service, potential, and second career teachers who are…

Conversational agents constitute a specific type of ITSs that has been reportedly proven successful in helping students in one-to-one settings, while recently their impact has also been explored in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In this work, we present MentorChat, a dialogue-based system that employs a configurable and…

Scholars have identified that learning in an authentic environment with quality contextual and procedural supports can engage students in thorough observations and knowledge construction. Moreover, the target is that students are able to experience and make sense of all of the learning activities in the real-world environment with meaningful…

This study aims to design a non-simultaneous distance instruction system with affective computing, which integrates interactive agent technology with the curricular instruction of affective design. The research subjects were 78 students, and prototype assessment and final assessment were adopted to assess the interface and usability of the system.…

Physical chemistry I at Texas A&M University is an upper division course requiring mathematical and analytical skills. As such, this course poses a major problem for many Chemistry, Engineering, Biochemistry and Genetics majors. Comparisons between participants and non-participants in Supplemental Instruction for physical chemistry were made…