The globally shared pandemic experience forced schools to shut their doors and required communities to examine their education systems. An important part of that examination is the evaluation of online learning education options. Online K-12 learning continues to grow, so examining how it can work better for students is important. This…

This qualitative study examines the perspectives of K-12 school principals in urban settings on the strengths and weaknesses of various professional development program modalities. The research involved interviews with 10 urban K-12 school administrators to explore their views on in-person, online synchronous, and online asynchronous professional…

School administrators and policymakers may know, well trained mentors have a positive impact on the teachers with whom they work, yet little is known about mentors' training in asynchronous online environments. This qualitative study answered this research question, how did K-12 mentors in the United States (U.S.) describe the connections between…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to create a "go-to-guide" of best practices in the creation of asynchronous courses. Due to the global pandemic, millions of students around the world transitioned from in-class instruction to online programs, which ranged from completely synchronous classrooms to completely asynchronous classrooms.…

Teachers who lack the professional development needed demonstrate less self-efficacy. Teacher pedagogical and content understanding are important factors related to the impact on student engagement and achievement. This study was designed to attempt to understand teachers' perceptions of the impact of professional development and which format…

This scoping review summarizes studies on passive participation in collaborative online learning activities that used computer-mediated communication tools in school settings. A total of 42 articles spanning about 20 years were explored. ERIC and three main journal indexes from Web of Science were used to locate articles. For each year searched,…

Online learning continues to be an increasingly popular option in K-12 and postsecondary settings As this trend continues, it is important that the developers of online instructional environments and materials proactively consider the needs of all students. This includes determining how special education and specially designed instruction can be…

Teachers perceive student engagement in many ways, and do not necessarily align engagement strategies they employ with their own conceptualization of this construct. This situation is worsened in online learning of which popularity has grown since the emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic. We explored perceptions of student engagement in…

High leverage practices (HLPs) in special education are 22 critical skills related to collaboration, assessment, social/emotional/behavioral, and instructional domains. These practices are supported by research and recommended for use in PK-12 classrooms serving students with and without disabilities. Given the vast instructional modalities used…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional K-12 education worldwide, forcing a rapid shift to emergency remote teaching and learning. This dissertation utilizes a three-article approach and investigates the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on urban charter high school students and their principals in under-resourced communities. The first…

The problem that was addressed in this qualitative study is a lack of understanding of the requirements for an online e-learning module on effective parent advocacy for 2e students who are identified as ADHD and gifted. The purpose of this qualitative Delphi study was to determine perceptions of what should be included in the online asynchronous…

This study explores the online education action for defeating COVID-19 in China from the perspectives of the system, mechanism and mode. In particular, the policy development of online education in China during the epidemic includes the education informatization policy, the online education system, and the online education mechanism in China. The…

Education systems around the world closed schools to cope with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this current mixed-method study, 181 schoolteachers completed online questionnaires to characterize the pedagogical strategies which they used during Emergency Remote Learning Environment (ERLE) in May 2020. In addition, we conducted…

Among the many factors that impact student performance in traditional K-12 settings, parent involvement (PI) is consistently identified as critical for student success. However, less is known about parent involvement for full-time virtual schools, where most learning takes place asynchronously in a Learning Management System (LMS). The present…

In 2020, the state of Florida strategized to improve reading instruction for K-12 students by mandating all elementary and literacy teachers receive a reading endorsement. In response to the mandate, the University of Florida's Lastinger Center for Learning developed an online, asynchronous, self-paced teacher professional development program to…