Dr. Tracey Burns is a Senior Analyst in the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. She heads a portfolio of projects including Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning, 21st Century Children and Trends Shaping Education. Until recently she was also responsible for the OECD work on Governing Complex Education systems. Previous to…

We are four academics teaching mathematics at three different higher education institutions over two continents. Through fortnightly meetings to research how our practices changed as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, we formed a community of practice. The process of articulating our experiences and ideas, and reflecting on the recorded meetings…

While education technology has been widely used in classrooms, and considerable investments have been made to support its use in the UK, the evidence base for many such rapidly changing technologies is weak, and their efficacy is unclear. The aim of this paper is to systematically review and synthesise empirical research on the use of technology…

Remote online second language (L2) writing instruction, in general, and remote online L2 writing assessment, in particular, require a holistic structural approach that results in improving students' L2 writing, as well as offering an authentic and fair assessment of students' L2 writing performance. The study described in this paper employed a…

Spreadsheets are a core computational tool for practicing engineers and engineering students. While Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheet tools have some differences, numerous formulas, functions, and other tasks are common across versions and platforms. Building upon learning science frameworks showing that interactive activities…

As Higher Education Institutions closed for an indefinite period in 2019 due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the urgency to commence with online modes of teaching and learning were realised. The rapid and abrupt transition from face-to-face to online teaching and learning was met with several challenges. However, it prompted new examples…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the key factors affecting the adoption and use of online assessment in Polytechnics in Zimbabwe during the COVID-19 era using the Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework and Technology Acceptance model (TAM). A qualitative research methodology was employed to discover and explain the…

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has shaken the higher education sector. Indian academic institutes are well acquainted with the traditional closed book examination; however, the pandemic has forced the institutes to resort to new methods to evaluate the students. Many academic units in India did not take the examination in the light of…

The College of Science and Health Professions offers a university preprofessional program. Like most medical schools in Saudi Arabia, the teaching delivery strategy in the university preprofessional program is on campus and face-to-face. During the month of March 2020, teaching activities of the spring semester were proceeding as normal; however,…

In recent years, universities and other academic institutions have been performing collaborative learning to improve the students' skills, competencies, and learning outcomes. The problem-based learning approach is a learning method where students can work in groups to develop these skills. However, when working in groups, the students are not…

Responding to the challenge of delivering valid assessments during the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly not easy. However, the efforts will undoubtedly lead to developments in the field of language assessment. This special issue closes with a brief summary of the commentaries it contains and raises some unanswered…

To test the hypothesis that students who complete remote online tests experience an 'online grade penalty', we compared performance outcomes of second-year students who elected to complete exams online to those who completed face-to-face, paper-based tests in an organic chemistry course. We pursued the following research questions: (RQ1) Are there…

Faced with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, California's adult education programs found innovative ways to pivot and continue serving students. With the support of the California Department of Education and its state leadership projects, adult educators embraced new technologies, virtual modes of professional development, and adapted…

Artificial Intelligence is widely used across contexts and for different purposes, including the field of education. However, a review of the literature showcases that while there exist various review studies on the use of AI in education, missing remains a review focusing on science education. To address this gap, we carried out a systematic…

The interest in using online formative assessment activities has gradually increased in both traditional teaching and distance education processes. Research emphasizes the importance of using online formative assessment in learning processes. Due to this fact, it is essential to uncover pre-service teachers' thoughts about online formative…