Technology Knowledge and Learning

Alzetta, Chiara; Torre, Ilaria; Koceva, Frosina

2023 Technology Knowledge and Learning

doi: 10.1007/s10758-023-09682-6

Extracting and formally representing the knowledge embedded in textbooks, such as the concepts explained and the relations between them, can support the provision of advanced knowledge-based services for learning environments and digital libraries. In this paper, we consider a specific type of relation in textbooks referred to as prerequisite relations (PR). PRs represent precedence relations between concepts aimed to provide the reader with the knowledge needed to understand a further concept(s). Their annotation in educational texts produces datasets that can be represented as a graph of concepts connected by PRs. However, building good-quality and reliable datasets of PRs from a textbook is still an open issue, not just for automated annotation methods but even for manual annotation. In turn, the lack of good-quality datasets and well-defined criteria to identify PRs affect the development and validation of automated methods for prerequisite identification. As a contribution to this issue, in this paper, we propose PREAP, a protocol for the annotation of prerequisite relations in textbooks aimed at obtaining reliable annotated data that can be shared, compared, and reused in the research community. PREAP defines a novel textbook-driven annotation method aimed to capture the structure of prerequisites underlying the text. The protocol has been evaluated against baseline methods for manual and automatic annotation. The findings show that PREAP enables the creation of prerequisite knowledge graphs that have higher inter-annotator agreement, accuracy, and alignment with text than the baseline methods. This suggests that the protocol is able to accurately capture the PRs expressed in the text. Furthermore, the findings show that the time required to complete the annotation using PREAP are significantly shorter than with the other manual baseline methods. The paper includes also guidelines for using PREAP in three annotation scenarios, experimentally tested. We also provide example datasets and a user interface that we developed to support prerequisite annotation.

Camping, April; Stack, Ashley; Bristow, Abigail; Wijekumar, Kausalai; McKeown, Debra; Sierra, Pilar; Hotcaveg, Sandra

2023 Technology Knowledge and Learning

doi: 10.1007/s10758-023-09691-5

The purpose of this study was to examine the skills and types of instruction present within four commonly used writing textbooks at grades four and five via content and quantitative analyses. Determining the presence of standards-based skills and evidence-based practices may help shed light on the effectiveness and quality of these curricula. The textbooks under investigation included HMH Into Reading Texas for grades 4 and 5 (HMH; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020), and Texas myView Literacy for grades 4 and 5 (Pearson; Pearson Education, 2020). Findings indicated a lack of focus on composing for a variety of purposes, and a lack of explicit modeling instruction across all textbooks. The majority of activities appeared to be independent student work. Conclusions and recommendations for future research are provided with an emphasis on what is known about evidence-based instruction, and what needs to be included in writing textbooks for student achievement to improve.

Khalil, Mohammad; Topali, Paraskevi; Ortega-Arranz, Alejandro; Er, Erkan; Akçapınar, Gökhan; Belokrys, Gleb

2023 Technology Knowledge and Learning

doi: 10.1007/s10758-023-09689-z

Masry-Herzallah, Asmahan

2023 Technology Knowledge and Learning

doi: 10.1007/s10758-023-09690-6

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of schools worldwide in March 2020, causing significant disruption to educational experiences. Teaching and learning began to be organized and transferred from educators’ homes with no prior preparation. The present research examined factors promoting and inhibiting teachers’ perceptions of success in online teaching in the Arab educational system in Israel during the COVID-19 crisis using mixed-methods approaches, including a questionnaire completed by 195 teachers and interviews with 20 teachers. The research findings indicated that efficient, high-quality, and clear school communication, teachers’ frequent use of synchronous teaching, students’ high socioeconomic status, and older teacher age best explain teachers’ perceptions of success in online teaching. The qualitative findings supported the quantitative results and provided insights about online learning challenges in the Arab educational system in Israel. This research enhances literature and practice by describing contextual factors affecting teachers’ perceptions of online teaching success during COVID-19, and it provides valuable, culturally relevant insights to inform post-pandemic education policy design.