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Misinformation regarding vaccine science decreased the receptiveness to COVID-19 vaccines, exacerbating the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on society. To mitigate the negative societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, impactful and creative science communication was needed, yet little research has explored how to encourage COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and address misconceptions held by non-Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics majors (referred to as non-majors). We have previously demonstrated that including expert guest lectures in the vaccine module in the non-major introductory biology course helps combat students' vaccine hesitancy. In the present study, we further address how learning about vaccines impacts student knowledge and impressions of the COVID-19 vaccines through a podcast assignment. As a part of this assignment, non-majors created podcasts to address COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions of their choice. We coded pre and post, open-ended essay reflections (n = 40) to assess non-majors' knowledge and impressions of the COVID-19 vaccines. Non-majors' impressions of the vaccines improved following the podcast assignment with more than three times as many students reporting a positive view of the assignment than negative views. Notably, eight of the nine interviewed students still ended the course with misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccines, such as the vaccines being unnecessary or causing fertility issues. In a post semi-structured interview following this assignment, students (n = 7) discussed the impact of looking into the specific misconceptions related to COVID-19 vaccines themselves, including improved science communication skills and understanding of different perspectives. Thus, podcasts can provide opportunities for students to improve engagement in valuable societal topics like vaccine literacy in the non-majors classroom.

Over the past two decades, multiple empirical studies have examined how teacher audio feedback works in EFL/ESL writing courses. This review explores instructor audio feedback studies in higher education writing contexts. Seventy empirical studies were identified in literature searches published between 2000 and 2022 in several academic databases. Then, based on exclusion and inclusion criteria, thirteen relevant studies were reviewed. The results indicate that interest in instructor audio feedback research has risen since 2000. This overview presents what empirical studies on teacher audio feedback in L2 writing courses aimed to find out, how they were conducted, and what they found. As many research designs and findings were underexplored, more studies are required to investigate this feedback type to benefit L2 writing learning and teaching and enrich studies on audio feedback practices. The gaps identified in the selected studies offer ideas for future explorations of teacher audio feedback in L2 writing contexts.

This study explores how pre-service mathematics teachers build alternative model simulations of real-world scenarios. Inclusion in the formal structures for wealth generation and accumulation is a fervently debated issue in South Africa. Share owning in companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa is one of many wealth-building tools. Related discussions evolved on the spread of share ownership among black and white citizens. Two mathematically motivated positions were reported in a newspaper. In one of their mathematics courses, prospective mathematics teachers were presented with the article and asked to reflect on it with the prompt 'Which of these two methods for determining the "number of Black South Africans holding shares on the JSE" would your group support?' Audio- and video-recorded data were collected and subjected to thematic analysis. The themes that emerged from the analysis were economic empowerment, authority of research and trustworthiness of information. The discussions reflected on the complexities and rationalities involved in decision-making of mathematically driven opposing positions on issues of social importance. The mathematically derived results of such issues will eventually be resolved in the political field. The findings revealed that building of alternative mathematical models by pre-service mathematics teachers begins with an explicit problem setting, followed by the development of mathematical models that included real-world problems.

The educational crisis in Northeast Nigeria, deepened by conflict, economic challenges, and the COVID-19 pandemic, has significantly hindered access to quality education for millions of children. In response, EdTech solutions such as the Mavis Talking Books and Pens have shown potential in supporting education in conflict-affected and under-resourced areas. This study examines the implementation of the Mavis Talking Books and Pens within non-formal classrooms in Borno state, focusing on out-of-school children aged 9 to 16 who are part of an ongoing non-formal learning initiative. The research aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Mavis tools and identify the conditions necessary for their successful implementation and scalability using a mixed-methods approach involving surveys, focus groups, interviews, and observations with 70 learning facilitators and 350 students across 70 non-formal learning centers. The study found that the Mavis Talking Books and Pens were largely effectively implemented, which appears to lead to student progress, although some inconsistencies in student engagement and classroom management were noted. Challenges included the need for more frequent use, better student-to-pen ratios, and improvements in the learning environment. Facilitators also highlighted the importance of stronger community engagement and addressing external factors affecting student attendance. To overcome these challenges, the study suggests focusing on strengthening support systems, optimizing resource allocation, and enhancing community engagement. These findings offer important insights into how EdTech tools like Mavis Talking Books and Pens can be effectively integrated into non-formal education settings in crisis-affected regions, helping to improve educational outcomes for marginalized children in similar contexts.

The current study fills a gap in the current literature by measuring current CES personnel and stakeholders' attitudes toward the use of Podcasts as a tool for information dissemination. By identifying perceived barriers to podcasts by CES personnel and how receptive CES stakeholders are to CES-based podcasts, this study helps to identify important barriers to the development of podcasts, as well as how such podcasts can be best positioned to fulfill the needs and expectations of CES stakeholders. Podcasts have the potential to play a key role as an avenue for information exchange between the CES and its stakeholders. Two separate surveys were employed, one which focused on CES personnel with the second study focusing on CES stakeholders. Participant recruitment took place through email and data analyses utilized SPSS to conduct descriptive statistics and frequencies. Findings indicate that significant difference exist between CES personnel and CES stakeholders when it comes to attitudes and beliefs regarding podcasts as a CES tool.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand, from the perspective of students with disabilities, what special education leaders and their respective classroom educators should consider in the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) features and tools to support individualized instruction. This study utilized an immersive and interactive personalized learning environment, virtual reality, to engage students with disabilities as they consider AI tools, features, and supports that are currently needed to enhance their learning experience. The five primary themes for AI integration that building and instructional special education leaders should consider included: (1) response options; (2) content; (3) learning environment and virtual characters; (4) visuals; and (5) sound or auditory supports. As special education leaders seek to determine how best to navigate growing AI tools and how and when to implement, this study, coming from the voice of students with disabilities, offers some immediate and pertinent suggestions within the context of current personalized learning efforts.

Learners' acquisition of pragmatic competence in additional languages has received mounting attention since the 1990s. However, although studies on general learning strategies have proliferated since Oxford's (1990) influential inventory was published, studies on pragmatic-specific learning strategies contributing to the acquisition of this competence are rare. To fill this research gap, the current study purported to inquire into the main pragmatic learning strategies used by English language learners across gender and language learning experience. To collect the data, 145 learners were interviewed. These participants' answers were audio-taped and transcribed. These extracted strategies were organized into six groupings of memory-related, cognitive, metacognitive, compensatory, social, and affective pragmatic learning strategies based on Cohen's (2005, 2010) pragmatic-specific categorization and Oxford's (1990) general language learning strategy classification. The analysis showed that those learners with longer experience used more pragmatic learning strategies; nonetheless, gender did result in great differences in employing these strategies. This study presents a new categorization for pragmatic learning strategies, which can be used for more effective pragmatic learning strategy teaching and learning.

Research on teacher strategies to improve learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) is limited. However, encouraging outside-the-class conversations could increase L2 exposure and improve communicative skills. This study investigated the effects of self-assessment of self-recorded conversations on Thai university EFL learners' WTC and self-perceived communicative confidence. It also explored their attitudes towards the self-assessment. A mixed-method research design involving questionnaires, reflective reports, and interviews was employed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the effects and perspectives among 46 first-year university students with low English proficiency. Six students were interviewed to provide deeper insights into self-assessment effects. The results suggested that the self-assessment could develop WTC and self-perceived confidence. Also, it could raise awareness of their speaking problems as well as promote learning autonomy and the feeling of being supported by the teacher. Teachers can use the findings to increase learners' WTC and foster learning autonomy, especially in the EFL context.

This qualitative case study examined 11 teaching assistants' (TAs) awareness of the need to infuse culturally responsive pedagogy into undergraduate level courses. The TAs represented the fields of political science, history, English, psychology, world languages, and kinesiology at one public university. One-on-one interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed utilizing six phase thematic analysis. Interactive analysis and coding provided a system to examine the data, generate initial codes, and subsequently review, define, and report on the themes that emerged. Results suggest the TAs interviewed had not been adequately prepared to infuse culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) with instruction.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of AI-powered Speech Recognition Technology (AISRT) in improving English pronunciation and speaking skills among EFL learners. Additionally, it explored the opinions and responses of EFL learners towards the use of this technology for pronunciation and speaking skill enhancement. The research employed a pretest/post-test design and a survey questionnaire with a multiple-choice rating scale and openended questions. The study included a sample of EFL learners who received instruction and practice using an AI-SRT program over a designated period. Data were collected through pretest and post-test assessments to measure changes in pronunciation and speaking skills. A survey questionnaire was administered to gather participants' opinions and responses regarding the program's effectiveness and their overall experience. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to examine the central tendency, variability and distribution of pre-test and post-test scores. Comparative analysis was conducted using paired t-tests to determine the significance of the improvement in pronunciation and speaking skills. Qualitative data from the survey questionnaire were analyzed thematically to identify recurring themes and patterns in participants' opinions. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the impact of AI-powered speech recognition technology on EFL learners' pronunciation and speaking skills. The results reveal the effectiveness of such technology and provide valuable insights into learners' perceptions and experiences. This research has implications for language educators, curriculum designers, and developers of educational technology in designing effective pronunciation and speaking skill enhancement tools for EFL learners.

This systematic review investigates learner use of audio/video playback (AVP) controls in technology-enhanced listening environments. To this aim, 61 academic works produced from 2000-2021 underwent inclusion/exclusion criteria and were analyzed. The resulting corpus was made up of 16 peer-reviewed articles. We first situate the studies examined with regards to contextual, educational, and methodological characteristics of AVP controls research. Then, we conducted thematic analysis to identify, analyze and report affordances and limitations of AVP controls. Four affordances and two limitations were identified. The affordances describe how AVP controls enable students to resort to different strategies, change their interaction patterns with learning materials, address comprehension problems and enhance listening comprehension performance. Similarly, limitations describe how proficiency level restricts interaction with AVP controls and the need for learner training on AVP controls. Results are discussed along with integrated data. Pedagogical implications and avenues for further research are also discussed.

English language teaching in Indonesia continues to improve the communicative ability of students. To support English language mastery, school subjects such as mathematics, science, and technology are taught in English. However, the main problem faced by prospective science teachers is their limited English proficiency which leads to limited English communication. Therefore, a tool called "Science Instruction in English Audiobook" was seen as one of the media which can help prospective science teachers to practice the teaching skills in English. Hence, this study aims to develop and evaluate a "Science Instruction in English Audiobook" to help prospective science teachers improve their science teaching skills in English. The skills of science teaching in English were then observed to find out the effectiveness of the audiobook. The subjects were 65 prospective science teachers. The research design was Research and Development consisting of problem analysis, literature study, product design, product validation, revision, trial, revision, application, and revision. The "Science Instruction in English Audiobook" product has been successfully developed. The product is a sound recording in .mp3 format with a duration of almost 1 hour 3 minutes 43 seconds. The audiobook contains science vocabulary material (physics, chemistry, and biology) and teaching skills in English. Following the research design steps, the product has been validated by material, media, and language experts. Based on the validation from the experts, it can be stated that the audiobook product is valid with an accumulated percentage of 98% which means it is feasible to be used as a learning resource to develop the English skills of prospective science teachers. Moreover, it has been found that audiobooks can help prospective science teachers to practice effective science teaching skills in English.

The difficulties faced by teachers at a Special Public School in teaching Balinese script literacy to visually impaired children have resulted in low literacy skills in Balinese script among these students. In order to maximize Balinese script learning, appropriate learning media tailored to the characteristics of visually impaired children are necessary. This study aims to determine the design, feasibility, and effectiveness of the Relief Balinese Script Media ("Reaksi") assisted by audio to improve the Balinese script literacy of visually impaired students at a Special Public School. The study utilizes the ADDIE development model with a quantitative research design. Data collection methods include written tests assessing Balinese script writing. The subjects of this study are 12 visually impaired students. The results of this development study are as follows: (1) the design of the audio media achieved a score of 93.15%, qualifying as excellent; (2) the "Reaksi" media was deemed feasible, scoring 91.44% and qualifying as excellent; (3) the obtained t-value was 77.97, while the t-table value at a significance level of 5% was 2.101. These results indicate that the t-value is greater than the t-table value, thus rejecting H0 and accepting H1. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Relief Balinese Script Media ("Reaksi") assisted by audio is effectively applied to improve the Balinese script literacy of visually impaired students at a Special Public School. This audio-assisted Relief Balinese Script Media ("Reaksi") helps visually impaired students recognize the actual forms of Balinese script, thereby enhancing the literacy skills of Balinese script reading and writing among visually impaired students.

The personnel preparation of early intervention/early childhood special educator (EI/ECSE) candidates is a pivotal stage in supporting the development of professionals who can effectively work with young children with and at-risk of developmental disabilities, their families, and other service providers. This process encompasses a multifaceted approach to equip candidates with knowledge, skills, and attitudes/dispositions to successfully work within the field. This compilation article includes multiple authors of each section who share strategies, assignments, tools, and experiences to center the Initial Practice-Based Standards for Early Interventionists/Early Childhood Special Educators (Division for Early Childhood [DEC] of the Council for Exceptional Children [CEC], 2020; hereafter referred to as the EI/ECSE Standards) and DEC's Recommended Practices (RPs). These strategies are shared through a "spiraling curriculum" framework, and progress from an awareness level to reflection of candidates' own practice. In addition, this article shares related resources to consider in planning for innovative coursework and practicum/student teaching opportunities. Specific examples of spiraling experiences to deepen learning through opportunities to introduce content aligned to RPs and EI/ECSE Standards are included.

Education on sustainability is a crucial goal that requires a transformative shift in teacher education to drive meaningful changes oriented to action. A cross-sectional study with an exploratory design investigated preservice science teachers' perceptions regarding teaching sustainable citizenship, specifically focusing on the climate crisis and earthquakes-tsunamis. The study was conducted in two Chilean universities with similar teacher preparation programs. The team designed a podcast series, which was used and evaluated by the 13 participants through action research. Three group discussions explored their perceptions of the resources, as well as the aims and challenges of teaching sustainable citizenship and the podcasts. We used Grounded Theory steps, including triangulation by the researchers to ensure reliability, to qualitatively analyse the data. The results reveal a constraint on teaching in areas where the participants lacked the necessary preparation and background knowledge as students and preservice teachers. The main challenges were related to interdisciplinarity, the social dimension of socio-scientific issues and context-responsive teaching methods. The perceived aims were the development of students' critical thinking, informed positioning, and encouraging active citizen participation. Preservice teachers found the podcast series to be a valuable new epistemic and pedagogical resource that can support their efforts to teach sustainable citizenship and implement pedagogical strategies. The autonomous usage of the device triggered reflection processes, particularly regarding the human rights perspective, which unveiled the socio-political dimensions inherent in science education. It promoted personal re-positioning as active citizens and educators and empowered them to seek out and pursue the changes needed to reshape future classrooms. We discuss these findings in the context of teacher preparation and the use of educational technology in teacher education.

Listening comprehension is a crucial skill in English as a Foreign Language education, yet listening assessment still needs to be explored. This study aims to understand how listening is assessed in a Colombian private language institution and its potential connection to students' underperformance in listening proficiency tests. We characterize the listening assessment used in B1-level classes through a descriptive case study. Utilizing a rubric, we analyzed fourteen listening tasks from various sources, including course materials and a mock PET exam. Our analysis had two primary objectives: (a) to uncover the rationale behind test design and its alignment with the curriculum, and (b) to evaluate the knowledge types targeted and the forms of listening assessment employed using categorization. Our findings reveal that despite the curriculum's holistic listening development goals, assessments predominantly focus on phonological knowledge through dictation tests, in which students primarily engage with audio media and recordings. These findings suggest a misalignment in the way listening is approached during the whole course, the examinations used to assess listening during the B1 level, and the use of an external standardized test as the exit exam. This study holds potential implications for curriculum alignment and the enhancement of language assessment literacy within our context, shedding light on potential factors contributing to students' underperformance in listening comprehension.

There is currently little research on the use of podcasting as a learning tool in the tertiary-level foreign language classroom. Here we attempt to partly fill that gap through a multiple case study of three university teachers who use this technology in their courses in Spanish as a foreign language. We obtained data for analysis primarily in two ways, through individual interviews with the teachers on two separate occasions and by compiling a corpus of all the podcasts (227 in total) the three teachers had used in their classes, most of them student-created. Given this last fact, our analysis focuses especially on the creation of podcasts by students and the teacher's role in the process. Our findings show that podcasting as an educational tool can offer significant benefits for language learning. Student-produced podcasts, in particular, provide students with a context to practice their foreign language speaking skills, but reading and writing skills are also heavily engaged in the process of writing a script for what they will say in their podcast. The production of podcasts can also be highly motivating for students if the final product is posted online on an open-access host site; this means that native speakers of the target language could be among the potential listeners. On the downside, the process of having students produce podcasts requires considerable time and preparation on the part of both teachers and students, and students who are shy or less comfortable with technology may find the task challenging.

The "chilly" science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) climate in undergraduate settings has been widely documented, as women in STEM majors frequently face discrimination, microaggressions, and implicit bias from their professors and peers. While undergraduate research experiences can help women in STEM overcome some of the barriers they face, these opportunities are not always accessible and inclusive. Although there is a breadth of literature on this topic, many studies utilize traditional quantitative and qualitative methods and do not take the authentic, individualized voices of these women into account. The present study integrates two arts-based participatory methodologies--Photovoice and collage inquiry--to explore the following questions: (1) What are the experiences of women in STEM majors at a large midwestern research-intensive university? (2) How do these women experience conducting and/or seeking research opportunities? Four themes emerged from the analysis of the triangulated data: (1) lack of equity in STEM, (2) lack of awareness of opportunities, (3) confidence in STEM abilities, and (4) passion for STEM. While the first two themes encompass barriers that women in STEM face, the second two themes demonstrate the strengths of women in STEM.

This practice report provides an overview of a podcast series designed to support first-year student transition to university and promote wellbeing and belonging. The podcast was established in 2017 in a compulsory first year law subject (Legal Institutions and Methods) at La Trobe University, Australia. The podcasts record interviews with students who have recently completed the subject and are designed to (a) give interviewees an opportunity to reflect on their experiences and (b) provide advice to future commencing law students (i.e., their peers). The podcast is a form of peer-to-peer mentoring that requires a relatively small investment of resources and provides on-demand support to students as they commence their law studies. The concept is readily adaptable to other disciplines.

In order to demonstrate the effect of using podcasts on the development of A1 level students' oral reading, reading comprehension, pronunciation skills, and related discriminative listening skills of Turkish learners abroad, an 8-week podcast-supported listening practice was conducted with a group of 12 participants learning Turkish as an elective course at a university in Central Europe with the aim of improving discriminative listening skills. In this single-group quantitative design research, pretest and post-test were conducted, and the data sources were the Turkish Language Teaching as a Foreign Language A1 Level Discriminative Listening Skill Test and the discriminative listening worksheets were used in the skill development application process. As a result of the research, it was determined that the use of podcasts is effective in improving the discriminative listening skills of those learning Turkish as a foreign language at the A1 level abroad.

With the aim to provide teachers with more specific, frequent, and actionable feedback about their teaching, we explore how Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to estimate "Instructional Support" domain scores of the CLassroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), a widely used observation protocol. We design a machine learning architecture that uses either zero-shot prompting of Meta's Llama2, and/or a classic Bag of Words (BoW) model, to classify individual utterances of teachers' speech (transcribed automatically using OpenAI's Whisper) for the presence of Instructional Support. Then, these utterance-level judgments are aggregated over a 15-min observation session to estimate a global CLASS score. Experiments on two CLASS-coded datasets of toddler and pre-kindergarten classrooms indicate that (1) automatic CLASS Instructional Support estimation accuracy using the proposed method (Pearson R up to 0.48) approaches human inter-rater reliability (up to R = 0.55); (2) LLMs generally yield slightly greater accuracy than BoW for this task, though the best models often combined features extracted from both LLM and BoW; and (3) for classifying individual utterances, there is still room for improvement of automated methods compared to human-level judgments. Finally, (4) we illustrate how the model's outputs can be visualized at the utterance level to provide teachers with explainable feedback on which utterances were most positively or negatively correlated with specific CLASS dimensions.

This study looked at how practically ASR-based interactive video assignments can be integrated into EFL classrooms for additional out-of-class speaking practice, and what effects it will have on students. We created an ASR-based interactive video assignment using Google Scripts and gave it to students as a homework assignment between lessons in which students were learning to give opinions and respond to interrogatives. We used pre- and post-treatment surveys to examine shifts in students' attitudes and gather their responses pertaining to the interactive video assignment. In general, students thought the assignment was good practice, and the majority of students showed positive shifts in confidence and feelings of liking English (p < 0.001 for both, rs = 0.28 and rs = 0.48, respectively). However, we found that students overfocused on pronunciation, especially when they were more proficient learners (p = 0.035, r = 0.015). Therefore, we believe that while the activity was somewhat successful, the feedback likely needs to be changed for ASR-based systems when the focus should not be pronunciation. Future possibilities are also discussed.

This study examined the psychological impact of social media on Nigerian teenagers looking at how social media posts and tweets (messages) influence their perceptions towards migrating abroad. A survey research method was adopted to investigate the problem in its natural setting. Four secondary schools (SSs) within Edo North, Edo State, Nigeria were randomly selected from 56 government-owned SSs for the study. A questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument to obtain respondents' views (data) which was later analysed using SPSS. Spearman correlation and Pearson's R were used to measure the two hypotheses symmetrically. The chi-square was then used to test the results. According to their opinions (data collected), the findings of the study revealed that Nigerian teenagers of school age have access to social media, prefer text, video and audio kinds of information and mostly prefer Facebook to other social media networking sites. After analysing the tested hypotheses, the researcher concludes that there is a significant relationship between social media messages and Nigerian teenagers' desire to travel abroad. Hence, social media messages or information affect their mental construct negatively which could be compared to mental slavery and they made some recommendations that would assist in mitigating these impacts.

Listening is widely regarded as the predominant language proficiency utilized in virtually all forms of communication. However, its intricacies often engender feelings of complexity and, at times, provoke anxiety and frustration among both foreign and second-language learners. The enhancement of successful communication fundamentally hinges upon the precise comprehension of spoken messages. In this quantitative investigation, the present study delves into the perceptions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students concerning the utilization of podcasts as a tool to cultivate and bolster their listening proficiency. The study cohort comprised female university students enrolled in a preparatory year program. The examination of attitudes toward podcasts was conducted via a survey questionnaire. The findings unveiled that most participants derived enjoyment from utilizing podcasts, which in turn catalyzed their enthusiasm for English language acquisition. Additionally, they conceded that podcasts held promise in augmenting their linguistic abilities, with a primary focus on listening comprehension. These outcomes posit that podcasting serves as a medium with significant implications for students' learning trajectories, particularly regarding the acquisition of listening proficiencies.

Based on Folk theory, Media Equation, and AI literacy research, the study constructed an interview outline and selected 72 students in 4th and 5th grade in three primary schools located in the Minhang and Putuo districts of Shanghai (two in the Minhang district and one in the Putuo district) as the study participants for focus group interviews. The study found that the availability of voice interaction is an essential basis for children to judge the level of intelligence of a machine; additionally, chatting is also the starting point for young children to build a close relationship with AI. Although AI cannot replace their friends, it can become a friend to them. While children expect the future of AI to be beyond the current level of intelligence and emotion and to enable the full use of machines in multiple scenarios and various fields, they are also concerned about issues such as privacy breaches that devices may cause in the future and believe that technology should not develop outside of human control.

Experts perceive and evaluate domain-specific visual information with high accuracy. In doing so, they exhibit eye movements referred to as "expert gaze" to rapidly focus on task-relevant areas. Using eye tracking, it is possible to record these implicit gaze patterns and present them to histology novice learners during training. This article presents a comprehensive evaluation of such "expert gaze cueing" on pattern recognition of medical students in histology. For this purpose, 53 students were randomized into two groups over eight histology sessions. The control group was presented with an instructional histology video featuring voice commentary. The gaze cueing group was presented the same video, but with an additional overlay of a live recording of the expert's eye movements. Afterward, students' pattern recognition was assessed through 20 image-based tasks (5 retention, 15 transfer) and their cognitive load with the Paas scale. Results showed that gaze cueing significantly outperformed the control group (p = 0.007; d = 0.40). This effect was evident for both, retention (p = 0.003) and transfer tasks (p = 0.046), and generalized across different histological contexts. The cognitive load was similar in both groups. In conclusion, gaze cueing helps histology novice learners to develop their pattern recognition skills, offering a promising method for histology education. Histology educators could benefit from this instructional strategy to provide new forms of attentional guidance to learners in visually complex learning environments.

The developmental, characteristics and educational competencies of students who need special education are developing slowly in compared to their agemates. This is because their expressive language is different. In order to overcome these challenges, assistive technologies can be used under the supervision of the teachers. In this paper, a person dependent speech verification approach is proposed for special education students. The system verifies the speech of special education students in various ways. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is employed for the classification task. Audio signals that are collected as datasets are accomplished by collecting samples from the real education centers involving special education students. For each subject, a different CNN is trained. Obtained audio signals undergo a frequency domain transform, and then their spectrograms are computed. The spectrogram images of every audio sample are then processed as inputs to the CNN. In this way, better representations of the audio signals are achieved where the spectrogram images of the audio files of different subjects are discriminable. This is also the result of special education students' personal and unique speaking styles. The proposed approach is tested on the dataset that is constructed by real subject recordings. The system achieves promising results by performing comparable recognition accuracies of around 96%.

Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of learning to read, as the understanding of text is at the root of the purpose for reading, whether reading for pleasure or reading to learn. At-home reading practices can vary widely family to family -- some families have the knowledge and resources to read effectively with their children, while others have not been afforded the opportunity or knowledge to read with their children. The Advancing Comprehension and Engagement (ACE) Literacy Project is a free reading comprehension resource bringing the evidence-based Knowledge Acquisition & Transformation (KAT) Framework to families via podcast and video episodes in English and Spanish. The aim of the ACE Project is to help ameliorate access barriers to high-quality literacy resources for families by providing engaging, interactive episodes available on major platforms and accessible via cell phones, tablets, or computers. The present article describes the theoretical foundations underlying the ACE Project, details the methods used to develop ACE, describes the format followed in each episode, and discusses the pilot year of the project. Usage statistics are presented. Implications for the future of the ACE Project are discussed in light of initial data collection.

In the modern age, we often consume content at faster than its normal speed. Prior research suggests that watching lecture videos at speeds up to 2x does not significantly affect performance, but the mechanisms by which comprehension is preserved at faster playback speeds are not fully understood. Therefore, we sought to investigate whether there is an effect of speed when the content is audio only, varies in modality (audio-only, audio-visual) and content (textual, pictorial), or is accompanied by distractions. In four experiments, we found that: (1) increasing playback speed to 2.5x speed did not impair test performance (though we still do not advise exceeding 2x speed); (2) having a visual aspect (i.e., presentation slides, instructor images) to learning can be advantageous, especially when processing information at faster speeds; (3) there was a small benefit of receiving textual over pictorial presentations, and the effect did not vary by speed; (4) computer-based distractions (i.e., phone calls, text messages, email notifications) did not impact performance at 1x or 2x speed. Hence, students are more adept at learning at faster speeds than conventional wisdom would suggest, even with distractions present, demonstrating intact comprehension at double the natural speed of to-be-learned material. Furthermore, multimedia presentations can help mitigate the negative costs of accelerated speeds, especially when information is processed by separate working memory components (i.e., narration in the auditory channel, text or pictures in the visual channel), which reduces cognitive load.

Through a lens for engaged scholarship (Boyer in "Journal of Public Service and Outreach," 1(1), 11-20, 1996) this multiple case study (Merriam, 1996) explores the potential of scholarly podcasts for public knowledge dissemination, highlighting the misalignment of university impact metrics with this medium. Our team collected qualitative and numerical data from six podcasters across our university system. We identify metrics for assessing scholarly podcast value, offer recommendations for institutional communication, and share our insights and challenges. Data analysis suggests that a Listen Score (Listen Notes, ND) and an increasing Podcast Success Index (Singh et al. "JMIR Medical Education," 2(2), 1-10, 2016) may be consistent with a wider reach. Consistent production and promotion are key and infrastructure support for scholarly podcasters is necessary.

Background: In the modern music industry, AI music generators have gained particular importance. The use of AI greatly simplifies the creation of polyphony. In addition, it can increase student motivation and interest. Aims: This study focuses on the AI-assisted creation of polyphonic music. The purpose of this study is to determine how creating polyphony through the Deep Bach model impacts the academic motivation of music university students. Materials & Methods: Achieving this goal is possible by conducting an experimental training program based on the use of the above-mentioned model. Results: The results show that students in the experimental group have higher motivation than the control group participants. Therefore, AI-based music creation has the potential to become a new trend in music education. Implications: The findings of this study can be useful for music education experts, providing empirical data on the effectiveness of AI in music education. The use of the data can ultimately improve the learning process. Future research can focus on developing alternative AI models as well as investigating their effectiveness in music education.

This article provides a review of previous studies that have examined the effects of orthography on establishing contrastive phonological representations in second language acquisition and presents results from an original study on Mandarin speakers' production of English stops investigating how the presence of orthography affects the production of phonological categories that involve allophony. English voiceless stops are canonically represented as aspirated [p[superscript h], t[superscript h], k[superscript h]] in word-initial/stressed onset positions but are realized as unaspirated [p, t, k] following /s/ and in unstressed, non-initial onset positions. The results of our imitation experiment showed that Mandarin speakers failed to correctly imitate the unaspirated allophones when presented with written input, and this orthographic effect was stronger with nonwords than with real words. These results are best explained by an orthography effect mediated by phonological awareness and prior linguistic experience.

Educational podcasts have become an increasingly prevalent media used to disseminate profession-specific information through easily accessible means. Despite the potential of educational podcasts as convenient and effective medium, there is a dearth of literature dedicated to the topic. Thus, using the Uses and Gratification framework, the psychometric properties of the "Educational Podcasts Motivation Scale" were examined, as well as the motivational factors that influence intention to listen to educational podcasts and recommend podcasts to others were explored. A sample of individuals in the field of education (n = 606), such as in-service K-12 teachers and higher education professors, were recruited for this study. This sample were randomly divided, and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted with the first set (n = 312) to identify underlying constructs, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were employed with the second set (n = 294). The scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties and five distinct motivational factors were identified: Information Gathering, Flexibility in Use, Social Interaction, Entertainment, and Professional Encouragement. Several motivational factors had significant associations with the constructs of "intention" and "word-of-mouth". This paper demonstrates both the unique motivational factors related to listening to educational podcasts and the motivational factors that overlap with other forms of media. Further examination of the underlying motivations to listen to educational podcasts is warranted.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of model recordings on undergraduate conductors' tempo decisions for selected wind band excerpts. Participants (N = 42) studied three music score excerpts for 5 minutes each either (a) with an increased-tempo recording, (b) with a decreased-tempo recording, or (c) with a metronome set to the faster, printed tempo in the score, followed by a tapping task to demonstrate their preferred tempo. Participants returned 48 hours after their score study session for retention testing in the form of a second tapping task. Results indicated that for two of the three pieces, participants tapped faster in response to the metronome compared to both the decreased- and increased-tempo model recordings. Participants' tempo choices at the first testing session were most often not significantly different than the tempos they heard during study. However, we found that participants' preferred tempos did not vary as a function of study conditions during the retention testing session that occurred 48 hours later, where tempos trended toward moderation across all three musical selections. We speculate that pedagogical recommendations to avoid using model recordings may have limited empirical support, at least among novice conductors and at least in terms of possible long-term effects from short-term use.

The objective of this study is to explore new ways of assessing collaborative problem solving (CPS) processes based on different modalities of audio data and their combination. The data collection took place in an educational lab setting during an experiment with adult teams from professional contexts who collaboratively solved multiple problems as part of a CPS training. From audio data, both verbal (i.e., speech) and non-verbal (i.e., pitch) aspects were extracted. Four analysis methods were used, including (a) content analysis; (b) linguistic inquiry and word count; (c) verbal entrainment analysis; and (d) acoustic-prosodic entrainment based on pitch data. Insights are given into the CPS processes of the participating groups using these measures and relevant relationships between some of these measures are further investigated. Based on content analysis, it was found that most of the interactions during the CPS process are task oriented, whereas team-oriented interactions are less present. Second, three measures of proportion of contribution in CPS were investigated and clear differences in participation patterns between and within teams were found. We suggest that a combination of utterance count and words per sentence could provide valuable insights for quantity and equality of participation. Third, the study explored pronoun use and found that the most frequently used personal pronouns were first-person singular. Next, the results indicated a relationship between pronoun use and the relative frequency of interactions. Fourth, a rather weak relationship between lexical entrainment measures and the acoustic-prosodic measures were found, suggesting that these measures are indicative of separate communicative aspects in CPS. This study contributes to a better understanding of which type of audio-based data is most informative to teachers and students as a feedback or assessment tool. This study complements previous research as it focuses on spoken human-to-human communication collected in an authentic context.

The maker movement propagated throughout educational spaces alongside promises that technological and design literacies could be harnessed to shape equitable social futures. However, researchers have highlighted the ways makerspaces can reinforce hierarchies of race, gender, and class. This paper builds on research that seeks to support girls' making through broader sociopolitical and ethical commitments. We consider what an everyday pedagogy of feminist abolition looked like in a makerspace, with a focus on how educators responded to emergent social needs within and across gender lines. Our data sources (extensive field notes, audio-video recordings, photographs, and student interviews) are drawn from Hubspace, a 6-week summer program serving Black, Latine/x, and South Asian middle school youth and grounded in expansive forms of storytelling, coding, engineering, music, writing, and art. In closely analyzing routine forms of educator reflection alongside the design decisions, pedagogical moves and forms of student sense-making they supported, we found that student and educator sociopolitical learning emerged together to build what became possible in the culture of the space over time. Across three cases, we show how such pedagogies offered lived models and creative languages for practicing restorative and just social relationships. Each of the cases tell the story of different moments when gender became important to the ways participants were working to recognize and desettle received terms of thought and generate alternate forms of thinking, living, and relating, or the making of new stories and worlds.

This paper investigates the role of English in voice assistant (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant) use from the perspective of language ideology. Major commercial companies in the voice assistant market use English as a training language for their speech technologies and offer the most optimised support for standardised varieties of English. This affects the experiences with voice assistants of speakers of non-European languages, i.e., one of the non-target audiences. Drawing on qualitative interview data from Turkish-speaking users who migrated to Germany, the present study reveals that the participants iconize English as the "standard" language in digital contexts, constructing it as the "original" language of speaking computers. By conducting an inductive analysis, the article demonstrates that not only the lack of technological support, but also specific discourses about Artificial Intelligence, impact perceptions of English. These developments have implications for our understandings of prestige and digital literacy in human-machine interactions.

The purpose of this descriptive research study was to examine collegiate instrumentalists' applications of practice strategies and their motivation orientations to practice. Respondents (N = 128) were music majors who enrolled in concert band or orchestra. Results indicated that pianists spent more time in practice followed by percussionists, brass, other instrumentalists (e.g., organ), woodwind, and string players. Collegiate instrumentalists used systematic practice strategies most frequently, followed by error correction techniques, using a metronome and listening to recordings, concentration control, analytic strategies, and the organization of practice sessions. In addition, collegiate instrumentalists were more motivated by intrinsic factors than extrinsic factors. Weekly practice hours were negatively correlated with Extrinsic Motivation: Avoid Failure, but positively correlated with Intrinsic Motivation: Growth. Implications for instrumental teaching and learning are discussed.

The purpose of this pilot study is to learn whether and to what extent, the introduction of podcasts and podcasting into teacher education classes improves the educational experience for preservice teachers. A survey and individual interviews were analyzed through the lens of Garrison et al.'s (2000) model of community inquiry, which involves three elements essential to educational experiences in online environments: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Among the key findings was that aligning instructional purpose with student podcasting had the greatest influence on student engagement.

The research purpose is to investigate the ways of using new technologies in music education and help scholars analyse the motifs of national music culture and folklore in modern "electronic music." The research uses the oscillation coefficient to identify the key features of electronic music, combined with folk music, the rich melisma and the method of changing the speed of sound. The combination of different sound processing tools and the additional noise is typical for national music. The scholars developed and introduced learning approaches to ensure electronic music making, providing editorial approaches to working on musical compositions and learning the specifics of intonation techniques for compositions. Moreover, the research proposes ways to develop technical skills to create melodies and skills of harmonic instrumentation of music. The utilization of contemporary technologies such as NCH TwelveKeys, Ardour, NanoStudio, and n-Track Studio has facilitated the incorporation of learning mechanisms into the process. Such an approach to teaching influences the creation of high-quality musical compositions "from scratch" (1.98) and "improvised compositions" (1.82). The compositions focus on the combination of electronic music with national and folk music elements. The practical research significance is the possibility of improving skills in electronic music making, combining different musical genres and using the possibilities of modern technologies. The research prospects entail the analysis of the quality in the creation of electronic and popular compositions, alongside the exploration of the amalgamation of diverse components from national and folk music traditions.

One of the most important keys to create an interactive language classroom is initiation of interaction by the teacher. In order to foster interaction in foreign language classrooms, "questioning" is known as one of the effective ways. However, asking lots of questions in foreign language classrooms does not guarantee stimulation of interaction for language teachers. Thus, the quality of the questioning strategies employed by foreign language teachers has of significance. The present study takes exploratory-descriptive inquiry into research issue under investigation and sets out to search teacher questions posed in EFL classrooms in Turkey. The participants of the study are 10 senior pre-service EFL teachers. The data is gathered by means of observation, field-notes and audio-recordings of classroom observations held in secondary school classrooms. The results reveal that Turkish pre-service EFL teachers mostly use display questions and use modification strategies like rephrasing, simplification, repetition, decomposition, and probing. However, they have challenges when sequencing questions. They tend to ask many things at a time or prefer very general questions. They fail when giving prompts, clues or examples and they tend to reply to their own questions. The present study offers some implications for teacher education programs to increase the quality of pre-service teacher training.

Even though peer review enjoys sound theoretical support, classroom research has not always provided a clear picture of its effectiveness, particularly when it comes to form-focused editing. In addition to yielding conflicting findings with respect to the number of corrections students make based on peer feedback (Connor & Asenavage, 1994; Mendonça & Johnson, 1994; Paulus, 1999; Villamil & de Guerrero, 1998), several gaps in the literature remain unaddressed, particularly in terms of error detection rates. This study sought to determine to what extent learners are able to (a) detect errors during peer editing, (b) provide each other with correct information, and (c) incorporate peer-provided suggestions in subsequent individual writing tasks. Participants were 20 undergraduate students enrolled in an intermediate Spanish course. They individually wrote a story based on pictures, exchanged papers with a partner, and provided each other with feedback on lexical, grammatical, and orthographic issues. The learners' audio-recorded interactions and the narratives produced by the learners during and after the peer-editing session were analyzed. Results indicate that even though learners detect a small proportion of errors, the majority of corrections were accurate and were incorporated in writing tasks completed immediately after the peer editing session, as well as two weeks later.

Speaking has been stated as being one of the most challenging skills by EFL learners in Turkey. A combination of psychological factors such as anxiety or fear of being criticized and linguistic incompetence has led to this problem. Although initially emerged as a tool to assist learners in listening skills, shadowing technique has also proven to be useful in improving learners' speaking skills as well. The aim of the present study was to see if shadowing technique was efficient enough to help B1 level EFL learners develop positive attitudes towards their speaking skills. Furthermore, the study set out to see if learners get rid of their speaking anxiety and could take active part in communicative activities in the future classes. For this ultimate purpose, a Likert scale consisting of seven questions and interview questions were used. After taking the required permission from the ethics committee, the study was conducted for four weeks, in which participants listened to and repeated the tracks from the podcasts chosen in accordance with their language levels. 31 participants took part in the study. The participants were asked to carefully watch the recordings by paying attention to the pronunciation, stress and intonation. The results from the study were analysed through content analysis and a descriptive research design was used. According to the results, it was observed that the majority of the participants developed positive attitudes towards speaking skills and felt more willing to express themselves in communicative activities. Further studies with more participants are recommended to see if shadowing technique is also applicable in different contexts and groups.

Introduction: Audio description (AD) should satisfy the needs of people who are visually impaired; however, quality assessment in university training programs has rarely been based on feedback provided by AD users. Aiming to help students truly understand the needs of people who are visually impaired and their criteria for AD, this study adopted user-centered evaluation in an AD training program offered by a university in Hong Kong. Method: Three evaluators with visual impairment, representing the views of AD users, were invited to evaluate 29 students' film clips that included AD and discuss their evaluation criteria. Eleven students participated in focus-group interviews and were asked to comment on AD products and discuss their own evaluation criteria. The evaluation criteria of the two groups were compared qualitatively and quantitatively with the aid of the software NVivo. Results: The results showed discrepancies between the users' and the trainees' criteria as well as differences in their focuses when evaluating the AD products. The users' criteria were more numerous; however, certain criteria were perceived exclusively by the trainees. Discussion: Without sufficient knowledge of users' needs, AD trainees are inclined to provide redundant information (e.g., easily identifiable film sounds and speaker information) while neglecting some aspects of AD (e.g., the prudent use of pronouns and literary expressions), which are deemed important by the users. Implications for Practitioners: The results prompted AD instructors to integrate user feedback into AD training to improve students' understanding of how to produce AD that better meets its users' needs.

Purpose: While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as "Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools" and "Serving the Community through Teaching English," this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the best strategy to serve the service recipients. Design/methodology/approach: SL is widely understood as an experiential learning pedagogy that integrates academic focus, reflection and community service and is shown to be impactful. In Hong Kong, the first university that has made SL a graduation requirement is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University). Considering this, new SL courses have proliferated over the past decade. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, this paper examines personal narratives from a new SL subject aiming to raise awareness of refugees in Hong Kong. The data includes students' reflective journals, co-created personal narratives and podcasts and semi-structured interviews. Findings: This paper finds that crafting and recording narratives of shared experiences deepens cultural understanding, cultivates empathy and facilitates language learning in a genuine setting. Social implications: Ultimately, this paper advocates a well-designed SL that combines language, content and technology as a powerful, transformational experience for both college students and service recipients. Originality/value: This paper focuses on a brand new SL course, "Storytelling for Understanding: Refugee Children in Hong Kong," offered in Semester 1, 2022-2023. The subject was developed by the two authors from a language division affiliated to the University. The deliverables were podcast recordings, co-authored and co-edited by the students and the children.

Pulsed-wave Doppler ultrasound is a widely used technique for monitoring pregnancies. As ultrasound equipment becomes more advanced, it becomes harder to train practitioners to be proficient in the procedure as it requires the presence of an expert, access to high-tech equipment as well as several volunteering patients. Immersive environments such as mixed reality can help trainees in this regard due to their capabilities to simulate real environments and objects. In this article, we propose a mixed reality application to facilitate training in performing pulsed-wave Doppler ultrasound when acquiring a spectrogram to measure blood velocity in the umbilical cord. The application simulates Doppler spectrograms while the trainee has the possibility of adjusting parameters such as pulse repetition frequency, sampling depth, and beam-to-flow angle. This is done using a combination of an optimized user interface, 3D-printed objects tracked using image recognition and data acquisition from a gyroscope. The application was developed for Microsoft HoloLens as the archetype of mixed reality, while a 3D-printed abdomen was used to simulate a patient. The application aims to aid in both simulated and real-life ultrasound procedures. Expert feedback and user-testing results were collected to validate the purpose and use of the designed application. Design science research was followed to propose the intended application while contributing to the literature on leveraging immersive environments for medical training and practice. Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that mixed reality can be efficiently used in ultrasound training.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are also minimally verbal may require specialized interventions to promote the development of vocalizations. Preliminary research supports an innovative procedure called response contingent stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) as a potentially effective procedure to promote vocalizations. The primary aim of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of delivering a randomized trial comparing response contingent SSP to a control condition. Secondary aims were to demonstrate the feasibility of deploying to the home environment the Digital Language Processor (DLP), a voice recorder by LENA®, and to examine preliminary efficacy of the intervention. Sixteen minimally verbal children with ASD (ages 2.0 to 3.9 years) were randomly assigned to the intervention or control condition with access to delayed treatment. Feasibility metrics were met in that 14 participants (88%) finished the study and attendance to all assessment time points and treatment sessions was over 90%. The research team conducted treatment sessions with 99% fidelity and collected 83.3% of voice recorder data. Nine of 16 caregiver satisfaction surveys were returned, and scores averaged 5.68 out of a possible 6.00 across all participants. Preliminary treatment data results showed that 8/14 participants (57%) showed significant improvement in target sounds and participants receiving the intervention were 3.5 times as likely to improve compared to control.

Despite suggestions being a common speech act used by writing center tutors, very limited research is available on the use of suggestions in online writing center practice. Drawing upon multiple sources of data including the chat transcript, screen recording of the session, and final revised version of the writer's text, this case study explores the types and frequency of the suggestion strategies employed by a tutor and the degree of writer uptake of tutor suggestions in a synchronous online writing center session. The findings indicate that the tutor's use of suggestions throughout the session only led to a partial revision of the writer's text. While factors contributing to the partial revision include overuse of indirect suggestion linguistic realization strategies (SLRSs) and addressing multiple errors at the same time, using multiple and more direct SLRSs appeared to contribute to successful uptake. The observations of the study suggest that tutors might consider addressing one error at a time, utilizing multiple suggestion strategies per error, and focusing on using more direct rather than indirect suggestion strategies in order to increase the degree of uptake and provide suggestions more effectively in online synchronous writing center sessions.

This paper explores the impact of AI applications in adaptive learning on learners with varying levels of Chinese proficiency and diverse learning needs. The study investigates the robustness of VR technology in enhancing Chinese oral proficiency and pragmatic skills among 1st year and 2nd year learners. It compares the established VR app Mondly with Uptale, an Immersive VR authoring platform, focusing on AI-based voice recognition and analysis features. Additionally, it compares the adaptability of the Uptale VR platform with Mondly by analyzing factors such as difficulty adjustments, interactive features, learner engagement, and support for learner autonomy. It was found that VR technology, in general, enhances the Chinese learning experience. Uptale's additional features extend its potential utility in student assessment. These features include custom learning modules that incorporate students' self-shot 360-degree videos and interactive elements, such as multiple-choice questions, audio prompts, speaking/recording tags, feedback mechanisms, and analysis reports.