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Purpose: This study traces the development of China's online education policy over the past 20 years. Design/Approach/Methods: Employing a textual research method, this study examines online education policymakers, policy content and influence, and related policies and regulations. Findings: This study identifies the starting point of China's online education policy and divides its development into four stages: namely, the pilot exploration stage (1999-2002), the standard development stage (2002-2012), the transformation stage (2012-2017), and the governance improvement stage (2017-present). Policy development reflects three characteristics: the need to meet the requirements of the times, shifting from a single management to multiple governance approach, and developing from one object for some people to one object for everyone. Current policy focuses on regulating institutions, content, and products, as well as guiding social capital to participate in online education. Originality/Value: This study systematically analyzes the development of China's online education policies, discerns policy characteristics, and identifies current policy priorities. In doing so, this study enhances our understanding of the current status and potential needs of online education in China so as to promote its development from the perspective of education policy and governance.

Student motivation and engagement have been complex issues in basic mathematics education. Based on the theory of Motivation and Engagement Wheel, this study examined the relationships among student motivation, engagement, and mathematics achievement. A sample of 1,538 Chinese primary school students participated in the survey, and motivation and engagement were assessed through their responses to the Motivation and Engagement Scale. The results largely confirmed the hypothesized relationships between motivation, engagement, and mathematics achievement. Some consistent patterns of individual differences related to gender and grade level were also revealed. Cluster analysis revealed that the category of "struggling students" showed high levels of adaptive engagement in learning, but their mathematics scores were still low, which may be correlated to their high level of maladaptive motivation and engagement. These findings provide implications for developing a more comprehensive knowledge of the nature of students' mathematics learning motivation and improving their engagement in mathematic learning.

Background: Digital game‐based learning (DGBL) has the potential to provide a gender inclusive learning environment for children. Objective: The present study aimed to explore gendered differences among primary school learners in grades three, four, and five within the context of game‐based fraction learning from cognitive, motivational and emotional perspectives. Methods: Two hundred and sixty‐nine participants completed a pre‐test and post‐test on fraction conceptual knowledge and surveys in math anxiety, intrinsic motivation and self‐efficacy. In addition, facial expression detection technology was employed to evaluate emotional states. Results: In general, within the DGBL environment, boys and girls exhibited similar performance in both their understanding of fraction concepts and their motivational aspects. However, gender differences were identified and manifested uniquely across different grade levels. Specifically, third‐grade girls exhibited significantly lower self‐efficacy than boys, but after DGBL intervention, the gender gap in self‐efficacy was no longer significant. Additionally, third‐grade girls achieved significant improvements in both the competence and interest dimensions of their intrinsic motivation, while boys did not show significant improvements. In the fourth grade, girls exhibited a significantly higher frequency of angry expressions compared to boys during gameplay. Fifth‐grade girls' cognitive performance appeared to be less correlated with motivational factors compared to boys. Conclusions: The results suggest that DGBL may help narrow the gender difference in math learning, with girls potentially benefiting more from DGBL than boys. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Gendered differences in math learning include historical advantages for boys, diminishing achievement gaps, persistent math anxiety with gender variations, and gender‐related disparities in intrinsic motivation and self‐efficacy, highlighting the need for targeted support for girls, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.Studies on digital game‐based learning (DGBL) indicate varying effects on academic performance, with some showing improvement in girls, minimal gendered differences, and potential differential impacts on emotional states by gender.Fraction knowledge plays a pivotal role in math learning, DGBL emerges as an effective and gender‐inclusive tool to enhance conceptual understanding of fractions. What this paper adds: The game‐based fraction learning could effectively enhance conceptual understanding of fractions for third to fifth‐grade students, revealing consistent positive outcomes for both boys and girls across different grade levels, particularly in tasks related to measurement interpretation.The game‐based fraction learning significantly improves motivational experiences, particularly enhancing competence, interest, and self‐efficacy for third‐grade beginner girls, with less pronounced effects observed in fourth and fifth‐grade students.Fourth‐grade girls displayed a significantly higher proportion of angry faces compared to boys, suggesting potential differences in cognitive load, stress, and emotional engagement in digital game‐based learning.After game‐based intervention, fifth‐grade girls' cognitive outcomes were less influenced by motivational factors, while boys still demonstrated a strong correlation between motivational factors and cognitive scores. Implications for practice: Educational practitioners are encouraged to integrate game‐based learning into early childhood math education, as demonstrated by this study, which highlights the significant contribution of early exposure to game‐based learning in fostering girls' positive attitudes towards mathematics.Game designers should incorporate relevant intelligent technologies for monitoring emotions and different gameplay modes, and when learners experience negative emotions, various strategies should be employed to provide a gender‐inclusive and supportive learning environment.For girls facing challenges in mathematics, their underperformance may be associated with lower motivation levels and emotional states, and game developers can address this issue by offering positive reinforcement, personalized feedback, and challenges tailored to individual learning needs to foster competence in learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of mobile technologies, well-designed fraction apps can be used to help children gain fraction knowledge, a challenging topic for both teachers and students. The present pilot study adopted a quasi-experimental design to investigate whether children can learn fraction concepts equally well if half of the lesson time (20 min) is replaced with game-based learning. Keeping the total lesson time (40 min) identical, the control group (N = 33) received traditional instruction, and the experimental group (N = 32) was presented with a blended learning approach spending half of the class time (20 min) playing tablet-based fraction games, where each of the learners had their own tablet. The results suggested that in the posttest, the experimental group achieved similar learning gains to the control group and appear to have achieved better performance in the transfer test than the control group. This paper also discusses the efficiency of game-based learning, the mechanism of how fraction games might enhance learning, and the potential of integrating game-based learning in educational settings.

Carbon dots (CDs) are attracting increasing research attention due to their exceptional attributes, including their biocompatibility, water solubility, minimal toxicity, high photoluminescence, and easy functionalization. Green CDs, derived from natural sources such as fruits and vegetables, present advantages over conventionally produced CDs, such as cost-effectiveness, stability, simplicity, safety, and environmental friendliness. Various methods, including hydrothermal and microwave treatments, are used to synthesize green CDs, which demonstrate strong biocompatibility, stability, and luminescence. These properties give green CDs versatility in their biological applications, such as bioimaging, biosensing, and drug delivery. This review summarizes the prevalent synthesis methods and renewable sources regarding green CDs; examines their optical features; and explores their extensive biological applications, including in bioimaging, biosensing, drug/gene delivery, antimicrobial and antiviral effects, formatting of mathematical components, cancer diagnosis, and pharmaceutical formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of playing and learning is a pivotal feature but also a key challenge in educational games. To investigate whether playing and learning are trade-off or complementary activities, this study explores students’ distinction and transition between game behavior and learning behavior in a math spatial educational game for cube nets learning. A total of 402 fourth graders used the educational game over a 3-week period, with one lesson per week. Behavior log data, questionnaire data, and interview data were collected. The results show that the students could distinguish between game behavior and learning behavior mainly based on the related content of the behavior and their perceptions of the behavior characteristics. Two kinds of transition between game behavior and learning behavior were identified, namely the explicit large-scale cross transition and the implicit small-scale tight transition, which suggest a complementary relationship between playing and learning in educational games. Furthermore, compared with the students with lower learning outcomes, the students with higher learning outcomes were more likely to induce behavior patterns involving virtuous circles between playing and learning. The findings of this study have implications for effective educational game design going forward, in which playing and learning are appropriately combined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment" ("VISOLE") is a pedagogical approach to integrating constructivist online game-based learning (COGBLe) into formal teaching in school education. This paper reports a qualitative case study on the implementation of VISOLE (in secondary Geography education) in which we probed into the impeding phenomena emerging from the course of students' learning. Four students--"a nongamer student", "a gamer student", "an examination-oriented student", and "an angry student" were the focal units of analysis. Apart from identifying three impeding phenomena--"impromptu gaming," "arbitrary gaming", and "halt gaming", we observed how the teacher tried to mitigate these phenomena during the implementation process. Besides providing the field with a new understanding of harnessing online gaming in teaching and learning from the student perspective, the study revealed the importance of teacher facilitation in COGBLe.

Besides the ability of making learning more interesting, educators and researchers have been exploring other pedagogical potentials of computer games. How to employ games for constructivist learning and teaching has become an attention in the field of education and game design in recent years. This article gives an introduction to game-based learning. On top of discussing games' intrinsic educational traits from the motivational, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives, we also review two recent foci of game-based learning. The first one is "education in games" which is an approach for adopting existing commercial games for educational use. The second is "games in education" in which the games are designed specifically with underlying pedagogy for some curricula.

In this study, N-CDS was successfully synthesized by one-step hydrothermal method with Bacillus Licheniformis isolated from hot spring as a precursor material. The obtained N-CDs has unique optical properties, excellent biocompatibility and negligible biotoxicity and is an ideal fluorescent dye for biological polychromatic imaging. N-CDs was used as a fluorescent probe for biological imaging. The result of cell imaging showed that N-CDs could successfully stain the cell membrane structure of onion inner cells without causing plasma-wall separation. The imaging of microbial experiments showed that N-CDs could fluorescein stain Saccharomyces cerevisiae and S. cerevisiae still could sprout and reproduce normally. The results of plant leaf imaging showed that N-CDs could be diffused in plant leaves through veins and intercellular space. The biological imaging results of Caenorhabditis Elegans showed that N-CDs could enter the body normally for fluorescence staining without affecting the vital signs [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]