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This study presents an innovative approach using the Ethereum blockchain to democratize access to tutoring services, advancing educational technology by bridging the affordability gap for learners with limited financial resources. This solution enables low-income learners to access tutoring services without significant expenses by eliminating intermediaries through smart contracts. Learners can directly book tutoring services based on fees and evaluations, ensuring a fair and accessible experience. The findings show that this approach reduces tutoring expenses and improves trust and accountability through transparent transactions and feedback mechanisms. The proposed system demonstrates how blockchain technology can foster a more equitable and efficient educational landscape, offering personalized support to all learners regardless of their economic background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the effectiveness of peer tutoring as a high-impact practice in community colleges. The study found that tutoring can provide personalized support, foster a sense of belonging, and increase student retention rates. Peer tutoring also allows students to bring their lived experiences into the learning space, improving sense of belonging and peer support for minoritized students. The study revealed that students who engaged more frequently with tutoring experienced higher GPA increases. The findings also showed that students from underrepresented backgrounds, such as People of Color and first-generation students, were more likely to participate in tutoring. However, the study found that tutoring is an underutilized resource, with less than 10% of students surveyed engaging in meaningful tutoring. The article suggests that practitioners should incorporate student voice and tailor programming to the populations that utilize tutoring services the most. It also recommends creating cross-departmental collaborations to reach populations that underutilize tutoring. Further research is needed to explore the tutoring experiences of students from diverse races and the role of age in tutoring. Overall, peer tutoring is an important intervention that can benefit underserved student groups and contribute to their academic success and sense of identity on campus. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores hospitality's utility as a conceptual framework to assist writing tutors. The study, described in the article, investigated tutors' perceptions concerning how Haswell & Haswell's elaboration of hospitality—as a disposition—might bring about more positive, generative, and encouraging outcomes in writing center work. The data collected in the form of audio-recorded tutorials, post-tutorial interviews, and a focus group suggests that hospitality offers an open but promising schema to help tutors consider what responsible and ethical use of power and authority might look like for their appointments—particularly when working outside their disciplines and with multilingual students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have brought significant worldwide expansion of private supplementary tutoring. Demand is especially driven by social competition, which has intensified in the context of globalization. The main suppliers of tutoring are serving teachers, commercial enterprises, and informal providers such as university students. Private tutoring has far-reaching implications for social inequalities, especially because higher-income households can easily secure more and better tutoring than their lower-income counterparts. While private tutoring can support low-achieving students, further stretch high achievers and provide employment, it can also have a backwash effect on schooling. Further, commercial enterprises and even teachers involved in tutoring may operate with questionable business practices. Yet comparative analysis shows wide variations in the governance and regulation of tutoring. While a few governments enact tight regulations, many others have laissez-faire attitudes toward private tutoring. Stronger multi-stakeholder focus on private tutoring and more robust regulations are needed to achieve the sorts of goals envisaged by UNESCO's International Commission on the Futures of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of "deschooling" and its relevance to writing center scholarship. Deschooling challenges traditional schooling and promotes alternative educational arrangements that prioritize user-initiated learning and conviviality. The author presents qualitative research conducted at a university writing center to demonstrate how peer tutoring aligns with the principles of deschooling. The study suggests that peer tutoring in writing centers embodies the principles of conviviality and learning webs proposed by Ivan Illich. The article argues that writing centers can be seen as "deschooling" learning environments that promote conviviality and empower individuals, and should be studied and supported as resilient educational adaptations. [Extracted from the article]

Shadow education is a widely used metaphor for private supplementary tutoring, i.e. instruction in academic subjects on a fee-charging basis outside school hours. The metaphor is used because much tutoring mimics schooling. Thus, as the curriculum changes in the schools, so it changes in the shadows; and as schooling grows, so does the shadow. Initially with particular prominence in East Asia, albeit with deep roots elsewhere, shadow education has expanded worldwide. The phenomenon has been mapped in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, but has received modest attention in Latin America. This article provides an overview of the phenomenon in the region using available data and stressing the need for further research. It presents global as well as Latin American contextual factors and drivers of demand before turning to data on the scale, nature and suppliers of shadow education. The assembled picture then permits commentary on educational and social impact, and on policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a rising interest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, research in services marketing has not evaluated its role in helping firms learn about customers' needs and increasing the adaptability of service employees. Therefore, the authors develop a conceptual framework and investigate whether and to what extent providing AI assistance to service employees improves service outcomes. The randomized controlled trial in the context of tutoring services shows that helping service employees (tutors) adapt to students' learning needs by providing AI-generated diagnoses significantly improves service outcomes measured by academic performance. However, the authors find that some tutors may not utilize AI assistance (i.e., AI aversion), and factors associated with unforeseen barriers to usage (i.e., technology overload) can moderate its impact on outcomes. Interestingly, tutors who significantly contribute to the firm's revenue relied heavily on AI assistance but unexpectedly benefited little from AI in improving service outcomes. Given the wide applicability of AI assistance in a variety of services marketing contexts, the authors suggest that firms should consider the potential difficulties employees face in using the technology rather than encourage them to use it as it is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shadow education, or supplementary private tutoring, has expanded to become a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide, capitalising on the desires of parents and their children to succeed and excel in education. In doing so, shadow education draws upon and reproduces cultural capital represented by knowledge, skills and educational credentials and symbolic capital constituted in the prestige, privilege and legitimacy of educational achievement. The study on which this article is based adopts a critical discourse analytic approach to examine the websites of five leading private tuition centres in Singapore as seen through the lens of Bourdieu's concept of capital. The aim is to identify specific forms of cultural capital, examine how they are harnessed for promotional purposes, and show how this reflects and reproduces the forms and representations of educational achievement and success valued in Singapore. Findings offer a deeper understanding of the marketing discourse of shadow education that pivots on the quality of private tutors, success beyond examinations and school, and concrete representations of social distinction and achievement. More significantly, the study contributes to research situated at the nexus of shadow education and Bourdieu's concept of capital to shed light on how shadow education reflects and magnifies broader socio-cultural orientations and socio-economic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the role of question types and prior knowledge in vicarious learning with an intelligent tutoring system. In experiment 1, the participants were assigned to three conditions (deep questions, shallow questions, control), the results showed that participants in the deep questions condition had higher retention test scores than those in the shallow questions condition and those in the control condition. In experiment 2, we conducted a 2 (prior knowledge: high, low) × 3 (question types: deep question, shallow question, control) between-subjects experimental design, and participants in the deep question condition again had higher retention test scores than the other conditions. Also, participants in the shallow question condition had higher retention test scores than those in the control condition. Additionally, no interaction between prior knowledge and question types was observed. In conclusion, deep questions can promote learning of experimental design, which replicates prior research results on deep level questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a major international conference hosted by the Centre for International Research in Supplementary Tutoring (CIRIST) at East China Normal University (ECNU) on the theme of "Comparing Curriculum and Instruction Inside and Outside Schools: Policies and Practices." The conference focused on private supplementary tutoring in China and other parts of the world. The collection of papers in the article explores the concept of shadow education, which refers to various forms of private tutoring, and examines its parameters and global implications. The papers also discuss the historical development and current state of shadow education in countries such as the Republic of Korea, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, India, and Belarus. The article highlights the cultural and political factors that shape attitudes towards education and the private tutoring industry in different contexts. It also mentions the recent national-government policy in China that aims to reduce the size of the tutoring sector. [Extracted from the article]

Highlights: This article provides insights into stakeholders' challenges while bringing educational accountability to private tutoring providers through a self-regulation model. There is no participant involved in this narrative inquiry study. Policymakers may be ambivalent about bringing accountability as their families may benefit from private tutoring. This account is written from the perspective of a teacher-trained tutor who has worked with policymakers to address some of the challenges. This first-person narrative describes the experience of establishing a national peak body to bring greater accountability to private tutoring providers. This peak body is unique because it positions the educational interests of students as at least equal to providers' commercial interests. The author believes that greater accountability for tutoring businesses is required in all markets and that issues will not resolve through self-regulation alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In Korea, private tutoring is considered a social evil that damages the capacity of public schooling and undermines social justice. Although the government has implemented various policies to reduce private tutoring, ranging from improving the quality of education to providing "quasi-private tutoring" programs and regulating the shadow education market, total spending on private tutoring has continued to increase. This study examines a little noticed but important cause of institutionalized private tutoring in Korea. Design/Approach/Methods: The study employed a socio-ecological perspective to analyze both education and socio-structural factors. An extensive review of the government's private tutoring reduction policies and related literature was conducted. Findings: Private tutoring functions as a means by which parents can help their children compete for admission to prestigious universities and pass on wealth and social status to their children. Participation in private tutoring has become a social norm that is taken for granted. The root causes of institutionalized private tutoring lie in both educational and socio-structural factors. Originality/Value: The study suggests that government policies, when ignoring the long-established "grammar" of parents about children's education, may either end in failure or produce unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The growing literature on private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education, addresses multiple dimensions and roles. However, many studies inadequately capture the diversity and implications of different forms of tutoring. This paper examines these matters in Myanmar, highlighting complexities and ambiguities in descriptors and in the nature of provision. Design/Approach/Methods: Using a mixed-methods design, this study was conducted in Mandalay Region and Chin State. The data were obtained from interviews with 110 Grade 11 students, 34 high school teachers, 30 parents, 29 private tutoring providers, and two private school owners. Findings: The article categorizes tutoring forms based on their styles and orientations, particularly lecture-type teaching and homework supervision by guides, class sizes, durations of fee-charging (e.g., annually), the number of subjects taught per tutor, and tutoring locations. The study brings the topic out of the shadows for clearer analysis of the phenomenon and thus for assessment of its implications. Originality/Value: The study makes a methodological contribution to the wider picture by demonstrating the need for greater clarity and precision in the national and international comparative literatures. It also underscores shortcomings of predetermined categories in questionnaires and the value of qualitative interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The relationship between private tutoring (PT) and mainstream education is among the complex themes characterizing PT discourses in the literature. This study examined the complications of practices and processes in tutoring and schooling to elucidate different roles played by PT and its relationship with mainstream education. Design/Approach/Methods: This study used qualitative data from a diverse set of 37 PT providers from the State of Maharashtra, India, to delineate their roles and explore their relationship with schooling in this context. Findings: The classification of PT providers' roles into complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive ones demonstrated a diverse range of relationships between PT and mainstream education. Further analysis showed that these relationships are dynamic in nature, and the boundaries between them are blurred. Originality/Value: Research in the field of PT has been consistently pointing toward a perplexing mixture of positive and negative outcomes resulting from its relationship with mainstream education. This study transcended the positive vis-à-vis negative binary approach by contributing to the deeper understanding of PT relationships. Furthermore, it exemplified how future studies can disentangle the complexities of such relationships by deploying flexible, context-specific theoretical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Private supplementary tutoring—widely known as shadow education because of the ways in which it mimics regular schooling—is increasingly visible across the globe. The Middle East is no exception, though the phenomenon has received relatively little attention in the English-language literature. This article maps some key features of shadow education, identifying ways in which contextual forces have shaped it. Design/Approach/Methods: The article focuses on patterns across and within the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It draws on literature in both Arabic and English and shows the value of multiple units of comparison. Findings: Private tutoring has a long history as a significant phenomenon in some GCC countries, but in others developed more recently. Some governments have had active policies to dampen the phenomenon, but with little success. Factors in the complex dynamics include social, economic and cultural forces. Originality/Value: The article assembles literature from around the region, noting both commonalities and diversities among GCC members. It contributes to the global literature by providing the regional mapping from this specific part of the world and by showing comparisons with other world regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business failure and exit are concomitants of business discontinuance which must be extensively studied as businesses such as tutorial centers can experience unfavorable events. This paper investigated the internal (i.e., owner/founder orientations) and external (i.e., compliance with government policies) antecedents leading to business failure and the eventual exit in the shadow education industry in 2013, particularly of Philippine privately owned tutorial centers which are divided into non-registered and registered services. Using the multiple case study approach, empirical findings showed that business failure is primarily caused by internal factors specifically the owner/founder orientations, while non-compliance with government regulations is secondary. The owner/founder orientations were comprised of motivation, characteristics/behavior, skill managerial deficiencies, capabilities, and financial knowledge shortcomings. Nonregistered tutorial centers asserted that only skill/managerial deficiencies and capabilities lead to failure while registered tutorial services perceived all as reasons for business failure. Not complying with government policies can affect more the registered tutorial services than the non-registered centers. Business exit was chosen by all the owners of tutorial centers as a viable option in case of business failure. Future studies can consider obtaining more participants and comprehensively investigating tutorial centers from different countries to enrich cross-country research in shadow education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated a scholarship support program, "Mathematics as a Common Language in Science," that was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Running from 2015 to 2020, the scholarship support program assisted 31 students to major in chemistry, physics, or mathematics with the intent of supporting these students to enter graduate school and careers in the physical sciences. In this study, student outcome metrics and survey data were collected to investigate the impact of the program elements on the participants' academic success. Additional program elements, such as access to tutoring support, outreach opportunities, and undergraduate research, were emphasized to support students in their designated major. A 1-credit-hour course, taught first semester for the first-year cohort of students, emphasized study skills and university resources, and engaged students to consider the overarching applicability of math concepts to the science curriculum. The findings of this study offer insight into program elements that supported student success with consideration of aspects that did not function as planned. The authors hope that sharing these insights will aid other programs to structure effective programming for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of higher education in China, English has been listed as a compulsory course in basic education, and people's demand for English teaching level is also increasing. However, with the advent of the information age, there have been significant changes in the dissemination of knowledge, teaching methods, and teaching environment. Traditional English teaching models can no longer meet the requirements of modern society for versatile talents. Therefore, exploring the mixed online and offline English teaching path has become particularly important. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an advanced technology today. It can evaluate students' pronunciation and provide corresponding guidance, thereby increasing students' interest in English and improving English pronunciation accuracy. It can also provide personalized learning content and learning paths according to students' learning needs and levels. By analyzing students' learning situation and feedback, it automatically adjusts and optimizes learning resources so that students can better master English knowledge and skills. The traditional English teaching model is often limited by time and space, while the AI-based hybrid teaching model can integrate a variety of educational resources around the world, including high-quality course content, learning resources and online tutoring services, so that students can get the most suitable educational resources anytime and anywhere, which can improve learning efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shall Follow-up Appointments Be Booked in Advance? Appointment systems are ubiquitous, especially in healthcare. By looking into a large data set with over 1.6 million appointments, we observe that many doctors booked a follow-up appointment at the end of their meeting with their patients. This strategy ensures that the patients would follow up but at the risk that the patient may not show up and the appointment ends being wasted. We develop a slotted-service queue model to study if and when such a strategy should be used in three representative appointment systems, respectively. In an open access system, it is optimal to never use this strategy. In a traditional appointment system that allows patients to book in advance, it is optimal to apply this strategy to some patients. While in a hybrid system with both walk-in patients and patients with appointments, whether to use this strategy depends on the load balancing between the two patient queues. We study an appointment-based slotted-service queue with the goal of maximizing service volume. Returning customers prefer to be served by the same service agent as in their previous visit. This model captures aspects of a whole host of settings, including medical clinics, law firms, and tutoring services. We consider a simple strategy that a service provider may use to reduce balking among returning customers—designate some returning customers as high-priority customers. These customers are placed at the head of the queue when they call for a follow-up appointment. In an appointment-based system, this policy can be implemented by booking a high-priority returning customer's appointment right before he or she leaves the service facility. We focus on a need-based policy in which the decision to prioritize some customers depends on their return probability. We analyze three systems: an open-access system, a traditional appointment system, and a carve-out system. We show that in an open-access system, the service provider should never prioritize returning customers in order to maximize the throughput rate. However, it is always optimal to prioritize some customers in a traditional appointment system. In the carve-out system, which may be modeled as a system with two parallel queues, the optimal policy varies depending on which queue is more congested. In the traditional system, we prove that the throughput rate is a quasi-concave function of the threshold under the assumption that returning customers see time averages. This allows service systems to determine optimal operating policies that are both easy to implement and provably optimal. History: This paper has been accepted for the Operations Research Special Issue on Behavioral Queueing Science. Funding: This work was supported by Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Société et Culture [Grant 295837], National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72061127002, 71731009], and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Grant RGPIN 2019-05539]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2022.2299. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the implications of early-tracking education systems has not specifically focused on how studying in academic and non-academic tracks shapes the features and characteristics of shadow education (private tutoring) that students are involved in. The study compares the scale and features of private tutoring and the underlying factors of its reception among lower-secondary students in the two tracks. Analysing a representative sample of 1,280 senior grade students, the study found significant differences in scale, subjects and reasons for tutoring during their lower-secondary studies, which may partly explain the prevailing gaps in between-track student achievements. Early tracking is likely to contribute to increasing the overall scale of PT by introducing selective entrance examinations, which nurture the demand for PT. While parental education, books at home, city size and educational aspirations were significant predictors of private tutoring for regular-track students, they were insignificant for academic-track students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing literature, much of it with cross-national comparisons, employs geographic lenses to secure insights into educational studies. Most of this literature focuses on schooling, though parts address kindergartens and higher education. The present paper, by contrast, employs geographic lenses to focus on the shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring. It is called shadow education because much of its content mimics that in schooling, but the paper shows that many dynamics are significantly different from those in schooling. Insights may be gained not only from physical geography but also from political, economic, cultural and pedagogical geography – and from relationships between them. Intra-national, cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons show forces in a domain that is gathering momentum across the globe and causing significant shifts in the overall nature and role of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluation has become a common, and even an expected, practice across undergraduate mathematics tutoring centres in the USA, UK and other countries. However, these evaluation efforts could benefit greatly from leveraging organizational theory research. In this study, we situate mathematics tutoring centres as non-profit organizations (NPOs) to consider how an organization performance assessment framework can be adapted to study mathematics tutoring centre data and characteristics. We use qualitative and quantitative data, collected from six mathematics tutoring centres and adapt Lee & Nowell's (2015 , Am. J. Eval. , 36 , 299–319) NPO performance framework to situate our study. Using thematic analysis, the research team underwent iterative cycles of data collection and analysis to code for alignment with Lee and Nowell's framework. By adapting Lee and Nowell's framework to mathematics centres, each of the six centres was given a more relevant lens to consider its performance. Regardless of the university setting, previous evaluations for centres have focused primarily on outputs (e.g. number of visits), behavioural change outcomes (e.g. correlating visits to grades) and client satisfaction outcomes (e.g. student surveys) that ignore the particular context of a centre. However, Lee and Nowell's framework takes into account additional performance indicators that provide a more nuanced understanding of a centre's performance by bringing to light the interplay among its various dimensions. Lee and Nowell's framework allows centres to look beyond outputs and outcomes to understand why these outputs and outcomes come to be. The use of this adapted performance framework, for the six mathematics centres in this study, allows an interpretation on a variety of dimensions using relevant data while indicating possible areas for change for each centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article states that by launching Edge Online Tutor, a paid K-12 tutoring assistance,, Philippines-based Edukasyon.ph, an education technology platform has expanded its offerings. It mentions that this service is for kindergarten students to grade ten for reading and math. It highlights that by addressing learning gaps worsened by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, Edge Online Tutor was created to facilitate faster learning for Filipino students.

Tutoring centers from small, open-admission campuses provide a much-needed service to students, but they also have to compete with other tutoring options such as eTutoring and private tutoring companies. As university budgets shrink and administration begins to look at cutting costs, outsourcing tutoring may sound like a good idea. Yet, there are certain aspects of tutoring that cannot be easily created when tutoring is cut off from the campus environment, such as the knowledge that tutors accumulate from being part of the campus--attending courses, tutoring, and just being part of the same communities of practice as their tutees. The article draws from the theoretical framework about communities of practice developed by Etienne Wenger and looks into how tutors build this knowledge. Additionally, the article explores ways in which this knowledge can be incorporated more in initial and ongoing tutor training. Qualitative and quantitative data collected from our regional campus current and former tutors show that belonging to some of the same communities as the tutees, both on and off campus, allows our tutors to provide an individualized campus-centered tutoring experience that relies on tutors' previous knowledge of what professors look for. This knowledge can be obtained in organic ways, such as from having had courses with the professor, working with multiple students asking for help with the same assignment, or collaborating with other tutors who may be familiar with the professor. This knowledge cannot be duplicated by other tutoring services that are not affiliated with a specific campus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence on a computer. Higher education can benefit from AI because it is a computationally efficient paradigm. Learning adapted to the changing demands of students is one of the key educational advantages of AI. Students can modify the pace of a course to better competency. Poor faculty and teaching quality and a general lack of motivation and interest among students are among the difficulties facing higher education. An artificial intelligence-assisted integrated teaching–learning framework (AL-ITLF) for higher education is proposed in this research. Multiple tutoring services are also involved in the curriculum, which is skill-based. The extreme learning machine (ELM) technique evaluates designs integrated into the suitable student monitoring model weighted score (WS) and exam results. An educational model that is more efficient, adaptable, and effective than current traditional education has been developed due to AI research in higher education. Higher education's use of AI has resulted in a more efficient, adaptive, and effective educational model than traditional schooling. High accuracy, higher performance, lower processing costs, and a high prediction and low error rate are advantages of the suggested AI-ITLF approach. The WS and exam results were evaluated using an ELM algorithm as part of a proper student monitoring model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although colleges have offered academic writing courses, many students still struggle with this writing ability. Their poor writing skills are also associated with a lack of teacher guidance The tasks given by teachers are sometimes beyond their capabilities. Students are not accustomed to writing long academic papers. As a result, they do not enjoy writing essays, and they are not confident in their writing skills. This research is intended to collect and analyze articles related to Academic Writing Courses and the teaching of academic writing at colleges. The design used is a literature review, articles are collected using search engines such as JStore, Academic One file, Sciencedirect, and Proquest. The criteria for the articles used are those published in 2008-2021. Based on the articles collected the result is that academic writing centers (AWC) does not guarantee better grades for the students. Instead, it is time to help them fulfill their needs: i) Becoming selfdirected; ii) Independent writers; iii) Building the confidence of writers; and iv) Helping writers with advanced writing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article aims to study the relationship between researcher and actors in the field studied in the light of actorial expectation and its effects in the research process. From a doctoral research carried out in CIFRE and favoring a survey by participant observation, the article exposes the self-analysis by the researcher of his posture when he is confronted with the expression of expectations with regard to him some players in the field, tutors-nurses in psychiatry. The reaction to these expectations leads him to take part in working days bringing together these tutors and to return to them certain research data concerning them. It thus identifies a hidden function constituting a resource for the activity of tutors, both in the context of tutoring and in care services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing centers seek to expand their services beyond tutoring and develop evidence-based practices. Continuing and expanding the existing practices, the authors have adopted graduate writing groups (GWGs) to support graduate writers, especially those working on independent writing projects like a dissertation or article for publication. This article provides an effective model on how to develop and assess virtual graduate writing groups (VGWGs). This replicable, aggregable, and data- supported (RAD) research applied a mixed-methods design with pre- and postsurveys over the three semesters of running the VGWG. It found that the VGWG offered a full range of writing support that met graduate writers' needs for time-based, skill-based, draft-based, and emotion-based support. Specifically, the VGWG significantly improved students' approaches to writing in five key areas--goal setting, focusing on dissertation writing, generating plans for writing sessions, writing productivity, and writing progress. Therefore, this study contributes robust empirical validation of this model, suggesting that VGWG is an effective method to support graduate writers and expand writing center services. Also, the authors provide a useful model on how writing centers can effectively assess through pre- and post-surveys in a straightforward manner, an assessment model that has both internal and external benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the fundamental tasks when providing personalized tutoring services to learners in online learning systems, such as intelligent tutoring systems and massive open online courses, is the learner knowledge diagnosis (LKD). LKD obtains the learner knowledge proficiency on skills by modeling their learning performance. Learners' knowledge construction process is not static, but evolves overtime; hence, the evolution of learners' knowledge proficiency must be dynamically traced. Moreover, considering the wide usage of online learning systems by large numbers of learners, the LKD task also needs to meet the requirements of large-scale assessment and interpretability to explain the diagnosed results. The existing models are either designed for static scenarios or find it difficult to explain the causality between learner performance and knowledge proficiency, as well as the item characteristics. To solve these issues, we propose herein a novel model, called the knowledge interaction-enhanced dynamic LKD (KIEDLKD), to develop learner performance, and hence, dynamically diagnose and trace the evolution of each learner's knowledge proficiency during the exercising activities. We first propose a dynamic LKD framework by unifying the strength of the memory capacity of the key-value memory network to enhance the representation of the knowledge state during learner performance modeling and the interpretability of the Item Response Theory (IRT) to explain the learner performance in terms of knowledge proficiency and item characteristics (i.e., item difficulty and discrimination). In this framework, we diagnose and trace each learner's knowledge proficiency on each knowledge concept (KC) over time and store them into an auxiliary memory using the key-value memory network. We further infer their general proficiencies and the IRT-based item characteristics using another neural network. Moreover, we propose the knowledge interaction concept among KCs and incorporate it into the LKD procedure to further exploit the long-term dependencies in the exercising sequences, thereby devising the KIEDLKD model. We also incorporate the learner-oriented cognitive item difficulty into our model, based on each learner's exercising history, to adaptively model the item difficulty. Based on these factors, our KIEDLKD model can not only output the learners' knowledge proficiency in a multi-granularity manner but also output the item characteristics, making it possible to interpret the learner performances in terms of their current knowledge states and item characteristics. Extensive experiments are conducted from six perspectives on five real-world datasets to test our model.The results of learner performance prediction demonstrate the superiority of our model on the LKD task. It can also automatically discover the underlying interaction between each pair of latent KCs, and the underlying concepts for each exercise. The ablation study verifies the contributions of each component in our model. Moreover, it can depict the evolution of learner knowledge proficiency in a multi-granularity manner and provide additional information for skill domain analysis, which enables the interpretability of our model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study which has evaluated the extent to which a sample of elementary special education teachers in Kuwait understand and make use of evidence‐informed approaches in the mainstream classroom with children with special educational needs. A questionnaire survey was developed and administered (N = 150), focussing on teacher understanding of and use of two selected evidence‐informed approaches: peer tutoring strategy and the JIGSAW strategy. Results revealed a good degree of understand and use of both strategies. Recommendations are made in relation to further research on the evidence‐informed practice for the effective inclusion of children with special educational needs in Kuwait and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe how professors can work with schools (teachers and/or administrators) to create and implement a tutoring program designed to promote the learning of Algebra 1 by students with learning disabilities as well as provide a learning experience for undergraduates majoring in special education. From the professors' perspective, we report on our experiences with developing trusting relationships with schools, matching our tutoring services with the needs of the schools and its students, the logistics regarding setting up trainings and tutoring sessions, and how we provide a learning experience for special education majors and students with learning disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Double Reduction policy tries to alleviate the academic pressures that homework and off-campus tutoring services place on students. Since its implementation half a year ago, the policy has relieved students of some of their heavy workloads. However, there are still policy infractions all around the country. The issues that arise during policy implementation are summarized and their causes are examined in this study. Suggestions are made in order to fulfill the policy's objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private supplementary tutoring (PST) is a phenomenon growing throughout the world. Looking at regions such as East Asia where it is already vast and comparing with regions where it remains modest but is rising, some authors have argued that countries must act quickly to discourage negative societal implications which arise when PST grows. One underpinning suggestion here is the notion that addressing PST may be time-critical. Drawing on insights from political science on the nature of continuity and change, in this paper I explore the possibility that societies could become substantially 'locked in' to complex patterns of dependence on PST. I report on the case of South Korea, drawing on interviews with experts in the Korean education system. I show that parents have been incentivised progressively over time to layer 'shadow education' over public schooling, particularly in times of heightened anxiety. Governments meanwhile have faced disincentives to restrict PST and public school teachers have had to adjust to becoming perceived as offering a residual service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the Michigan Reading and Math (STEM) Performance, MI-RAMP, program is to uplift marginalized children--ages 4 to 12--both educationally and socially. The wide age range emphasizes a purpose to invest early for the highest rate of return, according to Nobel Laureate James Heckman. MI-RAMP has designed and implemented a free, interstate, 3-person, distancelearning program with 12 weekend sessions. Interactions involving one student and a parent are led by a teachertutor (TT). The two-way virtual exchanges are customized, addressing foundational needs in reading, math, and critical thinking. We have demonstrated vital learning via our individualized virtual modes, e.g., a 5-year-old male learning to read after 8 weeks. The MI-RAMP model is replicable to reach countless children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the Research and Instructional Services Unit of Meyer Library at Missouri State University was challenged to update and rethink the current service model and space. We had been operating in a traditional reference model, including a large, walkup reference desk that was staffed primarily by faculty librarians. After reviewing the literature, it was decided that some form of reference/research service point should be kept but should be completely revamped to fit the research needs of the campus community and the changing demands on faculty librarians. Various library service models and those used in campus tutoring centers were reviewed and used to reframe our own reference service model. This paper outlines our process for researching, designing, and implementing our new space and service model, and the subsequent change in library organization, resulting in a combined desk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]