Juan Enrique Hinostroza

Despite the growing adoption of technology-integrated project-based learning (PjBL) in K-12 education, little research has systematically examined its implementation. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review, guided by PRISMA standards, of 24 studies describing successful PjBL interventions using digital technologies. Our findings reveal that while most interventions include the initial phases of PjBL, fewer than half incorporate a closing phase, often neglecting revision and reflection. Additionally, the activities within each phase are partial, omitting key elements necessary to fully leverage this methodology, which poses challenges to the comparability and transferability of PjBL. Moreover, the use of digital technologies is often partial and limited. To improve implementation, we analyze the full range of activities and technology use and propose an empirical model for designing future PjBL interventions and enhancing teacher training and professional development. Furthermore, we emphasize the need to formally integrate project management skill development into PjBL practices.

Background: After the mandated closure and reopening of schools during and after the coronavirus pandemic, online synchronous teaching and learning has emerged as an opportunity to expand the reach of K‐12 education, however, there is a lack of understanding about the characteristics of the successful learning experiences during that period that could be transferred to the present. Therefore, students' experiences during that period constitute an opportunity to learn about the teaching strategies that enabled positive learning experiences under such conditions.Objectives: Understand the experience of high‐school students during online classes and characterise the strategies that enabled positive learning perceptions.Methods: Ten high‐school students were selected and asked to describe positive and negative episodes during online synchronous classes using a narrative research technique. Based on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework, each presence (cognitive, social, and teaching) and its categories were investigated. The way that students experienced remote learning was defined using targeted content‐analysis techniques.Results and Conclusions: The results show that students reported experiences in which cognitive, social and teaching presences from the original framework emerge, as well as learning and emotional presence, highlighting the key relevance of teaching presence in articulating the activities as well as the other presences. Also, they highlight the relevance of the structure, content and tone of the classes, the need to develop teachers' socio‐emotional knowledge and pedagogy, and their awareness and active consideration of the emotional consequences of their instructional strategies.

El objetivo de la investigación fue conocer la percepción de aprendizaje de estudiantes de primaria y secundaria durante la enseñanza remota y los factores contextuales y pedagógicos que explican dicha percepción. Se utilizó una metodología cuantitativa basada en la aplicación de una encuesta, validada a través de panel de expertos, a una muestra no probabilística de 8.538 estudiantes (4.598 de primaria y 3.940 de secundaria) de la Región de La Araucanía de Chile, quienes fueron seleccionados por su nivel educativo y por pertenecer a establecimientos públicos que aceptaron ser parte del estudio. Los resultados permiten determinar que, a pesar del cambio de modalidad de enseñanza, un poco más de un tercio de las y los estudiantes consideran haber aprendido mucho durante el primer año de pandemia, siendo estudiantes de enseñanza básica, del área urbana y con acceso a tecnología quienes presentaron una mayor percepción de aprendizaje. Los principales factores pedagógicos que permiten explicar dicha percepción de aprendizaje son la comunicación con docentes, asistir a clases por videoconferencia, responder guías o tareas y aprender la materia por cuenta propia utilizando diversos recursos. Estos resultados permiten concluir que aspectos centrales en la percepción de aprendizaje durante la enseñanza remota en pandemia fueron una interacción frecuente con los docentes y acceder a recursos, tanto para el estudio acompañado como autónomo. Por otra parte, confirman la desventaja de los estudiantes sin conectividad a Internet, particularmente aquellos de zonas rurales.

Studies show that students and teachers frequently use the internet for learning and teaching, but that both lack the skills necessary to utilise it effectively. The authors designed an intervention to develop teachers’ information search skills and improve the information problem-solving using the internet (IPS-I) tasks that they implement with their students. Twenty-one Grade 7 teachers participated in a blended learning workshop and implemented IPS-I activities in their courses using a specially designed internet search engine. The results show that teachers improved certain search strategies and the IPS-I tasks that they implemented by conceiving of the internet as a tool for learning. They incorporated objectives associated with the development of students’ higher order skills, included question development steps in the tasks, and monitored students’ search activities and products. The authors highlight the aspects of the internet search software that contributed to these changes and opportunities for teacher training programmes.

Research shows that students face a range of difficulties when using the Internet to solve information problems. Using a quasi-experimental design, we tested a strategy to improve Chilean 10th graders’ skills for information problem solving using the Internet (IPS-I). The intervention was based on a workshop in which students learned IPS-I strategies and solved information problems using a customized Internet search software package. Results showed that members of the experimental group changed their search behavior and improved the quality of their products. However, no correlation between the number of search actions and product quality was found. Based on this, we highlight the potential of combining teaching strategies to improve specific search skills and the use of customized search tools with embedded functionalities that foster good search techniques.