This study investigates targeted professional development practices for online educators in higher education, moving beyond the conventional one-size-fits-all model. The goal is to determine effective strategies in teaching, community involvement, and institutional support to craft a comprehensive framework that boosts instructors’ performance. Interviews conducted with 13 accomplished faculty members from a prominent U.S. institution recognized for its excellence in online education revealed key insights. The findings underscore the critical importance of a holistic approach that integrates teaching expertise, community connections, and robust organizational backing. This Integrated triad model enhances the quality and effectiveness of online education, demonstrating that these intertwined supports magnify each other’s impact. With online education’s role becoming increasingly vital, these results are positioned to address a significant need and offer guidance for faculty members seeking to refine their online teaching capabilities, fostering better engagement and success in virtual classrooms.

Although user-generated microgames, defined as very simple games made by non-professionals on open platforms, are popular and appear to have considerable advantages in facilitating learning, further exploration is needed to establish their potential in instructional practices. The present study investigates the design, participation and experience of teaching and learning facilitated by user-generated microgames on an open educational platform. Through an exploratory experiment research method, four elementary school teachers designed and implemented microgame-based learning utilising these very small games on GeoGebra Classroom attended by 129 students. Data were gathered from lesson plans, classroom activity records and self-reflection questionnaires. This study revealed that teachers designed learning with various user-generated microgames and debriefing methods respecting learning content, but they shared comparatively similar scenarios by inserting microgame-based learning into the middle of the main session. The completion rate for the debriefing activity is minimum although the total joining times overshoot the number of students. Teachers found that user-generated microgames are acceptable to orchestrate short serious gaming sessions even though they are limited to one player with basic interfaces. Notwithstanding several disadvantages of these microgames recognised by students, such as missing learning instructions and inadequate interfaces, they so far enjoy learning by playing the games. The most critical implication of this study is to provide sufficient instructions and additional time for microgaming sessions in elementary schools to ensure sustainable completion of the briefing, playing and debriefing activities.

Stimulated Recall (SR) has long been used in educational settings as an approach of retrospection. However, with the fast growing of digital learning and advanced technologies in educational settings over the past decade, the extent to which stimulated recall has been effectively implemented by researchers remains minimal. This systematic review reveals that SR has been primarily employed to probe the patterns of participants' thinking, to examine the effects of instructional strategies, and to promote metacognitive level. Notably, SR video stimuli have advanced, and the sources of stimuli have become more diverse, including the incorporation of physiological data. Additionally, researchers have applied various strategies, such as flexible intervals and questioning techniques, in SR interviews. Furthermore, this article discusses the relationships between different SR research items, including stimuli and learning contexts. The review and analysis also demonstrate that stimulated recall may be further enhanced by integrating multiple data sources, applying intelligent algorithms, and incorporating conversational agents enabled by generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of SR studies in the realm of education and proposes a promising avenue for researchers to proactively apply stimulated recall in investigating educational issues in the digital era.

Creativity is the result of several converging elements, including cultural, environmental, and social factors. The context in which people live their lives not only affects their creativity; it also affects how they acquire and use language. This study shows how a person's context and linguistic development, as measured by linguistic maturity, affects their creativity. 249 students aged between 13 and 15, participated in the study by completing an online test measuring their linguistic maturity and creativity. This study used Guilford's (1967) Alternative Uses Test following the Consensual Assessment Technique. Regression models revealed a positive and significant influences of linguistic maturity on creativity. Greater semantic memory networks allow for more efficient searches, thus enabling creativity. Therefore, greater semantic richness leads to greater linguistic maturity, resulting in increased creativity. Our findings confirm a relationship between language skills and creativity (i.e., linguistic maturity and text production) at a deeper level than previously studied. This is relevant for both curriculum development and instructional design. In this sense, tools as ChatGPT that produce text from millions of documents, push the student to be mediator of all this linguistic richness. Furthermore, measuring linguistic maturity and text production provides another means to measure creativity, transcendent, considering that having proper approaches to measure creativity is a challenge.

ChatGPT, as the pioneer of advanced generative AI tools, has triggered scholarly discussions about the potential use of such AI technologies in interdisciplinary fields. With a focus on the surge of AI-related preprints since the introduction of ChatGPT by OpenAI, the study investigated what the surge implies for AI literature, particularly in terms of credibility and quality. A scoping review was initially conducted to study the characteristics of the AI-related preprints in the Web of Science (WoS) database and also in five (5) preprint platforms (ArXiv, MedRxiv, SocArxiv, SSRN, and Research Square). The publication date range was set at January 01, 2023 to September 08, 2023. This was followed up by an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) of the perceptions of experts in the AI field about the preprints. Employing a scoping review of AI-related preprints across six databases and a qualitative analysis of 15 AI experts' opinions, our study reveals concerns about the research accuracy, quality, and credibility of preprints, and advocates for a robust evaluation and high-quality assurance process to promote open science objectives during their dissemination. Specifically, 45,918 AI-related preprints were found in the six preprint databases or repositories across different fields. The nine themes from the IPA showed that preprints can be of value. However, experts advocated for the safe and responsible use of AI-related preprints, involving such tenets as maintaining ethical integrity and high-quality work on the part of authors and establishing sound AI-content guidelines from publishers and editors. Future studies are recommended to investigate the impact of preprints on decision-making processes in educational research and practice.

As I approach retirement and reflect on nearly 80 years of life and over 50 years as an educator, I am struck by a humbling realization: the more I learn, the less I seem to know. Influenced by Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and its final proposition—“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent”—I have come to appreciate the limits of knowledge and the importance of humility in scholarship and life. My career, though unplanned, has taken me across diverse roles in philosophy, computer science, and instructional systems, yet the most profound lesson came not from academic achievements but from the realization that knowledge alone is insufficient without care for others. Echoing my professor’s advice to think for oneself but live for others, I have grown to believe that the true purpose of education extends beyond skill acquisition; it lies in fostering compassion, intellectual humility, and meaningful contributions to humanity. I lament that I may have done too little to instill these ideals but hope that my students will surpass me in advancing lives centered on peace, service, and community. Ultimately, as my father once said, what remains is not what you say but what you do, and it is my earnest desire that education continues to inspire action toward the betterment of others.

Research shows that teachers' conceptualization of critical thinking (CT) affects their classroom practices for incorporating CT instructional methods for young school children. However, there is limited evidence with respect to K-12 in-service teachers' beliefs about CT. This study investigates the conceptualization of CT among middle school teachers (n = 77) in the United States. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Based on Principal Component Analysis, we find three dimensions of CT conceptualization from the teachers’ responses: cognitive, affective, and knowledge dimensions. Further details of the findings are discussed, and suggestions for developing CT in K-12 education and future research directions are provided.

Many accounts describe and define human intelligence. Some common abilities include: learning solving problems, creating innovative solutions, remembering details, etc. Artificial intelligence (AI) has fewer descriptions and definitions, including these: performing things normally done by experienced humans, or assisting less experienced persons go perform well. We have learned a great deal in the last 50 years about both human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Researchers now believe there are billions of neurons in the brain and mapping how people use those neurons to react to situations and solve problems is an area of active exploration with many unknowns. Human intelligence has not progressed on a scale or order of magnitude to match the progress in AI. How things will both evolve? Will AI evolve to support humans including the development of human intelligence, or is there a darker path ahead? This article aims to cause focused deliberations going forward.

Novartis, a global medicines company, and the Sickle Cell Foundation of Ghana (SCFG), an advocacy organization, have endeavored to support the implementation of global best practices in the care of people living with sickle cell disease (SCD) in Africa, and to address unmet needs relating to this condition on the continent. Beginning in 2019, a multifaceted SCD program was implemented in Ghana through a public-private partnership involving the government of Ghana, the SCFG, Novartis, and other partners. A key component of the program involved expanding the reach of hydroxyurea (HU), the only approved disease-modifying generic treatment for SCD, in ways that would promote sustainable access. The program helped to raise the profile of SCD in Ghana and, in 2022, the government adopted HU into its National Health Insurance Scheme. Features of the effort in Ghana are now being expanded to other countries in Africa through cocreated programs with in-country partners. This article reviews the program's history, progress, challenges, and lessons learned.

Using a historical timeline, we share personal stories from the editors and assistant editors of Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D), AECT’s flagship journal. We discuss the issues, trends, goals, initiatives, influential work, and important milestones in research, theory, and practices during the time when each served as the editor or assistant editor. ETR&D was first published in 1989 by AECT after a decision was made by the AECT Executive Board to consolidate the Educational Communications and Technology Journal (ECTJ) and the Journal of Instructional Development (JID). Through archival research and accounts of our own experiences, we hope to provide a birds-eye view that will share the past journey and inform the continued growth of Educational Technology Research and Development.

I came to the world of educational technology in the 1980s from a position as a computer science professor at a regional state university in Alabama where I had been practicing as an educational technologist without awareness that I was doing so. In the intervening years, I have come to realize the complexities and challenge of educational technology and instructional design, thanks to mentors such as Robert Gagné, David Merrill, Robert Tennyson, and many others too numerous to name. Those learning experiences were largely unplanned and happened more or less by coincidence as I left teaching computer science to become the senior scientist for instructional systems at the Air Force Human Recourses Laboratory (a.k.a. Armstrong Laboratory) in San Antonio, Texas. I have also had the pleasure of being a tenured professor at the University of Bergen, Syracuse University, Florida State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of North Texas, where I have tried to apply the lessons learned along the way. Regretfully, what I see now happening in the broad domain of educational technology is a return to the beliefs I had when I entered this field so many years ago. Those unaware of the complexities and challenges and untrained in educational technology and learning science but adept with one or more technologies believe they can apply their technology knowledge to solve any educational problem that arises. If these remarks have any benefit, it is to help those technophiles understand that the emphasis and focus in educational technology and learning science should be placed initially and primarily on the learner and not on a particular technology nor the content to be learned. Technologies come and go, and those with keep knowledge in a content domain have already indicated what can be learned in that domain. As a result of my focus on the individual learner in this paper, this will not be a typical academic research paper. Rather it will be a plea to consider what really matters – not one’s own prominence or advancement but helping others develop their own thoughts and understanding. Onward through the fog (a slogan borrowed from Oat Willie’s in Austin, Texas).

ObjectivesGiven the fundamental role of newborn bloodspot screening (NBS) to enable prompt diagnosis and optimal clinical management of individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD), we sought to systematically assess enablers and barriers to implementation of NBS programmes for SCD in Africa using established qualitative research methods.SettingChildbirth centres and NBS laboratories from six countries in East, West and Southern Africa.ParticipantsEight programme leaders involved with establishing and operating NBS programmes for SCD in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania.Primary and secondary outcome measuresData obtained through a structured, phased interview approach were analysed using a combination of inductive and deductive codes and used to determine primary themes related to the implementation and sustainability of SCD NBS programmes.ResultsFour primary themes emerged from the analysis relating to governance (eg, pragmatic considerations when deploying overcommitted clinical staff to perform NBS), technical (eg, design and execution of operational processes), cultural (eg, variability of knowledge and perceptions of community-based staff) and financial (eg, issues that can arise when external funding may effectively preclude government inputs) aspects. Key learnings included perceived factors that contribute to long-term NBS programme sustainability.ConclusionsThe establishment of enduring NBS programmes is a proven approach to improving the health of populations with SCD. Organising such programmes in Africa is feasible, but initial implementation does not assure sustainability. Our analysis suggests that future programmes should prioritise government partner participation and funding from the earliest stages of programme development.

The affiliation of the author “K. K. Bhagat” was inadvertently published incorrectly. This has now been corrected throughout the book as “Advanced Technology Development Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India”.

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