This study, conducted with a person-oriented approach, aimed to assess whether students who are positively engaged in school activities and daily practices perceive their school climate differently from students who feel distant and less engaged in school. To achieve this aim, by means of a Latent Profile Analysis with the 3-step approach, we first identified student profiles on the basis of their levels of school engagement and burnout, and then verified whether the school climate perceptions differed for the various profiles. The study involved 1065 Italian middle-school students (49% females, Mage = 11.77). School climate perceptions were assessed with the Multidimensional School Climate Questionnaire. Multidimensional measures were used for student engagement and school burnout. Four student profiles, labelled Cynically disengaged (5.9%), Moderately disengaged (21.6%), Peacefully engaged (46.1%) and Tenseley engaged (26.4%), were identified. The first two profiles involved low levels of engagement and high levels of cynical burnout, with the former showing more extreme scores. The other two profiles depicted engaged students, with the latter also revealing feelings of pressure and disillusion. The four profiles differed in their school climate perceptions, with the Peacefully engaged students reporting the highest scores and the Cynically disengaged students embodying the most critical perceptions. The study’s educational implications are discussed.

The digitisation of higher education is raising significant questions about the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on teaching and learning environments, highlighting the need to investigate how teachers and students can work with new educational technologies in complementary ways. This paper reports results from a pilot study of the collaborative augmentation and simplification of text (CoAST) system, which is online software designed to facilitate the engagement of university students with theoretically-sophisticated academic texts. CoAST offers a digital learning interface that uses natural language processing algorithms to identify words that can be difficult to understand for readers at different ability levels. Course lecturers use their pedagogical content knowledge to add brief annotations to identified words. The software was trialed using a quasi-experimental design with (1) 23 undergraduate Education Studies students and (2) 23 digital and technology solutions students. Results suggest that CoAST offers a digital learning environment that can effectively mediate and enhance pedagogical relationships between teachers, students, and complex theoretical texts.

In recent years, the importance of the pedagogical and physical design of new learning environments has grown. Around the world, innovative pedagogy has been implemented to address, among other things, the development of social skills. In this study, we examined an educational program that is an applied example of the constructivist approach whose goal is to develop collaborative skills and team work. The teaching and learning methods involved 143 class observations and 149 students’ questionnaire responses, and then the impact of the new learning environment on the development of a sense of social cohesion was investigated among 82 students. There was a statistically-significant advantage for sense of social cohesion among students of the innovative program compared with the traditional class. Students interpreted the collaborative learning and social mediation that teachers create as key factors in the development of classroom cohesion.

This paper reports the development and validation of a new questionnaire to assess students' perceptions of the online learning environment in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 669 participants (454 women, 215 men) from various universities were recruited online to complete a 25-item questionnaire. Item factor analysis verified a five-factor model, while multidimensional Rasch analysis showed that all items fit this model and have good reliability. The factors of Access, Interaction, Lecturer Support, Equity, and Investigation formed the valid and reliable Online Classroom Learning Environment Inventory (OCLEI). All aspects of online learning readiness were related to the five factors of the OCLEI, therefore supporting convergent validity. With these results, we concluded that the OCLEI is a novel measure that can be used in future educational research in Indonesia. Limitations and implications are noted.

This exploratory case study examined the kinds of activity that a ‘deskless school” (i.e., flexible physical school spaces) engenders among pupils and teachers. We also considered the meaning and significance that pupils and teachers attach to various features of the school, as well as the associated action possibilities. The data were gathered in a new school in the Helsinki capital area that was architecturally designed to have flexible learning spaces (FLS) without traditional classrooms or desks for pupils in an attempt to encourage pedagogical renewal. The participants comprised 17 pupils in one second-grade class and their two teachers. The data were collected by participant observation (15 lessons over 3 weeks) and interviews with the teachers and groups of pupils. Those working in FLS engaged in collaborative learning and teaching activities. Pupils worked constantly in pairs or small groups and studied collaboratively. They also incorporated mobility into their own learning activities and developed agency by choosing how and where they would work. In particular, they appreciated being able to collaborate with their peers and freely choose where and how to study. Teachers approved of the school environment’s facilitation of collaborative learning and highlighted the importance of professional co-planning and other aspects of collaboration. Overall, the design of school environments matters at the pedagogical and professional level. With thoughtful planning, such design can support deeper collaboration among teachers and pupils, foster knowledge sharing, and even develop pupils’ agency. Although the learning space itself does not ensure change, it does enable new kinds of interaction and joint learning activities.

While positive teacher–student relationships are at the heart of teaching and learning, it is no easy task to improve these relationships and cultivate caring classroom communities. This study drew on key elements of improvement science. Three 9th grade language arts teachers and one researcher collaborated to plan, implement, study and revise an instructional routine for improving relationships with and among students. As part of this collaboration, the group created a survey to learn about students’ experiences in teachers’ classrooms. Through qualitative data collection and analysis, I examined teachers’ talk when collectively examining and discussing student survey data. Teachers’ talk turned towards and away from deeper investigations of pedagogical practice and the student survey. I describe patterns of teacher talk and analyse two episodes for which teachers collectively investigated their pedagogical practice and the routine as it related to their classroom environment. These episodes revealed that talking about survey results encouraged teachers to assess their classroom communities formatively, led to the creation of a teacher learning environment, influenced teachers’ practices, and evoked emotional and personal responses from teachers when looking at data connected to their classroom environments.