This study investigates designs for developing knowledge building (KB) and higher order competencies among academically low-achieving students. Thirty-seven low-achieving students from a ninth-grade visual arts course in Hong Kong participated. The design involved principle-based KB pedagogy, with students writing on Knowledge Forum® (KF), enriched by analytics-supported reflective assessment. Analysis of the discourse on KF showed that the low achievers were able to engage in productive discourse, with evidence of metacognitive, collaborative, and epistemic inquiry. Analysis illustrates how the design supported student engagement, including (1) reflective inquiry and social metacognition; (2) reflective meta- and epistemic talk; (3) evidence-based reflection for collective growth; and (4) reflection embedded in community ethos. Implications of reflective assessment for supporting low achievers for inquiry learning and KB are discussed.

This study investigated whether and how students with low prior achievement can carry out and benefit from reflective assessment supported by the Knowledge Connections Analyzer (KCA) to collaboratively improve their knowledge-building discourse. Participants were a class of 20 Grade 11 students with low achievement taking visual art from an experienced teacher. We used multiple methods to analyze the students' online discourse at several levels of granularity. Results indicated that students with low achievement were able to take responsibility for advancing collective knowledge, as they generated theories and questions, built on each others' ideas, and synthesized and rose above their community's ideas. Analysis of qualitative data such as the KCA prompt sheets, student interviews and classroom observations indicated that students were capable of carrying out reflective assessment using the KCA in a knowledge building environment, and that the use of reflective assessment may have helped students to focus on goals of knowledge building. Implications for how students with low achievement collaboratively improve their knowledge-building discourse facilitated by reflective assessment are discussed.

This study aimed to examine the role and process of reflective assessment supported by the Knowledge Connections Analyzer in helping low academic achievers to develop epistemic agency in knowledge building. The participants were 33 ninth‐grade low achievers from a visual arts course in Hong Kong. A comparison class of 33 students, taught by the same teacher and studying the same topics in a regular knowledge‐building environment, also participated. Qualitative tracing of students' online discourse showed that reflective assessment can help low achievers develop high‐level epistemic agency. Qualitative analysis of the students' prompt sheets revealed that reflective assessment encouraged low achievers to set knowledge‐building goals, collectively and continuously analyse and reflect on their inquiry and ideas, and generate actions to address identified gaps, thus helping them engage in high‐level epistemic agency. The study results have important implications for designing technology‐rich environments that support learners and offer insights into how teachers can help learners develop epistemic agency.

This study is a systematic review of 20 years of research on the usage of virtual reality (VR) in K‐12 and higher education settings, which aims to consolidate, evaluate, and communicate evidence that can inform both the theory and practice of VR‐based instruction. A total of 149 articles were selected from three major academic databases using search strings and manual screening protocols. The literature analysis emphasized four interrelated aspects of VR‐based instruction: instructional context, instructional design, technological affordances, and research findings. The results revealed evolving trends in the VR literature in terms of publication patterns, pedagogical assumptions, equipment usage, and research methodologies, as well as the contextual factors behind VR adoption in education. Additionally, a meta‐analysis was conducted to examine the efficacy of VR‐based instruction, with results indicating an overall medium effect and several moderating factors. Finally, practical implications and a future research agenda for VR‐based instruction are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to implement online learning activities based on virtual platforms, allowing little time to prepare and train faculty members to familiarize students with digital technologies. While previous studies have looked at how students engaged with digital technologies in their learning activities, the characteristics of the student engagement in online learning remain underexplored. Therefore, a systematic review of the literature on student engagement in online learning in higher education is much needed.

We examined the facilitation of shared epistemic agency through a knowledge‐building (KB) design that included analytics‐supported collective reflective assessment (AsCRA). Forty undergraduate students taking a Liberal Studies course at a university in central China used the promising ideas tool and the knowledge building discourse explorer to self‐analyze the online discourse they had created in Knowledge Forum® (KF), an online discourse environment; 34 students in a comparison section of the same course used KF but did not use the additional tools. Both classes were taught by the same teacher and studied the same inquiry topics. Multifaceted analysis of students' interaction in and the quality of discourse on KF, an educational online platform, indicated that analytics‐supported reflective assessment helped them to develop high‐level shared epistemic agency in the KB process. Qualitative analysis showed that AsCRA helped students to focus on high‐level goals (idea negotiation, synthesis of ideas and rise above thinking) in KB, and to engage in continuous assessment, reflection, and action planning to regulate and improve their discourse. The findings have important implications for the design of technology‐rich environments to support learners, and may help teachers identify the potential uses of such environments to encourage learners to engage in productive collaborative inquiry and develop metacognition and agency.

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