Alleviating the Challenges with Remote Learning during a Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Page#	Line#	Comment
1	23-25	Very good point about impact on low-income families.
	33	This would be a good location to place a purpose statement
2	53-55	Also, active learning requires use of multiple sensory input systems.
	64	Nice point about musculoskeletal problems.
	66-71	Some excellent points about social isolation.
2, 3	90-94 95-105	Great points about social class; Very useful example; thank you.
	111-117	Race as a critical factor; well stated.
4 5	193-198 199-222	Nice description/explanation of the eight intelligences and differentiating instruction.  These are very key points.
6	253-266	These solutions make sense in light of the problems identified.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. A purpose statement has been inserted starting on line 32. A description of using a multiple sensory approach has also been inserted in the section on active learning starting in line 284. All of the new content has been inserted in red font.

Reviewer 2 Report

I recommend that you also do some research based on the information gathered, from other publications and on social media. 

Author Response

Much more research has been done on the information previously included, and new references have been added. All of the new content has been added in red font.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a review article that documents the works that discusses the challenges of remote learning during the pandemic. The overall work is sound and in the appropriate direction, but there are a few concerns that should be addressed to strengthen the paper.

Firstly, given that the work is a review article, the amount of literature that has been covered is very little. For example, quite a fair bit of the article (lines 90 to 117) is referring to a single anecdote as reported by the Los Angeles Times when discussing on the impact of poverty due to remote learning. Given that the pandemic has been around for 2 years, I am sure there should be multiple studies that covers this particular topic, else this point shouldn’t be part of the review article in the first place.

A related point would be that it is unclear to me how the literature works are found and chosen. This is especially important given that this is a review article. At this stage it appears that the works are chosen arbitrarily, which should not and cannot be the case.

I would also suggest the authors to read (and include if the authors find it meaningful): https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1119/5.0028641 which discusses on the challenges of introducing active learning during remote learning in the pandemic.

In summary, while I appreciate the attempt, I believe the literature works and search should be significantly expanded so that this can be truly a review article.

Other minor points (sorted by lines):

18: Not sure why we started with saying six government? Is there citation for that?

29 – 33: Any literature to support the claim?

35 – 40: Quite a number of claims, but any literature to support them?

47 – 50: Suggest to rephrase, the sentences are hard to read.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. New literature has been added to the original draft. All the new literature has been inserted in red font. Below is a description of how I responded to each comment.

1. New content was added in lines 133-163 to show that the anecdote reported by the Los Angeles Times represents the experiences of many students. A figure was also inserted in lines 184-185.
2. A statement about how the literature was chosen has been inserted in line 35.
3. Although I could not access the article that was recommended, I used several other articles from reputable researchers to document the challenges of introducing active learning when using remote learning during the pandemic.  This content was inserted in lines 64-87
4. The literature works for this paper have been significantly expanded.
5. The sentence mentioning six governments has been deleted.
6. In text citations have been inserted for the claims previously made without literature to support them.
7. The sentences previously in lines 47-50 have been rephrased since they were difficult to read.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

You should do research on older people to be conclusive.

Author Response

Thank you for providing suggestions on how to improve this paper. Some of the documents that were selected for analysis apply to older students at the college level. To indicate that much of the content included in this paper also applies to older students at the college, I added the words "higher education" on line 139 and the word "professors" on line 328. All of the new content has been added in blue font. Other content was also added in response to the comments of the other reviewer.

Reviewer 3 Report

I thank the author for the revision. I noted that there has been some additions and improvements to the review article, and I appreciate that the author has taken my comments into consideration. However, there are some serious issues with the article that requires significant amendment.

  1) Given that this is a review article, the number of articles surveyed is considered extremely low. The usual numbers should be at least 200 to 300, but this is only a fraction of the usual numbers. Furthermore, I noted that at least 30% of the articles are webpages that are not peer reviewed. Given that they are not reviewed, I am not sure if they are appropriate to be included as a significant part of the article. I personally think that it is okay to have a small proportion of unreviewed work but it should not be a majority of the references.   2) While I appreciate the attempt to explain how the review articles are included in line 35, but I think it is not sufficient, again given that this is a review article. I would strongly encourage the author to search for various existing literature on how the methodology are typically written. For example, the types of databases used should be mentioned, or a flowchart of how the search process should be included. The author should also explicitly state the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the article.   I hope the comment could help to enhance the article to an acceptable level and I look forward to the next revision. 

Author Response

Thank you for the comments on how to improve this paper. On line 1, the word "Review" has been changed to "Article". Since the usual number of articles surveyed for a review is much higher than the number of articles this paper includes, I specify that this study is a qualitative document analysis. On line 70, I indicate that qualitative inquiry typically relies on smaller samples than other types of research, and I also added a reliable reference for this information.

On lines 40-45, I indicate that for a qualitative document analysis, different types of documents can be used including webpages.

In lines 62-77, detailed information has been inserted on how the documents were selected for inclusion. The methodology has also been written according to how existing research is typically written. Examples of the types of databases used have been mentioned as well.

Section 2.2 (lines 79-90) indicates the inclusion and exclusion criteria used. All the new content has been added in blue font.

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations on completing  this research and for your patience.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. The final revisions have been made in green font.

Reviewer 3 Report

I thank the author for implementing the suggestions. Overall, the article is much clearer to read. My only suggestion is for the author to read (and include if appropriate) https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.02705, as it discusses issues that are aligned with Themes 1, 4 and 5 in a higher education context. 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I included content from the suggested article in the sections on themes 1, 4 and 5. The most recent revisions are in green font.