This research aimed to comprehend the impact of the first school closure on secondary education in Cyprus from students’ perspectives. Through the administration of an online survey with both closed and open questions, the study investigated the main issues and challenges that students experienced during their abrupt transition from face-to-face to emergency remote education and their main worries and concerns during this period, as well as their perceptions regarding the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process followed during the distance education period. The study also elicited students’ suggestions, based on their experiences from the lockdown period, on improving instruction in case of further lockdown(s) and in the post-COVID-19 era. Three hundred twenty-two (322) students of both upper and lower secondary education participated in the study. The data from closed questions were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and for the data from the open questions, a qualitative thematic analysis approach was followed. The valuable insights gained from this study illustrate how important it is for educators and educational policymakers to give voice to students, closely listen to what learners felt worked and what did not during the period of remote learning, and develop plans and policies that incorporate their feedback.

This article reports on the main experiences gained from a teaching intervention which utilised the alternate reality game ‘Helping Nemo’ in an augmented reality environment for formative assessment. The purpose of the study was to explore the ways in which the affordances arising from the combination of alternate reality games and augmented reality, situated in the context of Universal Design for Learning, might facilitate students’ learning amongst the aspects of engagement, participation, and response to students’ variability. The study took place in a public primary school located in a rural area of Cyprus. A second-grade class consisting of 24 students aged 7–8 years old was selected to comprise the sample. A qualitative research approach was adopted. The data collection methods included classroom observations and focus groups with the students. Findings gained from the teaching intervention suggest that the creation of a multimodal environment that draws on the principles of Universal Design for Learning and combines the affordances of alternate reality games and augmented reality for formative assessment contributes towards higher levels of engagement and participation in learning of all students, including bilingual students, students with learning disabilities, and students who are currently disengaged.

In this study, we aimed to determine Cypriot primary mathematics teachers’ perspectives and lived experiences during the transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT) in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. An in-depth online survey combining closed-ended and open-ended questions was administered to sixty-two (n = 62) educators teaching mathematics in public primary schools during the first lockdown in spring, 2020. The data from closed-ended questions were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, whereas, for the open-ended questions, a thematic analysis approach was employed. Our findings provide useful insights regarding teachers’ self-reported technology backgrounds and levels of instruction regarding the use of technology in mathematics prior to the pandemic, as well their level of preparedness for ERT and the main challenges they faced in implementing ERT of mathematics. Our findings also indicate teachers’ levels of satisfaction with their ERT practices and their beliefs concerning the extent of achievement of the curriculum learning objectives through ERT, and how these varied based on teachers’ self-reported levels of familiarity with technology, their self-reported levels of preparedness for teaching at a distance, and their engagement (or non-engagement) in synchronous instruction during ERT. Teachers’ suggestions, based on their experiences from the lockdown period, regarding how to transform mathematics teaching and learning in the post-COVID-19 era are also presented.

Understanding how disability is socially constructed is important for establishing inclusive schools, since the ways in which educators and non-disabled nondisabled students understand disability affect their actions towards disabled students. As social interaction today is very often an interplay between online and offline communication activities, this study aimed to explore how young adolescents in Cyprus construct the concept of disability in a blended environment of interactions. A qualitative research approach was adopted involving focus groups with 18 adolescents, online and face to face semi-structured semistructured individual interviews, participant observation on a Facebook group set up for the purposes of the study, and the first author’s reflective diary. A combination of thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis and analytic elements from the field of visual semiotics were used for data analysis. Data analysis indicated that adolescents understand disability mostly through medical and charity models. Based on the data, these understandings arise from the construction of disabled people’s multimodal ‘invisibility/absence’, in both online and offline contexts of adolescents’ everyday reality. Suggestions for further research in disability constructions in blended environments, and implications for the field of inclusive education concerning teachers and pre-service teachers’ educational practice are discussed.

This paper focuses on the inclusion of newly arrived migrants in Europe, reporting on the project “Augmented Assessment” (ERASMUS+/KA3). The project aims to narrow the assessment gap that results from barriers between those students and their teachers. The project’s theoretical orientations and the pedagogical approach guided the creation of an Augmented Assessment Training Course and Library. This paper explores primary and secondary teachers’ initial reflections and perceptions on piloting the proposed Augmented Assessment approach with newly arrived migrant students and how this approach could help them to perform a more inclusive assessment in Science and Mathematics. Results from the analysis of reflective diaries are presented and discussed in relation to existing international literature, and some initial conclusions are drawn.