Background: The large-scale International Computer and Information Literacy Study (2018) has an interesting finding concerning Luxembourg teachers. Luxembourg has one of the highest reported level of technology-related resources for teaching and learning, but a relatively lower reported use of ICT in classroom practice. Methods: ICT innovation requires a high initial level of financial investment in technology, and Luxembourg has achieved this since 2015. Once the necessary financial investment in ICT technology has been made, the key question is what else matters to increase the use of ICT in teaching. To identify the relevant factors, we used the “Four in Balance” model, aimed explicitly at monitoring the implementation of ICT in schools. Results: Using data for 420 teachers in Luxembourg, we identify that within such a technology-driven approach to digitalization, teachers’ vision of ICT use in teaching, level of expertise, and the use of digital learning materials in class are significant support factors. Leadership and collaboration, in the form of an explicit vision of setting ICT as a priority for teaching in the school, also prove to be important. Conclusions: Through these findings, we show that the initial investment in school infrastructure for ICT needs to be associated in its implementation with teachers’ ICT-related beliefs, attitudes, and ICT expertise.

Digital game-based learning builds on the general characteristics of games. The incentive system (points, scores, stars, levels, and performance feedback) integrates design elements to keep a learner engaged. In the work described here, we investigated which elements of the incentive system design—rewards, penalties, or feedback—have the potential to trigger students’ motivation to play the game. We used eye tracking of eight primary school children, aged 8–11 years, as they interacted with the incentive system of a mathematics game-based item and its specific design, followed by a semi-structured interview. Eye-tracking results show that students paid minimal visual attention to the incentive system during the game, regardless of their level of performance in the game or their age group. The feedback at the end of the game attracted more of their visual attention and provided a good opportunity to inform them about their performance. The semi-structured interviews revealed a high level of self-reported excitement about playing the game, mainly related to the design of the incentive system. Elements of the incentive system triggered students’ wish for student-to-student competition, which has been shown in the literature on traditional tangible rewards to stifle intrinsic motivation under certain conditions. The results of this study show that the design of the incentive system has the potential to promote extrinsic motivation with the game through rewards and penalties, and open the reflection on its possible spillover effect on intrinsic motivation in digital game-based learning.

Within comparative school effectiveness research facilitated by large-scale data across countries, this article presents the results of the testing for measurement invariance of the latent concept of Professional Community (PC) across 23 European countries and more than 35,000 teachers in secondary schools. The newly proposed Multiple-Group Factor Analysis Alignment method is applied to obtain the mean differences of the latent PC factor, while also identifying the non-invariant parameters in these different countries. After performing a number of robustness checks, including the Multiple-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) exact scalar method, we conclude that teachers in Eastern European countries report the highest average perceived PC practices. The countries with smaller PC mean differences tend to shift places in the ranking when the 2 methods are applied; however, very few changes among the groups with significant latent mean differences are observed.

Significant attention has been paid to the use of ICT by teachers, especially during the COVID-19 health crisis. This usage has mostly been captured through self-reported survey measurements. Learning analytics can complement such findings, by using log data to document precisely how long teachers use ICT, and what ICT behaviors they perform online. Using log data of 800 teachers, the present study documents their use of ICT in mathematics on a digital learning platform used across Luxembourg during COVID-19 remote education. Our findings confirm the large differences between teachers’ use of ICT found in previous research, measured here through the time spent active on the platform. The types of ICT behaviors teachers engage with online, measured via the SAMR model, explain most of this variation. Specifically, more time on the platform is associated with activities that create a meaningful learning experience, and redefined tasks that could engage students as active learners. Experience with the technology, and participation in incentive events and teacher training, explain another significant part of this variation.

This article presents a shift from traditional “technical” professional development (PD) to a PD of “praxis” and reflects on the benefits and barriers that this entails. Often, PD in digital technology is unsustainable because it provides simple tips or a few sample lessons that teachers are happy to deliver until the technology fails or becomes obsolete. PD in which teachers are actively engaged in exploring their own practice and understanding the rationale behind the implementation of technology is more likely to result in teachers who can adapt current technologies and reflect on the constraints they inherently present. Professional learning communities (PLCs), as a long-term support for PD, allow this to happen within the context of the school and its specific affordances. This article describes one such innovative PD program designed and developed by a team of one researcher and three teachers and implemented with 51 teachers from 10 primary schools in Luxembourg. The primary goal of the PD program was to support teachers in using a digital learning platform for mathematics in their classrooms. The secondary goal was to facilitate the emergence of PLCs within their schools, so that teachers could support each other in the long term. The format of the program was with and about technology, as it was also delivered online, with teachers meeting face-to-face and working together in their schools. The collaborative nature of the program—the fact that teachers had to set common goals for the training, design and plan collaborative activities, and reflect on how best to integrate the digital learning platform into their classroom practice—was the greatest benefit reported by teachers in all groups, and it increased over the six consecutive training sessions. Most teachers reported that the frequency of their use of the digital learning platform in the classroom increased and strongly increased as a result of the training. New designs for teacher PD with and about digital technologies can build on theories of effective teacher professional learning through PLCs and provide teachers with a safe and sustainable environment in their school for further practice and development.

(1) Background: Metacognition plays a crucial role in education, with teachers’ metacognitive awareness being a critical determinant of effective teaching and learning. Despite its importance, validated instruments for assessing teachers’ metacognition are scarce, especially in non-English-speaking contexts. This study aims to adapt and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory for Teachers (MAIT) to the Romanian cultural and educational contexts. (2) Methods: After rigorous cross-cultural adaptation procedures, including translation, back-translation, and expert review, the MAIT was administered to 444 Romanian teachers (86.5% female, mean age = 47.18 years, SD = 8.92). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to assess the structural validity of the instrument. (3) Results: A 21 item second-order two-factor model including knowledge of cognition (KC) and regulation of cognition (RC) showed good fit indices (χ²/df = 3.5, CFI = 0.965, TLI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.023, RMSEA = 0.075). Limitations of the study are discussed.