Arts as a Catalyst for Adult Learning

Using collaborative inquiry, the researchers wished to explore the relationship between art and learning. Themes of individual and collective learning emerged. In general, the arts provide a useful tool for provoking reflective dialog and a platform for viewing and assuming different perspectives

Creating students’ communities of Inquiry (COI) in online learning using the Moodle Learning Management System

The issue of promoting high levels of interactivity in online learning is important and topical. There is always a need to provide opportunities for online learners to work with others and feel a sense of belonging. This desktop review paper explores the possibility of creating communities of inquiry using the Moodle learning management system. In this discussion, we review the general use of a learning management system in an institution of higher learning. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online learning. The concept community of inquiry is unpacked, with emphasis on the three presences namely the cognitive, social and teaching presences. By drawing on the interactive features of the Moodle LMS, we discuss how the three presences could be promoted. Conclusions and recommendations are drawn from the discussion. Keywords: online learning,, interactivity, collaborative learning, digital learning platform, higher education DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-30-18 Publication date:October 31st 202

Asian Students’ Cultural Orientation and Computer Self-Efficacy Significantly Related to Online Inquiry-Based Learning Outcomes on the Go-Lab Platform

Learning and teaching Mendelian genetics are central topics in school science. This study explored factors associated with the learning outcomes of Taiwanese junior high school students in an online inquiry learning environment. Research within face-to-face classroom settings had revealed that Asian students are more likely to be tutor-oriented and collectivistic learners. However, results of how these orientations affect learning in online environments are needed. In this analysis, seventh-grade students from Taiwan (N = 290) completed a genetics lesson using an Inquiry Learning Space (ILS) on the Go-Lab platform. Students were randomly assigned conditions in which support was provided either by general text or by an expert person in the form of a cartoon figure. In addition, students completed questionnaires assessing their cultural orientations, as well as their computer self-efficacy. Results revealed that the presence of a virtual expert did not influence students’ learning outcomes. However, the extent to which students identified as collectivistic and their level of computer self-efficacy were positively associated with the learning outcomes. Students’ computer self-efficacy was positively related to their behavioral intentions as well. These results illustrate the importance of Asian students’ disciplined personality and computer self-efficacy for online inquiry-based learning.</p

Can technology empower the public to think scientifically? The case of nQuire

nQuire (nquire.org.uk) is an innovative citizen science (CS) platform for learning, developed at the Open University UK in collaboration with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It operationalizes the concept of ‘citizen inquiry’, that is the fusion of citizen science and inquiry-based learning. It enables members of the public to join or set up their own investigations or ‘missions’ to explore themselves and their environment. Each mission involves finding out about how CS works at scale and gaining insight into current issues such as personal wellbeing. An example of an nQuire mission is Gardenwatch; this is a survey of UK private gardens, produced by BBC Springwatch and the British Trust for Ornithology. Over 200,000 people completed surveys of their gardens on nQuire, as well as sharing their findings on social media. We are now researching how to capture and improve the impact of nQuire on citizens’ learning and engagement. Our vision is to educate the general public in thinking scientifically through engagement with nQuire missions

Development of values and attitudes in General Studies through online inquiry project-based learning

Reflection in learning has been regarded as a useful technique in education for promoting analytical skills in higher order thinking. However, the majority of research in this area concentrates on the cognitive aspects and rarely mentions the affective domain. This study examined the development of values and attitudes in General Studies through the use of Wiki, a Web 2.0 technology as a platform for the implementation of Inquiry project-based learning IPjBL among Primary Five students in Hong Kong. Four schools were recruited and students (n=420) were given a project to work on. In order to foster affective reflection in learning, students were encouraged to create written reflections on their projects online. Instructions were provided to the students on how to write their reflections based on the five levels of affective domain in Bloom’s taxonomy. The outcomes were evaluated using the online survey, focused group interviews and content analysis of the written reflections. The findings illustrated that students, in general, had generated positive values and attitudes in their topics of research. Overall, this study showed that scaffoldings in reflection can be an effective way to enhance the development of values and attitudes in IPjBL.published_or_final_versio

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed ‘citizen inquiry’, which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, ‘citizen inquiry’, by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time

Tomorrow’s World nQuire: young people’s requirements for engaging with inquiry-led, civic engagement technologies

Citizen inquiry describes the learning benefits to people who engage actively in inquiry-led investigations. The Tomorrow’s world nQuire project, a collaboration between The Open University and the BBC in the UK, utilises the citizen inquiry paradigm to design an online platform to support large-scale public experiments, linked to TV or radio programmes. Scaffolding the investigations has been a challenging task, exploiting technology affordances that integrate guidance for inquiry-led activities and mass collaborative participation. The aim of this study is to examine the usability of an early version of the platform and understand, in particular, how young people aged 16 to 18 in particular perceive technologies that support inquiry-led social science investigations. Outcomes revealed that there is a preference by the majority of the young participants to use mobile devices for accessing the platform. This finding emphasises the importance of mobilised learning and mobile-friendly design for engaging teenagers with inquiry-led activities

S-COL: A Copernican turn for the development of flexibly reusable collaboration scripts

Collaboration scripts are usually implemented as parts of a particular collaborative-learning platform. Therefore, scripts of demonstrated effectiveness are hardly used with learning platforms at other sites, and replication studies are rare. The approach of a platform-independent description language for scripts that allows for easy implementation of the same script on different platforms has not succeeded yet in making the transfer of scripts feasible. We present an alternative solution that treats the problem as a special case of providing support on top of diverse Web pages: In this case, the challenge is to trigger support based on the recognition of a Web page as belonging to a specific type of functionally equivalent pages such as the search query form or the results page of a search engine. The solution suggested has been implemented by means of a tool called S-COL (Scripting for Collaborative Online Learning) and allows for the sustainable development of scripts and scaffolds that can be used with a broad variety of content and platforms. The tool’s functions are described. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and ease of script reuse with S-COL, we describe the flexible re-implementation of a collaboration script for argumentation in S-COL and its adaptation to different learning platforms. To demonstrate that a collaboration script implemented in S-COL can actually foster learning, an empirical study about the effects of a specific script for collaborative online search on learning activities is presented. The further potentials and the limitations of the S-COL approach are discussed

Bridging the Gap: 21st Century Media Meets Theoretical Pedagogical Literacy Practices

In this chapter, the researchers used an ethnographic stance to demonstrate how conversation evolved within a social media platform. They investigated the online discussions and face-to-face dialogues between teacher educators and pre-service teachers. They compared the participants’ reciprocal conversations within this case study to analyze patterns in the language used in each forum in order to identify the affordances and constraints of perceived understanding. Through this discourse analysis the authors sought to identify indicators of each participant’s metacognitive development while engaging in an online book discussion through a social media platform. Data analysis indicated that there was metacognitive growth when comparing the initial reciprocal conversations with the final conversations

Framing professional competencies for systems thinking in practice: final report of an action research eSTEeM inquiry

The Open University eSTEeM project (The OU Centre for STEM Pedagogy) was a 12-month inquiry beginning March 2017 building on an initial eSTEeM project (2014-2016) entitled ‘Enhancing Systems Thinking in Practice in the Workplace’ reported on in Reynolds et al (2016). The initial report highlighted the challenges of enacting systems thinking in practice (STiP) in the workplace after qualifying with STiP core modules at The OU. Expressions of interest were manifest amongst systems thinking practitioners and employers for having some kind of formalised externally validated ‘competency framework’ for professional recognition of systems thinking in practice. The primary aim of the inquiry was to provide STiP alumni with externally recognised institutionalised professional backing for their newly acquired skill-sets associated with systems thinking. The project aimed to design a learning system – through the idea of an action learning lab – for developing a competency framework associated with systems thinking in practice. The project was carried out by a core team of three academics – Reynolds, Shah, and van Ameijde, associated with the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice (ASTiP) Group in the School of Engineering and Innovation, along with advice and support from other ASTiP colleagues – most notably Ray Ison and Chris Blackmore. The inquiry comprised some desktop research on competency framings, a series of online interviews, the drafting of an interim report, a video recording of employee/ employer interaction regarding application of STiP competencies in the workplace, a workshop held in London Regional Office in June 2017, and follow-up reporting and conversations arising from the workshop. One significant outcome from this activity led to ideas and consultations with Employer representatives, professional bodies and the Institute for Apprenticeships to initiate a Trailblazing Committee for a new Systems Thinking Practitioner apprenticeship Standard