Reducing cultural barriers via Internet courses

A web-based learning environment has been developed to support students from China who are studying in the UK and are confronted by many cultural barriers, which may impede their academic studies.The electronic environment incorporates a number of approaches to support learning, ranging from a simple text-based presentation to more active methods, including opportunities to use search-based learning strategies. Experimental results demonstrate a clear advantage for these active approaches.Internet support was also provided for students in the form of an E-learning course for academic writing, which featured extensive opportunities for interactions with English peers. The experimental results demonstrated that the group with access to the E-course successfully acquired skills, resulting in their academic writing being indistinguishable from native English speakers

Distributed Teaching

The central phenomenon that this entry seeks to explore is that people with the job title of “teacher” are almost never the only teachers in a learning transaction, and autodidacts are almost never solely responsible for their own learning. As well as designated teachers and students, text book authors, editors, illustrators, exam boards, curriculum designers, governments, timetablers, classroom designers, architects, learning management system managers, counselors, career advisors, makers of YouTube videos, discussion forums, friends, family, and very many other individuals and groups can and do play an active and often highly significant teaching role in guiding, supporting, and managing the learning process. Online learning, especially when it involves a team of specialists working on a course, makes the distributed nature of the process very visible, and the relative autonomy of online learners makes it more likely that they will seek additional or alternative supports for learning, but virtually all conventional in-person teaching involves multiple teachers too, from peers to textbook authors and, most especially, the learners themselves

Active Techniques Implemented in an Introductory Signal Processing Course to Help Students Achieve Higher Levels of Learning.

Holding students to high standards and assessing, measuring and evaluating their learning with challenging, authentic problems in the midterm and final exams is the goal of the professors who teach core signal processing concepts. However, the heavy reliance of these subjects on mathematics makes it difficult for students to genuinely grasp the concepts and relate to a conceptual framework. Specifically, analyzing the signals and the functionality of systems in Fourier domain; separating the system level analysis from signal level analysis; and understanding how they are related in time domain and frequency domain are among the most challenging concepts. Students’ lower grades observed over past years in the introductory signal processing course exposed a potential disconnect between the actual level of learning and the high expectations set by the professors. In this paper, we present the active learning techniques that we implemented in one of the summer session offerings of this course in our department. The research explored Peer Instruction, pre-class reading quizzes and post-lecture quizzes. In addition to the mid and end of the quarter survey results, the comparison analysis of the grades students achieved in the active learning integrated course in the second summer session and the standard course offered in first summer session is discussed. According to our results, the developed techniques helped students in the active classroom perform significantly better than their peers participating in standard lectures when tested by challenging questions in their exams

ANALISIS AKTIVITAS BELAJAR SISWA DENGAN INTERVENSI MODEL PEMBELAJARAN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING MENGGUNAKAN METODE PEER INSTRUCTION

Learning that involves students directly needs to be implemented because such learning can make students memorable and strong memory. Learning that combines knowledge, skills and experiences from the past or directly to construct, can also make students easy to understand the material. The purpose of this study was to determine the implementation of experiential learning model integrated with peer instruction. Intervention study design was used in the study with 30 participants in class VIII in one of the junior high schools in Surabaya city. The collection technique used was observation with an implementation sheet and Stalling classroom snapshot. The data results obtained from three meetings were very well implemented. The κ score obtained indicates a good agreement relationship between the two observers. In student activities that are often observed by observers are conducting experiments and discussing. Student activity can be said in learning that runs active students. Engagement with peers can improve students' understanding because they are exposed to their peers' thinking and participate in creating shared understanding. The experiential learning model integrated with peer instruction can make students become active and directly involved in learning, and emphasize experience so that it will be memorable for students. This learning model can be a good alternative for teachers in teaching in the classroom

Writing Assignments with a Metacognitive Component Enhance Learning in a Large Introductory Biology Course

Writing assignments, including note taking and written recall, should enhance retention of knowledge, whereas analytical writing tasks with metacognitive aspects should enhance higher-order thinking. In this study, we assessed how certain writing-intensive “interventions,” such as written exam corrections and peer-reviewed writing assignments using Calibrated Peer Review and including a metacognitive component, improve student learning. We designed and tested the possible benefits of these approaches using control and experimental variables across and between our three-section introductory biology course. Based on assessment, students who corrected exam questions showed significant improvement on postexam assessment compared with their nonparticipating peers. Differences were also observed between students participating in written and discussion-based exercises. Students with low ACT scores benefited equally from written and discussion-based exam corrections, whereas students with midrange to high ACT scores benefited more from written than discussion-based exam corrections. Students scored higher on topics learned via peer-reviewed writing assignments relative to learning in an active classroom discussion or traditional lecture. However, students with low ACT scores (17–23) did not show the same benefit from peer-reviewed written essays as the other students. These changes offer significant student learning benefits with minimal additional effort by the instructors

Contours of Inclusion: Inclusive Arts Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this publication is to share models and case examples of the process of inclusive arts curriculum design and evaluation. The first section explains the conceptual and curriculum frameworks that were used in the analysis and generation of the featured case studies (i.e. Understanding by Design, Differentiated Instruction, and Universal Design for Learning). Data for the cases studies was collected from three urban sites (i.e. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston) and included participant observations, student and teacher interviews, curriculum documentation, digital documentation of student learning, and transcripts from discussion forum and teleconference discussions from a professional learning community.The initial case studies by Glass and Barnum use the curricular frameworks to analyze and understand what inclusive practices look like in two case studies of arts-in-education programs that included students with disabilities. The second set of precedent case studies by Kronenberg and Blair, and Jenkins and Agois Hurel uses the frameworks to explain their process of including students by providing flexible arts learning options to support student learning of content standards. Both sets of case studies illuminate curricular design decisions and instructional strategies that supported the active engagement and learning of students with disabilities in educational settings shared with their peers. The second set of cases also illustrate the reflective process of using frameworks like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to guide curricular design, responsive instructional differentiation, and the use of the arts as a rich, meaningful, and engaging option to support learning. Appended are curriculum design and evaluation tools. (Individual chapters contain references.

Knowledge-building : designing for learning using social and participatory media

This report presents the results of a classroom action research that looked at how one teacher redesigned her curriculum while integrating social media, Web 2.0 and face-toface teaching in an Australian public high school. It explores the qualities that social and participatory media bring to the classroom while focussing on students as active and valued participants in the learning process. Building knowledge using the uniqueness of social media enabled students to become active and valued resources for both the teacher and their peers. Designing for learning is a key challenge facing education today; this case offers ideas for learning designers and contributes to a research base that can support educators from all sectors

How student-centred teaching in quantum chemistry affects students' experiences of learning and motivation-a self-determination theory perspective

This paper represents the second contribution from an action research study on a bachelor-level quantum chemistry and spectroscopy course. In the proposed instructional model, active learning principles are extended outside lectures to form a student-centred course structure. The new model resulted in superior learning outcomes compared to a class where active learning elements were limited to course lectures, as demonstrated by previous research. In this article, I try to understand this improvement through an analysis of student motivation and experiences in the framework of self-determination theory. Based on my analysis of student feedback data and interviews, tasks that facilitated direct interaction with peers or course staff were seen as key factors in enhancing learning and motivation. In addition, the presence of various interconnected course components that supported students at different stages of the learning process was experienced as central to learning. Together, these two publications demonstrate that the incorporation of active learning principles outside lectures can substantially improve both learning and motivation.Peer reviewe

OER meets COL: Learning about collaborative online learning with OER

... The design of advanced blended learning arrangements demands a shift of focus from mere content-based knowledge delivery to moderated interactions between topics, peers and educators. The provision of suitable learning content does not serve primarily as learning resources, but rather as a trigger for active learning as an appropriate combination of individual and collaborative engagement to achieve learning goals which address the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. This triggered interaction benefits strongly by demand-driven and goal-oriented tele-tutorial moderation, perhaps based on deeper insight into learners’ interactions, provided by Learning Analytics. [Aus: Collaborative Online Learning

Collaborative E-learning Methodologies: an Experience of Active Knowledge in ICT Classrooms

In the present study we highlight a specific environment that makes use of collaborative technological tools, like wikis and forums within an e-learning platform. Both of these approaches convey a lot of responsibility from the teacher to the students and the hoping, as backed up by the literature, is to promote deeper learning and reasoning skills at a higher level. The general goal of this paper is to contribute for the theoretical discussion on how active and collaborative experiences in ICT classrooms play a role on the construction of knowledge in HEIs. Based on the pointed outlines, we intend to: (1) understand how collaborative e-learning environments get students actively involved in the learning process;(2) perspective the role of collaborative tools at the level of group work and (3) find out how students assess their performance within a working group. Data was collected through questionnaires available on the e-learning platform Moodle. Descriptive statistical techniques were used to analyze quantitative data. Within the research questions proposed, the study, points towards some understanding of how a collaborative learning environment seems to get students actively involved in the learning process mainly if the tasks to be perform have an empirical component. The study also has shown that students seem to identify themselves with the need to be involved in simulations of their future professional activity, as well as with the need to regulate their own learning and to promote discussion not only between peers but also with the teacher