Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

A GRAPH-BASED APPROACH FOR ADAPTIVE SERIOUS GAMES

Traditional education systems are based on the one-size-fits-all approach, which lacks personalization, engagement, and flexibility necessary to meet the diverse needs and learning styles of students. This encouraged researchers to focus on exploring automated, personalized instructional systems to enhance students’ learning experiences. Motivated by this remark, this thesis proposes a personalized instructional system using a graph method to enhance a player’s learning process by preventing frustration and avoiding a monotonous experience. Our system uses a directional graph, called an action graph, for representing solutions to in-game problems based on possible player actions. Through our proposed algorithm, a serious game integrated with our system would both detect player errors and provide personalized assistance to direct a player in the direction of a correct solution. To verify system performance, this research presents comparison testing on a group of students engaging in the game both with and without AI. Students who played the AI-assisted game showed an average 20% decrease in time needed and an average 58% decrease in actions taken to complete the game

The influence of student characteristics on the use of adaptive e-learning material

Adaptive e-learning materials can help teachers to educate heterogeneous student groups. This study provides empirical data about the way academic students differ in their learning when using adaptive elearning materials. Ninety-four students participated in the study. We determined characteristics in a heterogeneous student group by collecting demographic data and measuring motivation and prior knowledge. We also measured the learning paths students followed and learning strategies they used when working with adaptive e-learning material in a molecular biology course. We then combined these data to study if and how student characteristics relate to the learning paths and strategies they used. We observed that students did follow different learning paths. Gender did not have an effect, but (mainly Dutch) BSc students differed from (international) MSc students in the intrinsic motivation they had and the learning paths and strategies they followed when using the adaptive e-learning materia

Engaging Tertiary Students: A Comparative Study of Online Learning Tools with Arcs Motivation Model Integration

In recent times, the adoption of online teaching methods has become a noteworthy development. This trend gained momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic, as education transitioned entirely to online platforms. Even though our country has now entered an endemic phase, online learning remains pertinent. Many educational institutions continue to embrace online learning, but its success depends on collaboration with students. Several factors influence students' ability to adapt to this new teaching and learning approach. In this research, the aim is to investigate the motivational factors that affect the use of online learning tools. This study utilizes the ARCS Motivation model, which encompasses attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, to explore the relationship between these factors with online learning tools. Data will be gathered from part five students enrolled in entrepreneurship and management courses at the UiTM Perak Branch. Questionnaires, divided into Parts A, B, and C, will be distributed and analyzed using the SPSS software. Consequently, this research has the potential to positively impact the education sector and government policies by promoting the integration of technology into the teaching and learning process. It also sheds light on the evolving landscape of education in the digital age and its implications for both students and educators

The Effectiveness of an Adaptive Serious Game for Digital Logic Design

Most students benefit more deeply from guided learning than discovery learning. Even so, not all students are alike. Our research contention is that offering differentiated instructions that better fit students’ educational needs in a narrative virtual reality (VR) environment will give them renewed hope for learning success. This paper presents such a development that augments an existing learning game, Gridlock, with an adaptive learning engine that assesses what really happens when a student’s capacity is sabotaged in problem solving and to provide the help that is tailored to his/her needs. The game was deployed in a Computer Architecture course at Rowan as a replacement to the traditional laboratory experiments. Its thorough assessment confirms the values of the game in promoting student learning