Providing guidance on Backstage, a novel digital backchannel for large class teaching

Many articles in the last couple of years argued that it is necessary to promote the active participation of students in lectures with large audiences. One approach to make students actively participate in a lecture is to use a digital backchannel, i.e. a computer-mediated communication platform that allows students to exchange ideas and opinions, without disrupting the lecturer’s discourse. Though, a digital backchannel, in order to be most helpful for learning, have to address the need for guidance of the users interacting. The article presents Backstage, a digital backchannel for large class lectures, and shows how it provides guidance for its users, i.e. the students but also the lecturer. Structural guidance is provided by aligning the usually incoherent backchannel discourse with the presentation slides that are integrated in the backchannel’s user interface. The alignment is thereby asserted by carefully designed backchannel workflows. The article also discusses the guidance of a student’s substantial involvement in both the frontchannel and the backchannel by means of scripts. Through the interactions of guided individuals a social guidance may emerge, leading to a collectively regulated backchannel

Enhancing the Digital Backchannel Backstage on the Basis of a Formative User Study

Contemporary higher education with its large audiences suffers from passivity of students. Enhancing the classroom with a digital backchannel can contribute to establishing and fostering active participation of and collaboration among students in the lecture. Therefore, we conceived the digital backchannel Backstage specifically tailored for the use in large classes. At an early phase of development we tested its core functionalities in a small-scale user study. The aim of the study was to gain first impressions of its adoption, and also to form a basis for further steps in the conception of Backstage. Regarding adoption we particularly focused on how Backstage influences the participants' questioning behavior, a salient aspect in learning. We observed that during the study much more questions were uttered on Backstage than being asked without backchannel support. Regarding the further development of Backstage we capitalized on the participants' usability feedback. The key of the refinement is the integration of presentation slides in Backstage, which leads to an interesting reconsideration of the user interactions of Backstage

Fostering awareness and collaboration in large-class lectures

For decades, higher education has been shaped by large-class lectures, which are characterized by large anonymous audiences. Well known issues of large-class lectures are a rather low degree of interactivity and a notable passivity of students, which are aggravated by the social environment created by large audiences. However, research indicates that an active involvement is indispensable for learning to be successful. Active partaking in lectures is thus often a goal of technology- supported lectures. An outstanding feature of social media is certainly their capabilities of facilitating interactions in large groups of participants. Social media thus seem to be a suitable basis for technology-enhanced learning in large-class lectures. However, existing general-purpose social media are often accompanied by several shortcomings that are assumed to hinder their proper use in lectures. This thesis therefore deals with the conception of a social medium, called Backstage, specially tailored for use in large-class lectures. Backstage provides both lecturer- as well as student-initiated communication by means of an Audience Response System and a backchannel. Audience Response Systems allow running quizzes in lectures, e.g., to assess knowledge, and can thus be seen as a technological support of question asking by the lecturer. These systems collect and aggregate the students' answers and report the results back to the audience in real-time. Audience Response Systems have shown to be a very effective means for sustaining lecture- relevant interactivity in lectures. Using a backchannel, students can initiate communication with peers or the lecturer. The backchannel is built upon microblogging, which has become a very popular communication medium in recent years. A key characteristic of microblogging is that messages are very concise, comprising only few words. The brief form of communication makes microblogging quite appealing for a backchannel in lectures. A preliminary evaluation of a first prototype conducted at an early stage of the project, however, indicated that a conventional digital backchannel is prone to information overload. Even a relatively small group can quickly render the backchannel discourse incomprehensible. This incomprehensibility is rooted in a lack of interactional coherence, a rather low communication efficiency, a high information entropy, and a lack of connection between the backchannel and the frontchannel, i.e., the lecture’s discourse. This thesis investigates remedies to these issues. To this aim, lecture slides are integrated in the backchannel to structure and to provide context for the backchannel discourse. The backchannel communication is revised to realize a collaborative annotation of slides by typed backchannel posts. To reduce information entropy backchannel posts have to be assigned to predefined categories. To establish a connection with the frontchannel, backchannel posts have to be stuck on appropriate locations on slides. The lecture slides also improve communication efficiency by routing, which means that the backchannel can filter such that it only shows the posts belonging to the currently displayed slide. Further improvements and modifications, e.g., of the Audience Response System, are described in this thesis. This thesis also reports on an evaluation of Backstage in four courses. The outcomes are promising. Students welcomed the use of Backstage. Backstage not only succeeded in increasing interactivity but also contributed to social awareness, which is a prerequisite of active participation. Furthermore, the backchannel communication was highly lecture-relevant. As another important result, an additional study conducted in collaboration with educational scientists was able to show that students in Backstage-supported lectures used their mobile devices to a greater extent for lecture-relevant activities compared to students in conventional lectures, in which mobile devices were mostly used for lecture-unrelated activities. To establish social control of the backchannel, this thesis investigates rating and ranking of backchannel posts. Furthermore, this thesis proposes a reputation system that aims at incentivizing desirable behavior in the backchannel. The reputation system is based on an eigenvector centrality similar to Google's PageRank. It is highly customizable and also allows considering quiz performance in the computation of reputation. All these approaches, rating, ranking as well as reputation systems have proven to be very effective mechanisms of social control in general-purpose social media.Seit Jahrzenten wird die universitäre Lehre durch Massenvorlesungen, die sich durch sehr große anonyme Hörerschaften auszeichnen, geprägt. Wohlbekannte Probleme von Massenvorlesungen sind ein sehr niedriger Grad an Interaktivität als auch eine augeprägte Passivität von Studenten, die auch durch die sozialen Rahmenbedingungen in großen Hörerschaften begünstigt werden. Dabei ist bekannt, dass eine aktive Auseinandersetzung mit dem Lernstoff für ein erfolgreiches Lernen unabdingbar ist. Eine aktive Teilnahme in Vorlesungen ist daher oft ein Ziel technologieunterstützter Vorlesungen. Ein herausragendes Merkmal von sozialen Medien ist sicherlich die Fähigkeit, Interaktionen in großen Gruppen zu ermöglichen. Soziale Medien scheinen deshalb eine geeignete Grundlage für technologie- unterstütztes Lernen zu sein. Jedoch sind allgemeine soziale Medien häufig auch mit Unzulänglichkeiten behaftet, die eine zweckmäßige Nutzung in Vorlesungen erschweren. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich deshalb mit der Konzipierung eines sozialen Mediums genannt Backstage, das speziell für die Nutzung in Vorlesungen zugeschnitten ist. Backstage ermöglicht sowohl dozenten- als auch eine studenteninitiierte Kommunikation mit Hilfe eines Audience Response Systems und eines Backchannels. Audience Response Systeme ermöglichen die Durchführung von Quizzen in Vorlesungen, beispielsweise um Wissen abzufragen, und können so als eine technologische Unterstützung des Fragenstellen durch den Dozenten betrachtet werden. Diese Systeme sammeln und aggregieren die Antworten der Studenten und liefern in Echtzeit die Ergebnisse zurück an die Hörerschaft. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass Audience Response Systeme effektive Mittel zur Aufrechterhaltung vorlesungsbezogener Interaktivität sind. Durch einen Backchannel können auch Studenten Kommunikation mit anderen Studenten oder dem Dozenten initiieren. Der auf Backstage verfügbare Backchannel basiert auf Microblogging, was sich über die letzten Jahre zu einem sehr beliebten Kommunikationsmedium entwickelt hat. Eine Schlüsseleigenschaft des Microbloggings ist die Kürze von Nachrichten, die aus nur wenigen Wörtern bestehen. Die knappe Kommunikationsform macht Microblogging sehr attraktiv als Backchannel für Vorlesungen. Eine vorläufige Evaluation des ersten Prototyps, die zu einem frühen Zeitpunkt im Projekt durchgeführt wurde, zeigte jedoch, dass ein konventionelles Backchannel dazu neigt, die Teilnehmer zu überlasten. Sogar der Backchannel-Diskurs einer relativ kleinen Gruppe kann schnell unüberschaubar werden. Die Unüberschaubarkeit hat ihre Ursachen in einer mangelnden interaktionalen Kohärenz, eine vergleichsweise niedrige Kommunikationseffizienz, eine hohe Informationsentropie und eine fehlende Verknüpfung zwischen Backchannel und dem Vorlesungsvortrag. Diese Arbeit untersucht mögliche Abhilfen für die genannten Probleme. So werden Vorlesungsfolien integriert, um damit den Austausch auf dem Backchannel zu strukturieren und in einen Kontext zu bringen. Die Backchannel-Kommunikation wird zudem neu konzipiert, so dass es ein kollaboratives Annotieren von Folien mit Hilfe von getypten Backchannel-Nachrichten umsetzt. Die Typisierung von Backchannel-Nachrichten dient dazu, die Informationsentropie zu reduzieren. Um eine Verknüpfung mit dem Vorlesungsvortrag herzustellen, müssen zudem Backchannel-Nachrichten an die betreffenden Stellen auf Folien positioniert werden. Die Vorlesungsfolien verbessern auch die Kommunikationseffizienz durch das Routing, so dass der Backchannel nur die Nachrichten anzeigt, die zur aktuell angezeigten Folie gehören. Weitere Verbesserungen und Anpassungen des Systems, z.B. des Audience Response Systems, werden in dieser Arbeit beschrieben. Diese Arbeit berichtet über eine Evaluation von Backstage in vier großen Vorlesungen. Die Ergebnisse sind vielversprechend. So begrüßten die Studenten den Einsatz von Backstage. Backstage erhöhte nicht nur die Interaktivität sondern trug auch zur sozialen Awareness bei, die eine Voraussetzung für eine aktive Teilnahme ist. Die Backchannel-Kommunikation war zu einem hohen Grad vorlesungsbezogen. Zudem konnte in einer weiteren Studie, die zusammen mit Pädagogen durchgeführt wurde, gezeigt werden, dass Studenten ihre mobilen Endgeräte in Backstage-unterstützten Vorlesungen mehr für vorlesungsbezogene Aktivitäten genutzt haben als in konventionellen Vorlesungen, in welchen die mobilen Endgeräte hauptsächlich für vorlesungsfremde Aktivitäten genutzt wurden. Um soziale Kontrolle auf dem Backchannel zu etablieren, untersucht diese Arbeit Rating und Ranking von Backchannel-Nachrichten. Darüber hinaus schlägt diese Arbeit ein Reputationssystem vor, das als Ziel hat, einen Anreiz für erwünschtes Verhalten auf dem Backchannel zu schaffen. Das Reputationssystem basiert auf einer Eigenvektor-Zentralität, die an Googles PageRank angelehnt ist. Es ist zu einem hohen Grad anpassbar und ermöglicht auch die Berücksichtigung von Quizleistungen in der Berechnung von Reputation. Alle diese Ansätze, Rating, Ranking und Reputationssysteme haben sich in allgemeinen sozialen Medien als sehr effektive Mittel für soziale Kontrolle erwiesen

Writing on the wall:How the use of technology can open dialogical spaces in lectures

This article discusses experiences using an online collaborative whiteboard to provide dialogical spaces (Wegerif, 2013) for students to reflect on their understanding of concepts in lectures in two higher-education courses: one in psychology and the other in teacher education. When describing dialogical spaces, the following terms are crucial: opening (how the dialogical space is enabled), widening (how many different voices and perspectives it allows for) and deepening (the extent of critical reflections that it provides). The research question is: ‘What kind of affordances are there in using a collaborative whiteboard to support the dimensions of opening, widening and deepening dialogical spaces in lectures?’ Audio recordings of peer discussions, material produced in lectures, focus-group interviews with students and course evaluations from teachers are used to examine the activities through the analytical lenses of opening, widening and deepening dialogical spaces. The focus is on how creative knowledge processes are stimulated through dialogue. Based on the two cases, we argue that opening dialogical spaces provides students with rich possibilities to reflect on concepts and develop arguments, thereby providing feedback on students’ understanding of course content. Students bring a range of perspectives and experiences to the scene, thereby widening such spaces. For lecturers, the critical point was to deepen the spaces and orchestrate a dialogue with students. We found the concept of a dialogical space to be fruitful for planning and assessing discussion-based activities in the context of the lecture format.publishedVersio

Learning Analytics Dashboard for Teaching with Twitter

As social media takes root in our society, more University instructors are incorporating platforms like Twitter into their classroom. However, few of the current Learning Analytics (LA) systems process social media data for instructional interventions and evaluation. As a result, instructors who are using social media cannot easily assess their students’ learning progress or use the data to adjust their lessons in real time. We surveyed 54 university instructors to better understand how they use social media in the classroom; we then used these results to design and evaluate our own Twitter-centric LA dashboard. The overarching goals for this project were to 1) assist instructors in determining whether their particular use of Twitter met their teaching objectives, and 2) help system designers navigate the nuance of designing LA dashboards for social media platforms

Adapting an Awareness Tool for Massive Courses: the Case of ClassON

Abstract: In this paper we analyse the challenges posed to teachers and students in massive face-to-face classes and explore how existing solutions can be applied to these contexts. In particular, we focus on classON 1 , a tool that provides teachers and students with the appropriate information to make the most out of face-to-face sessions in the computer lab. classON has been well tested in small-medium face-to-face lab sessions and we discuss some of its characteristics (current ones and foreseen) to adapt it to massive courses. As a result, we provide a set of recommendations for adapting tools to support massive face-to-face learning activities

Sistema de soporte a la interacción basado en datos para promover el aprendizaje activo y colaborativo

En este proyecto se hará uso de la tecnología para tratar de mejorar la experiencia en la enseñanza del profesor y los alumnos. Se busca dar solución a dos problemas que surgen a menudo en las sesiones practicas; la gestión de las dudas y la falta de información en tiempo real para el profesor. Para ello, se diseña ClassOn, una aplicación web que incluye las siguientes funcionalidades: Creación de un sistema de gestión de dudas que permita a los alumnos subir sus dudas a la aplicación y facilite al profesor la selección del orden en el que atiende a los alumnos. Creación de un mapa de la clase con información de los alumnos que se encuentran en ella, proporcionando así al profesor la visualización de su progreso en tiempo real. El objetivo de este proyecto es terminar el desarrollo de la última versión de ClassOn, consiguiendo que la aplicación incluya las funcionalidades descritas y que sea una herramienta intuitiva, efectiva y adaptativa para distintos dispositivos.Technology is advancing daily and most of the fields get benefit with the new digital tools and facilities that technology offers. In the field of teaching, using these technology tools improves significantly the learning experience. For example, there are tools which may promote collaboration and interaction between students, optimize teacher’s work time or just host academic material. In this project, technology will be used in order to improve the learning experience. It is pretended to resolve two main problems that are usually generated in practical sessions; bad management of students’ doubts and teacher’s lost of awareness of students’ progress. In order to resolve these problems, ClassOn was created. ClassOn is a web tool which includes these characteristics: It helps to improve teacher’s management of the doubts with a system that allows students to upload doubts and send them directly to the tether. Also, it helps the teacher to select the correct order to answer those doubts. It provides the teacher awareness tools in order to give him real time information about students’ progress. The main objective of this project is developing ClassOn new version. The tool must include the two previously described characteristics and it must be an intuitive, effective and adaptive application.Ingeniería de Sistemas Audiovisuale

Pervasive learning analytics for fostering learners' self-regulation

Today's tertiary STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in Europe poses problems to both teachers and students. With growing enrolment numbers, and numbers of teaching staff that are outmatched by this growth, student-teacher contact becomes more and more difficult to provide. Therefore, students are required to quickly adopt self-regulated and autonomous learning styles when entering European universities. Furthermore, teachers are required to divide their attention between large numbers of students. As a consequence, classical teaching formats of STEM education which often encompass experimentation or active exploration, become harder to implement. Educational software holds the promise of easing these problems, or, if not fully solving, at least of making them less acute: Learning Analytics generated by such software can foster self-regulation by providing students with both formative feedback and assessments. Educational software, in form of collaborative social media, makes it easier for teachers to collaborate, allows to reduce their workload and enables learning and teaching formats otherwise infeasible in large classes. The contribution of this thesis is threefold: Firstly, it reports on a social medium for tertiary STEM education called "Backstage2 / Projects" aimed specifically at these points: Improving learners' self-regulation by providing pervasive Learning Analytics, fostering teacher collaboration so as to reduce their workload, and providing means to deploy a variety of classical and novel learning and teaching formats in large classes. Secondly, it reports on several case studies conducted with that medium which point at the effectiveness of the medium and its provided Learning Analytics to increase learners' self-regulation, reduce teachers' workload, and improve how students learn. Thirdly, this thesis reports on findings from Learning Analytics which could be used in the future in designing further teaching and learning formats or case studies, yielding a rich perspective for future research and indications for improving tertiary STEM education