Designing on-demand education for simultaneous development of domain-specific and self-directed learning skills

On-demand education enables individual learners to choose their learning pathways according to their own learning needs. They must use self-directed learning (SDL) skills involving self-assessment and task selection to determine appropriate pathways for learning. Learners who lack these skills must develop them because SDL skills are prerequisite to developing domain-specific skills. This article describes the design of an on-demand learning environment developed to enable novices to simultaneously develop their SDL and domain-specific skills. Learners received advice on their self-assessments and their selections of subsequent learning tasks. In the domain of system dynamics – a way to model a dynamic system and draw graphs depicting the system’s behaviour over time – advice on self-assessment is provided in a scoring rubric containing relevant performance standards. Advice on task selection indicates all relevant task aspects to be taken into account, including recommendations for suitable learning tasks which meet the individual learner’s needs. This article discusses the design of the environment and the learners’ perceptions of its usefulness. Most of the times, the learners found the advice appropriate and they followed it in 78% of their task selections

Developing the scales on evaluation beliefs of student teachers

The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the validity and the reliability of a newly developed questionnaire named ‘Teacher Evaluation Beliefs’ (TEB). The framework for developing items was provided by the two models. The first model focuses on Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered beliefs about evaluation while the other centers on five dimensions (what/ who/ when/ why/ how). The validity and reliability of the new instrument was investigated using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis study (n=446). Overall results indicate that the two-factor structure is more reasonable than the five-factor one. Further research needs additional items about the latent dimensions “what” ”who” ”when” ”why” “how” for each existing factor based on Student-centered and Teacher-centered approaches

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

THE ROLE OF AN INTEGRATED E-LEARNING PLATFORM IN INCREASING THE PROCESSMANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY

This paper aims to present the steps taken and solutions implemented at the Cisco Networking Academy of the University of Bucharest in order to increase the process-management efficiency and the student satisfaction degree, mainly via the implementation of an own e-learning learning platform.The results are a significant improvement of work relationships, due to the fact that everyone's responsibilities are clearly defined together with the expectations for each employee. Furthermore, productivity tools enable us and our instructors to concentrate on increasing the quality of our students' learning experience in order to obtain even higher degrees of student satisfaction, retention, and promovability as a direct measure of teaching/learning success.Instructor Experience, User satisfaction, E-learning platform, Management Module, Student Assessment

IS2020 A Competency Model for Undergraduate Programs in Information Systems: The Joint ACM/AIS IS2020 Task Force

The IS2020 report is the latest in a series of model curricula recommendations and guidelines for undergraduate degrees in Information Systems (IS). The report builds on the foundations developed in previous model curricula reports to develop a major revision of the model curriculum with the inclusion of significant new characteristics. Specifically, the IS2020 report does not directly prescribe a degree structure that targets a specific context or environment. Rather, the IS2020 report provides guidance regarding the core content of the curriculum that should be present but also provides flexibility to customize curricula according to local institutional needs

Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4: summary report

The research project on Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4 was a major initiative funded by Becta to investigate the use and impact of such technologies in and out of school. The purpose of this research was to help shape Becta's own thinking and inform policy-makers, schools and local authorities on the potential benefits of Web 2.0 technologies and how their use can be effectively and safely realised. This document is he summary of the reports published for this project

Developments in ESP: from register analysis to a genre-based and CLIL-based approach

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has developed in the last five decades in response to learners’ communicative needs in specific scientific fields and professional settings. Since its emergence in the 1960s the number of publications on ESP has spread both on a theoretical and practical basis, although the bulk of the research has focused on ESP pedagogy, syllabus, course design and classroom-based practice. The present paper aims to trace the evolution of ESP from the beginning of the movement in the mid-1960s to the present day. We will see that the major ESP developments are in consonance with developments in the fields of theoretical and applied linguistics.  In this light, four phases can be distinguished: (1) mid-1960 – early 1970s; (2) mid-1970s – mid-1980s; (3) mid-1980s – 1990s; (4) 2000–present. Another outstanding development in ESP is related to the predominance of the different ESP strands. While English for Science and Technology was dominant in early ESP, today English for Academic Purposes and Business English are the largest areas of activity

Do Learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education

This article takes a critical look at three pervasive urban legends in education about the nature of learners, learning, and teaching and looks atwhat educational and psychological research has to say about them. The three legends can be seen as variations on one central theme, namely, that it is the learner who knows best and that she or he should be the controlling force in her or his learning. The first legend is one of learners as digital natives who form a generation of students knowing by nature how to learn from new media, and for whom “old” media and methods used in teaching/learning no longer work. The second legend is the widespread belief that learners have specific learning styles and that education should be individualized to the extent that the pedagogy of teaching/learning is matched to the preferred style of the learner. The final legend is that learners ought to be seen as self-educators who should be given maximum control over what they are learning and their learning trajectory. It concludes with a possible reason why these legends have taken hold, are so pervasive, and are so difficult to eradicate

Teaching and learning in information retrieval

A literature review of pedagogical methods for teaching and learning information retrieval is presented. From the analysis of the literature a taxonomy was built and it is used to structure the paper. Information Retrieval (IR) is presented from different points of view: technical levels, educational goals, teaching and learning methods, assessment and curricula. The review is organized around two levels of abstraction which form a taxonomy that deals with the different aspects of pedagogy as applied to information retrieval. The first level looks at the technical level of delivering information retrieval concepts, and at the educational goals as articulated by the two main subject domains where IR is delivered: computer science (CS) and library and information science (LIS). The second level focuses on pedagogical issues, such as teaching and learning methods, delivery modes (classroom, online or e-learning), use of IR systems for teaching, assessment and feedback, and curricula design. The survey, and its bibliography, provides an overview of the pedagogical research carried out in the field of IR. It also provides a guide for educators on approaches that can be applied to improving the student learning experiences

A Multimedia Approach to Game-Based Training: Exploring the Effects of the Modality and Temporal Contiguity Principles on Learning in a Virtual Environment

There is an increasing interest in using video games as a means to deliver training to individuals learning new skills or tasks. However, current research lacks a clear method of developing effective instructional material when these games are used as training tools and explaining how gameplay may affect learning. The literature contains multiple approaches to training and GBT but generally lacks a foundational-level and theoretically relevant approach to how people learn specifically from video games and how to design instructional guidance within these gaming environments. This study investigated instructional delivery within GBT. Video games are a form of multimedia, consisting of both imagery and sounds. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML; Mayer 2005) explicitly describes how people learn from multimedia information, consisting of a combination of narration (words) and animation (pictures). This study empirically examined the effects of the modality and temporal contiguity principles on learning in a game-based virtual environment. Based on these principles, it was hypothesized that receiving either voice or embedded training would result in better performance on learning measures. Additionally, receiving a combination of voice and embedded training would lead to better performance on learning measures than all other instructional conditions. A total of 128 participants received training on the role and procedures related to the combat lifesaver - a non-medical soldier who receives additional training on combat-relevant lifesaving medical procedures. Training sessions involved an instructional presentation manipulated along the modality (voice or text) and temporal contiguity (embedded in the game or presented before gameplay) principles. Instructional delivery was manipulated in a 2x2 between-subjects design with four instructional conditions: Upfront-Voice, Upfront-Text, Embedded-Voice, and Embedded-Text. Results indicated that: (1) upfront instruction led to significantly better retention performance than embedded instructional regardless of delivery modality; (2) receiving voice-based instruction led to better transfer performance than text-based instruction regardless of presentation timing; (3) no differences in performance were observed on the simple application test between any instructional conditions; and (4) a significant interaction of modality-by-temporal contiguity was obtained. Simple effects analysis indicated differing effects along modality within the embedded instruction group, with voice recipients performing better than text (p = .012). Individual group comparisons revealed that the upfront-voice group performed better on retention than both embedded groups (p = .006), the embedded-voice group performed better on transfer than the upfront text group (p = .002), and the embedded-voice group performed better on the complex application test than the embedded-text group (p =.012). Findings indicated partial support for the application of the modality and temporal contiguity principles of CTML in interactive GBT. Combining gameplay (i.e., practice) with instructional presentation both helps and hinders working memory\u27s ability to process information. Findings also explain how expanding CTML into game-based training may fundamentally change how a person processes information as a function of the specific type of knowledge being taught. Results will drive future systematic research to test and determine the most effective means of designing instruction for interactive GBT. Further theoretical and practical implications will be discussed