A little and often: unanticipated outcomes from an ePortfolio evaluation impacting on early identification of risk and non submission of work

Since 2005 all staff and students within the University of Wolverhampton have had access to an ePortfolio system - PebblePad. In 2007 the University ran a HEA Pathfinder Project 'embedding ePortfolio at level 1' which involved 1800 level 1 learners and 31 members of staff across all academic schools. The staff development activities used to develop teacher capabilities tried to mirror the student experience to great success. The knowledge gained from this project was then taken into a University-wide impact evaluation. The evaluation identified anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of pedagogic processes for personal development planning (PDP) and e-portfolio development. This paper will deal with two key areas: 1 the early identification of risk and 2 the reduction in non-submission of work. This work now feeds into the University's Blended Learning Strategy (2008). The overarching aims of this strategy are to enhance student learning and to improve each student's learning experience. This is articulated via student entitlements of which the following are directly addressed by this work: All students should be entitled to: formative assessment/s opportunities on line with meaningful electronic assessment feedback; have the opportunity to participate in electronic Personal Development Planning (ePDP); The paper will look at how an ePortfolio system was used to develop learner skills, learner support issues and how staff from a central department worked with discipline-based staff to help support their students, finally addressing institutional strategy and support issues

Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning:Facilitating competence development through a learning path specification

Janssen, J. (2010). Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning. Facilitating competence development through a learning path specification. September, 17, 2010, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University of the Netherlands, CELSTEC. SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2010-36. ISBN 978-90-79447-43-5Efficient and effective lifelong learning requires that learners can make well informed decisions regarding the selection of a learning path, i.e. a set of learning actions that help attain particular learning goals. In recent decades a strong emphasis on lifelong learning has led educational provision to expand and to become more varied and flexible. Besides, the role of informal learning has become increasingly acknowledged. In light of these developments this thesis addresses the question: How to support learners in finding their way through all available options and selecting a learning path that best fit their needs? The thesis describes two different approaches regarding the provision of way finding support, which can be considered complementary. The first, inductive approach proposes to provide recommendations based on indirect social interaction: analysing the paths followed by other learners and feeding this information back as advice to learners facing navigational decisions. The second, prescriptive approach proposes to use a learning path specification to describe both the contents and the structure of any learning path in a formal and uniform way. This facilitates comparison and selection of learning paths across institutions and systems, but also enables automated provision of way finding support for a chosen learning path. Moreover, it facilitates automated personalisation of a learning path, i.e. adapting the learning path to the needs of a particular learner. Following the first approach a recommender system was developed and tested in an experimental setting. Results showed use of the system significantly enhanced effectiveness of learning. In line with the second approach a learning path specification was developed and validated in three successive evaluations. Firstly, an investigation of lifelong learners’ information needs. Secondly, an evaluation of the specification through a reference (sample) implementation: a tool to describe learning paths according to the specification. Finally, an evaluation of the use and purpose of this tool involving prospective end-users: study advisors and learning designers. Following the various evaluations the Learning Path Specification underwent some changes over time. Results described in this thesis show that the proposed approach of the Learning Path Specification and the reference implementation were well received by end-users.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

DIDET: Digital libraries for distributed, innovative design education and teamwork. Final project report

The central goal of the DIDET Project was to enhance student learning opportunities by enabling them to partake in global, team based design engineering projects, in which they directly experience different cultural contexts and access a variety of digital information sources via a range of appropriate technology. To achieve this overall project goal, the project delivered on the following objectives: 1. Teach engineering information retrieval, manipulation, and archiving skills to students studying on engineering degree programs. 2. Measure the use of those skills in design projects in all years of an undergraduate degree program. 3. Measure the learning performance in engineering design courses affected by the provision of access to information that would have been otherwise difficult to access. 4. Measure student learning performance in different cultural contexts that influence the use of alternative sources of information and varying forms of Information and Communications Technology. 5. Develop and provide workshops for staff development. 6. Use the measurement results to annually redesign course content and the digital libraries technology. The overall DIDET Project approach was to develop, implement, use and evaluate a testbed to improve the teaching and learning of students partaking in global team based design projects. The use of digital libraries and virtual design studios was used to fundamentally change the way design engineering is taught at the collaborating institutions. This was done by implementing a digital library at the partner institutions to improve learning in the field of Design Engineering and by developing a Global Team Design Project run as part of assessed classes at Strathclyde, Stanford and Olin. Evaluation was carried out on an ongoing basis and fed back into project development, both on the class teaching model and the LauLima system developed at Strathclyde to support teaching and learning. Major findings include the requirement to overcome technological, pedagogical and cultural issues for successful elearning implementations. A need for strong leadership has been identified, particularly to exploit the benefits of cross-discipline team working. One major project output still being developed is a DIDET Project Framework for Distributed Innovative Design, Education and Teamwork to encapsulate all project findings and outputs. The project achieved its goal of embedding major change to the teaching of Design Engineering and Strathclyde's new Global Design class has been both successful and popular with students

Teaching Construction in the Virtual University: the WINDS project

This paper introduces some of the Information Technology solutions adopted in Web based INtelligent Design Support (WINDS) to support education in A/E/C design. The WINDS project WINDS is an EC-funded project in the 5th Framework, Information Society Technologies programme, Flexible University key action. WINDS is divided into two actions: ·The research technology action is going to implement a learning environment integrating an intelligent tutoring system, a computer instruction management system and a set of co-operative supporting tools. ·The development action is going to build a large knowledge base supporting Architecture and Civil Engineering Design Courses and to experiment a comprehensive Virtual School of Architecture and Engineering Design. During the third year of the project, more than 400 students all over Europe will attend the Virtual School. During the next three years the WINDS project will span a total effort of about 150 man-years from 28 partners of 10 European countries. The missions of the WINDS project are: Advanced Methodologies in Design Education. WINDS drives a breakdown with conventional models in design education, i.e. classroom or distance education. WINDS implements a problem oriented knowledge transfer methodology following Roger Schank's Goal Based Scenario (GBS) pedagogical methodology. GBS encourages the learning of both skills and cases, and fosters creative problem solving. Multidisciplinary Design Education. Design requires creative synthesis and open-end problem definition at the intersection of several disciplines. WINDS experiments a valuable integration of multidisciplinary design knowledge and expertise to produce a high level standard of education. Innovative Representation, Delivery and Access to Construction Education. WINDS delivers individual education customisation by allowing the learner access through the Internet to a wide range of on-line courses and structured learning objects by means of personally tailored learning strategies. WINDS promotes the 3W paradigm: learn What you need, Where you want, When you require. Construction Practice. Construction industry is a repository of ""best practices"" and knowledge that the WINDS will profit. WINDS system benefits the ISO10303 and IFC standards to acquire knowledge of the construction process directly in digital format. On the other hand, WINDS reengineers the knowledge in up-to-date courses, educational services, which the industries can use to provide just-in-time rather than in-advance learning. WINDS IT Solutions The missions of the WINDS project state many challenging requirements both in knowledge and system architecture. Many of the solutions adopted in these fields are innovative; others are evolution of existing technologies. This paper focuses on the integration of this set of state-of-the-art technologies in an advanced and functionally sound Computer Aided Instruction system for A/E/C Design. In particular the paper deals with the following aspects: Standard Learning Technology Architecture The WINDS system relies on the in progress IEEE 1484.1 Learning Technology Standard Architecture. According to this standard the system consists of two data stores, the Knowledge Library and the Record Database, and four process: System Coach, Delivery, Evaluation and the Learner. WINDS implements the Knowledge Library into a three-tier architecture: 1.Learning Objects: ·Learning Units are collections of text and multimedia data. ·Models are represented in either IFC or STEP formats. ·Cases are sets of Learning Units and Models. Cases are noteworthy stories, which describes solutions, integrate technical detail, contain relevant design failures etc. 2.Indexes refer to the process in which the identification of relevant topics in design cases and learning units takes place. Indexing process creates structures of Learning Objects for course management, profile planning procedures and reasoning processes. 3.Courses are taxonomies of either Learning Units or a design task and Course Units. Knowledge Representation WINDS demonstrates that it is possible and valuable to integrate a widespread design expertise so that it can be effectively used to produce a high level standard of education. To this aim WINDS gathers area knowledge, design skills and expertise under the umbrellas of common knowledge representation structures and unambiguous semantics. Cases are one of the most valuable means for the representation of design expertise. A Case is a set of Learning Units and Product Models. Cases are noteworthy stories, which describe solutions, integrate technical details, contain relevant design failures, etc. Knowledge Integration Indexes are a medium among different kind of knowledge: they implement networks for navigation and access to disparate documents: HTML, video, images, CAD and product models (STEP or IFC). Concept indexes link learning topics to learning objects and group them into competencies. Index relationships are the base of the WINDS reasoning processes, and provide the foundation for system coaching functions, which proactively suggest strategies, solutions, examples and avoids students' design deadlock. Knowledge Distribution To support the data stores and the process among the partners in 10 countries efficiently, WINDS implements an object oriented client/server as COM objects. Behind the DCOM components there is the Dynamic Kernel, which dynamically embodies and maintains data stores and process. Components of the Knowledge Library can reside on several servers across the Internet. This provides for distributed transactions, e.g. a change in one Learning Object affects the Knowledge Library spread across several servers in different countries. Learning objects implemented as COM objects can wrap ownership data. Clear and univocal definition of ownerships rights enables Universities, in collaboration with telecommunication and publisher companies, to act as "education brokers". Brokerage in education and training is an innovative paradigm to provide just-in-time and personally customised value added learning knowledg

Creating, implementing, and evaluating a teacher mentoring program for the Mary Bray Elementary and Raymond W. Kershaw schools in the Mount Ephraim School District

This paper describes key aspects of creating, implementing, and evaluating a teacher mentoring program and handbook. Novice and veteran teachers benefit from a district teacher mentoring program which provides an effective staff development approach for beginning teachers. A novice teacher benefits from a strong start in their career by belonging to a learning community, following a structured induction program, and being mentored by an experienced teacher. Veteran teachers benefit from the sharing, dialogue, and learning during the mentoring process. A mentor group provides a strong training framework that contributes to teacher retention in the school system. Districts are responsible for providing the mentors and mentees with the research, best practice, program design, expectations, support, training and opportunities, format for program evaluation, and correlating collaborative programs for a district teacher mentoring program. Joint analysis of ideas regarding learning to teach and mentoring includes teachers\u27 ideas about what makes a good professional and understanding of professional priorities. The findings are based on the results of interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and observations conducted between September 2003 and March 2004 to 14 elementary school teachers and mentors in the Mount Ephraim New Jersey School District

A generic architecture for interactive intelligent tutoring systems

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 07/06/2001.This research is focused on developing a generic intelligent architecture for an interactive tutoring system. A review of the literature in the areas of instructional theories, cognitive and social views of learning, intelligent tutoring systems development methodologies, and knowledge representation methods was conducted. As a result, a generic ITS development architecture (GeNisa) has been proposed, which combines the features of knowledge base systems (KBS) with object-oriented methodology. The GeNisa architecture consists of the following components: a tutorial events communication module, which encapsulates the interactive processes and other independent computations between different components; a software design toolkit; and an autonomous knowledge acquisition from a probabilistic knowledge base. A graphical application development environment includes tools to support application development, and learning environments and which use a case scenario as a basis for instruction. The generic architecture is designed to support client-side execution in a Web browser environment, and further testing will show that it can disseminate applications over the World Wide Web. Such an architecture can be adapted to different teaching styles and domains, and reusing instructional materials automatically can reduce the effort of the courseware developer (hence cost and time) in authoring new materials. GeNisa was implemented using Java scripts, and subsequently evaluated at various commercial and academic organisations. Parameters chosen for the evaluation include quality of courseware, relevancy of case scenarios, portability to other platforms, ease of use, content, user-friendliness, screen display, clarity, topic interest, and overall satisfaction with GeNisa. In general, the evaluation focused on the novel characteristics and performances of the GeNisa architecture in comparison with other ITS and the results obtained are discussed and analysed. On the basis of the experience gained during the literature research and GeNisa development and evaluation. a generic methodology for ITS development is proposed as well as the requirements for the further development of ITS tools. Finally, conclusions are drawn and areas for further research are identified

Personality representation: predicting behaviour for personalised learning support

The need for personalised support systems comes from the growing number of students that are being supported within institutions with shrinking resources. Over the last decade the use of computers and the Internet within education has become more predominant. This opens up a range of possibilities in regard to spreading that resource further and more effectively. Previous attempts to create automated systems such as intelligent tutoring systems and learning companions have been criticised for being pedagogically ineffective and relying on large knowledge sources which restrict their domain of application. More recent work on adaptive hypermedia has resolved some of these issues but has been criticised for the lack of support scope, focusing on learning paths and alternative content presentation. The student model used within these systems is also of limited scope and often based on learning history or learning styles.This research examines the potential of using a personality theory as the basis for a personalisation mechanism within an educational support system. The automated support system is designed to utilise a personality based profile to predict student behaviour. This prediction is then used to select the most appropriate feedback from a selection of reflective hints for students performing lab based programming activities. The rationale for the use of personality is simply that this is the concept psychologists use for identifying individual differences and similarities which are expressed in everyday behaviour. Therefore the research has investigated how these characteristics can be modelled in order to provide a fundamental understanding of the student user and thus be able to provide tailored support. As personality is used to describe individuals across many situations and behaviours, the use of such at the core of a personalisation mechanism may overcome the issues of scope experienced by previous methods.This research poses the following question: can a representation of personality be used to predict behaviour within a software system, in such a way, as to be able to personalise support?Putting forward the central claim that it is feasible to capture and represent personality within a software system for the purpose of personalising services.The research uses a mixed methods approach including a number and combination of quantitative and qualitative methods for both investigation and determining the feasibility of this approach.The main contribution of the thesis has been the development of a set of profiling models from psychological theories, which account for both individual differences and group similarities, as a means of personalising services. These are then applied to the development of a prototype system which utilises a personality based profile. The evidence from the evaluation of the developed prototype system has demonstrated an ability to predict student behaviour with limited success and personalise support.The limitations of the evaluation study and implementation difficulties suggest that the approach taken in this research is not feasible. Further research and exploration is required –particularly in the application to a subject area outside that of programming

Supporting knowledge transformation with Teams-mediated networked learning

Transfer between school and education - and more generally between persons' life practices - is a recurring issue within educational research. On the one hand, very generally speaking, the possibility of transfer is a prime rationale of the educational system - students are supposed to learn within education "something" which they can then use later in other contexts. On the other hand, theoretical and empirical research combine to question transfer both as a concept and as an empirically occurring phenomenon. This short paper reports on an ongoing Design-Based Research project with educators at The Business School. The outset for the project is the combination of a practice problem, experienced at The Business School, and the present authors' research interest in developing theoretically sound, operationalizable design principles to support students in learning to perform transfer and knowledge transformation. The practice problem at The Business School concerned the limited degree to which students (in their educators' experience) make use of their learning at school in their internship practice. The Design-Based Research project concerns the development and evaluation of design principles focusing on networked learning in mediator activities to facilitate students in performing transfer between school and internship. Microsoft Teams has been chosen by The Business School as the ICT platform to support the networked learning activities. We are inspired by a moderate situated learning approach to transfer which emphasizes the role of framing, the sense-making of the individual, the significance of anchorage of activities in primary contexts and of developed patterns of participation, as well as the thesis that context-dependency is itself context-dependent. Informed by this approach in combination with insights from networked learning research, we have formulated three design principles together with the educators at The Business School. The design principles address the practice problem identified by The Business School educators and take into account the aims of the educators as well as results from a pilot study. Through the Design-Based Research study the following research question and sub-questions are investigated: How can Teams-mediated networked learning support students at The Business School in transfer and transforming knowledge between school and internship? What are design principles for Teams-mediated networked learning to support knowledge transformation? What knowledge transfers and how does it transform in Teams-mediated networked learning for The Business School students traversing between school and internship

Training evaluation: a case study of training Iranian health managers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Ministry of Health and Medical Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran has undertaken a reform of its health system, in which-lower level managers are given new roles and responsibilities in a decentralized system. To support these efforts, a United Kingdom-based university was contracted by the World Health Organization to design a series of courses for health managers and trainers. This process was also intended to develop the capacity of the National Public Health Management Centre in Tabriz, Iran, to enable it to organize relevant short courses in health management on a continuing basis. A total of seven short training courses were implemented, three in the United Kingdom and four in Tabriz, with 35 participants. A detailed evaluation of the courses was undertaken to guide future development of the training programmes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Kirkpatrick framework for evaluation of training was used to measure participants' reactions, learning, application to the job, and to a lesser extent, organizational impact. Particular emphasis was put on application of learning to the participants' job. A structured questionnaire was administered to 23 participants, out of 35, between one and 13 months after they had attended the courses. Respondents, like the training course participants, were predominantly from provincial universities, with both health system and academic responsibilities. Interviews with key informants and ex-trainees provided supplemental information, especially on organizational impact.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Participants' preferred interactive methods for learning about health planning and management. They found the course content to be relevant, but with an overemphasis on theory compared to practical, locally-specific information. In terms of application of learning to their jobs, participants found specific information and skills to be most useful, such as health systems research and group work/problem solving. The least useful areas were those that dealt with training and leadership. Participants reported little difficulty in applying learning deemed "useful", and had applied it often. In general, a learning area was used less when it was found difficult to apply, with a few exceptions, such as problem-solving. Four fifths of respondents claimed they could perform their jobs better because of new skills and more in-depth understanding of health systems, and one third had been asked to train their colleagues, indicating a potential for impact on their organization. Interviews with key informants indicated that job performance of trainees had improved.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The health management training programmes in Iran, and the external university involved in capacity building, benefited from following basic principles of good training practice, which incorporated needs assessment, selection of participants and definition of appropriate learning outcomes, course content and methods, along with focused evaluation. Contracts for external assistance should include specific mention of capacity building, and allow for the collaborative development of courses and of evaluation plans, in order to build capacity of local partners throughout the training cycle. This would also help to develop training content that uses material from local health management situations to demonstrate key theories and develop locally required skills. Training evaluations should as a minimum assess participants' reactions and learning for every course. Communication of evaluation results should be designed to ensure that data informs training activities, as well as the health and human resources managers who are investing in the development of their staff.</p

Teaching and learning first-year engineering mathematics over a distance: A critical view over two consecutive years

This article reports on the empirical results and practical aspects concerning the teaching and learning of first-year engineering mathematics at a distance. The investigation over two consecutive years (2020 and 2021) is meant to yield prospects and contribute to the development of suitable pedagogies for online mathematics teaching and learning for engineering students in South Africa in the future. In 2020, lecturers were faced with a “sudden” shift from face-to-face to online teaching and the focus was to save the academic year and leave no student behind; in 2021 the situation was unchanged. Lecturers had to consider key aspects (such as the module structure, teaching theory and practice, and perspectives on “what can work”) in the transition and continuation from face-toface to fully online and developing a suitable teaching and learning approach. Approximately 1000 first-year engineering students at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, were exposed to the newly developed online teaching and learning approach in both years. The approach includes the following key elements: an evaluation of prior knowledge by a diagnostic test; an investigation of students’ attitudes towards mathematics by means of the SATM questionnaire; weekly virtual lecture and tutorial sessions; weekly homework tasks; additional online resources; discussion forums between all role players (students, tutors and lecturers); online tutor support; the use of e-textbooks and online assessments via the university learning management system and an external platform (such as WeBWorK). Both years followed a similar approach, although slight changes were implemented in 2021. Descriptive statistics from key elements were used to monitor the students’ involvement and progress in both years. Results show the teaching and learning approach is effective but has room for improvement. Particularly, the results encourage addressing the needs of the students and lecturers when implementing pedagogical aspects in learning mathematics at a distance