Self-Flipped Classroom Reuse of Student-Produced Videos for Flipped Classrooms

Ph. D. ThesisThe cultures of social media and prosumerism enter the domain of modern education and power a shift towards learner-centred active learning with a focus on learning through making in nearly every subject, discipline and level of teaching. Keeping pace with these changes requires pedagogical innovation and motivates us to develop and evaluate a new instructional and learning approach that is built on the reuse of student-produced content. This research has defined such a pedagogical approach, the Self-Flipped Classroom, built on the synergy of Flipped Classroom and learning through making pedagogies. In the proposed approach, the self- part of the name refers to materials that students produce as part of their own learning; and the -flip part of the name refers to reuse of these materials by instructors for teaching other students in the flipped classroom pedagogical model. This thesis presents the Self-Flipped Classroom both from theoretical and practical viewpoints, and discusses the experience of implementing the approach in courses related to Human-Computer Interaction discipline in two universities (Newcastle University, UK and Uppsala University, Sweden). The main contribution of this work is twofold. First, theoretical – in terms of the positioning of the new pedagogy within existing theories and pedagogical approaches. Second, practical – in presenting the testing and evaluation of two variants of the approach (the Distributed and the Enclosed Self-Flipped Classrooms) in real case studies. Anyone who is interested in trying the approach in their own practice will find the results of the presented case studies to be informative from two perspectives: a) student attitudes to and experiences of the Self-Flipped Classroom; b) associated benefits and challenges of the Self-Flipped Classroom for instructors. As part of the investigation of student experiences of the presented approach, this thesis explores lifelong learning skills development (media literacy, collaboration, attribution and others) that are found amid other benefits for students who engage with the Self-Flipped Classroom. The presented research has been conducted in the context of Computer Science education, however, the presented results, and particularly the proposed Self-Flipped Classroom approach, can be applicable to other disciplines.Newcastle Universit

Valuing diversity and establishing an approach to supporting excluded groups

Minority students and minority employees in Higher Engineering Education experience inequality. For academic staff these inequalities impact their personal development and career progression. To continue to grow and for engineering education to thrive as a professional discipline we must encourage diversity within both the student and staff populations. This paper cautions against a simple notion of diversity, rather a truly diverse culture within engineering is needed, one in which there is diversity of opportunity, diversity of thought and diversity of experience. To enable a more inclusive environment to flourish we must understand the scale of the inequalities which exist. However, this paper demonstrates that there are significant limitations to the current diversity data within the UK which leaves room for under-reporting and over-generalising. In addition, there are cultural challenges which give further likelihood to non-disclosure and lack of self-reporting. This paper proposes that further research is needed into the true lack of diversity within engineering and describes one example of a ‘thought experiment’ conducted by the researchers to start unpacking the data and highlighting the scale of the issue

Talents behind innovative teaching: Blended learning strategies from teaching and learning agents of MMU

In this book, “TALENTs Behind Innovative Teaching: Blended Learning Strategies from MMU’s Teaching and Learning Agents”, academics and blended learning trainers from all MMU faculties present their strategies on engaging their students. Written by ADEPT’s Teaching and Learning Agents (TALENTs), academic staff who conduct Blended Learning trainings for the University, and are the Blended Learning Champions in their respective faculties, these chapters showcase their work in their classes in bringing blended learning into the curriculum and how these approaches have made their classes more interesting

public class Graphic_Design implements Code { // Yes, but how? }: An investigation towards bespoke Creative Coding programming courses in graphic design education

Situated in the intersection of graphic design, computer science, and pedagogy, this dissertation investigates how programming is taught within graphic design education. The research adds to the understanding of the process, practice, and challenges associated with introducing an audience of visually inclined practitioners—who are often guided by instinct—to the formal and unforgiving world of syntax, algorithms, and logic. Motivating the research is a personal desire to contribute towards the development of bespoke contextualized syllabi specifically designed to accommodate how graphic designers learn, understand, and use programming as an integral skill in their vocational practice.The initial literature review identifies a gap needing to be filled to increase both practical and theoretical knowledge within the interdisciplinary field of computational graphic design. This gap concerns a lack of solid, empirically based epistemological frameworks for teaching programming to non-programmers in a visual context, partly caused by a dichotomy in traditional pedagogical practices associated with teaching programming and graphic design, respectively. Based on this gap, the overarching research question posed in this dissertation is: “How should programming ideally be taught to graphic designers to account for how they learn and how they intend to integrate programming into their vocational practice?”A mixed methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative analyses is taken to answer the research questions. The three papers comprising the dissertation are all built on individual hypotheses that are subsequently used to define three specific research questions.Paper 1 performs a quantitative mapping of contemporary, introductory programming courses taught in design schools to establish a broader understanding of their structure and content. The paper concludes that most courses are planned to favor programming concepts rather than graphic design concepts. The paper’s finding can serve as a point of departure for a critical discussion among researchers and educators regarding the integration of programming in graphic design education.Paper 2 quantitatively assesses how the learning style profile of graphic design students compares with that of students in technical disciplines. The paper identifies a number of significant differences that call for a variety of pedagogic and didactic strategies to be employed by educators to effectively teach programming to graphic designers. Based on the results, specific recommendations are given.Paper 3 proposes a hands-on, experiential pedagogic method specifically designed to introduce graphic design students to programming. The method relies on pre-existing commercial graphic design specimens to contextualize programming into a domain familiar to graphic designers. The method was tested on the target audience and observations on its use are reported. Qualitative evaluation of student feedback suggests the method is effective and well-received. Additionally, twenty-four heuristics that elaborate and extend the paper’s findings by interweaving other relevant and influential sources encountered during the research project are provided. Together, the literature review, the three papers, and the heuristics provide comprehensive and valuable theoretical and practical insights to both researchers and educators, regarding key aspects related to introducing programming as a creative practice in graphic design education

Design Knowledge for Virtual Learning Companions from a Value-centered Perspective

The increasing popularity of conversational agents such as ChatGPT has sparked interest in their potential use in educational contexts but undermines the role of companionship in learning with these tools. Our study targets the design of virtual learning companions (VLCs), focusing on bonding relationships for collaborative learning while facilitating students’ time management and motivation. We draw upon design science research (DSR) to derive prescriptive design knowledge for VLCs as the core of our contribution. Through three DSR cycles, we conducted interviews with working students and experts, held interdisciplinary workshops with the target group, designed and evaluated two conceptual prototypes, and fully coded a VLC instantiation, which we tested with students in class. Our approach has yielded 9 design principles, 28 meta-requirements, and 33 design features centered around the value-in-interaction. These encompass Human-likeness and Dialogue Management, Proactive and Reactive Behavior, and Relationship Building on the Relationship Layer (DP1,3,4), Adaptation (DP2) on the Matching Layer, as well as Provision of Supportive Content, Fostering Learning Competencies, Motivational Environment, and Ethical Responsibility (DP5-8) on the Service Layer

‘LECTURE’ AND INNOVATION FOR SOCIETY ERA 5.0

Introduction The study of human-computer interaction, abbreviated as HCI, is a field of research that inevitably must evolve along with shifting trends in the technological landscape especially in the digital age. The last fifteen years have seen a very dramatic acceleration in the rate of change due to the proliferation of personal mobile devices, agent-based technologies, and pervasive and ubiquitous computing. The way people us