Instructional Immediacy Practices in Online Learning Environments

It is essential to create an online environment where students feel motivated and engaged, in order to achieve effective learning. Online learning environments (OLEs) enable tutors to apply various methods of enhancing students’ communication, so that the issue of feeling isolated is addressed and worthwhile learning can take place. A significant body of the literature has asserted that communication practices in the classroom are an important factor to the learning process and the student-tutor relationship. Immediacy is part of communication practices that support students learning in face-to-face and online classes. This study presents the most important immediacy practices that can help tutors to enhance students’ learning by decreasing the physical and psychological distance between students and tutors in online learning and increasing student-tutor interaction. Immediacy has been shown to be a remarkable predictor of perceived online learning, positively affecting students’ interest and engagement in a course. Hence, students become more willing to participate and communicate with their tutors and peers. Tutors should therefore be aware of these practices and understand how to apply them effectively in the enhancement of students’ online learning. Keywords: Immediacy, Online learning, Student interaction, Isolation, student engagement

Online student engagement in fundamentals of Entrepreneurial acculturation during Covid-19 Outbreak

The purpose of this study is to investigate student characteristic and the level of online student engagement in entrepreneurship course. The study received 467 valid survey questionnaires from undergraduate’s student that enrolled in entrepreneurship course. The respondent is student from science cluster background. The study uses a quantitative approach, and purposive sampling was used to choose the respondents. The online survey questionnaire was self-administered using online google form and the results are analyzed using SPSS version 24. The foundation underpinned theory for this study is self-determinant theory. The results show that emotional engagement score the highest mean compare to skill engagement and participation engagement. The aims are to explore the factors influencing the online student engagement such skills engagement, emotion engagement and engagement during Covid-19 pandemic period. During the outbreak has forced all universities to adopt e-learning. The online learning is a new trend that had been practice in education 4.0. However, student engagement remains as an issue in online learning because the setting in online learning is different from traditional classroom learning. In addition, online student engagement is still considered a relatively new concept and studies are scarcely available. The findings also indicated that student prefer to choose hybrid approach in the future. These studies are important because they aim to improve online student learning by enhancing students' overall satisfaction with the experience. Second, to design and develop an interactive course where students are actively participating and involved in their class. Third, by assessing online student engagement as a potential student pathway on academic progress based on skills engagement, emotional engagement, and participation engagement, this study adds to the body of knowledge in the existing literature. A conceptual framework between online student learning and student performance should be developed for future research

How universities have responded to E-learning as a result of Covid-19 challenges

E-learning environments designed with adaptive technology in mind can help students learn and retain information more effectively by enhancing their learning experience and increasing their level of engagement. Here, students' learning styles are considered in creating an adaptable online environment, and the effects on student engagement are examined. For the sake of this study, we've also attempted to describe and compare the suggested adaptive learning environment to an existing e-learning technique. With Covid-19 in the classroom, technology advancements have grown exponentially, and this progress has coincided with the process of teaching and learning. Virtual classrooms necessitated an e-learning process since it was the most user-friendly teaching method. A descriptive, correlative, transversal and prescriptive research approach was used. An online survey was used to gather data to get a random and voluntary sample of 3560 university students from Peru. A lack of reading comprehension is an issue, but students may use communication technologies and the Internet to improve their teaching and to learn via self-learning

Using tablets for e-assessment of project-based learning

Technology is confirmed to be an effective tool for assessment and feedback, in particular for computer-assisted assessment (Irons, 2008; Challis, 2005), producing feedback (Heinrich et al., 2009) and publishing feedback (Bloxham and Boyd, 2007; Denton, 2003; Denton et al., 2008). The arrival of affordable mobile devices has introduced a new means for enhancing the above practices (Fabian and MacLean, 2014; Plimmer and Mason, 2006; Salem, 2013). Student preferences to smart phones and tablet devices steer the technological innovation towards ubiquitous mobile connectivity. Inspired by the benefits of such life and study style, educators have started exploring the use of these technologies. Tablet computers prove to become their preferred choice as they resolve some of the limitations associated with the design, readability and comprehensiveness of the feedback for mobile devices with smaller screens (Strain-Seymour, 2013, Rootman-le Grange and Lutz, 2013). This paper reports how tablets and the Form Connext mobile app have been used for engaging a sample of 300 Business Studies students in in-class online assessment and designing and providing timely comprehensive feedback. The study has followed an action research strategy that is grounded on a continuous and dynamic process of reflection (Carr and Kemmis, 2003) on the effectiveness of assessment of student projects documented electronically through wikis and electronic portfolios. It refines the use of tablets for summative and formative assessment of the project-based learning tasks through three review cycles, each of which incorporated a Reflection and Improvements stage. The experience resulted in enhancement of assessment strategies and contribution to the development of contemporary models of learning through effective assessment and feedback (Carr and Kemmis, 2003). The results of the work confirm that tablet computers are an effective tool in assessing e-materials in larger classes for two primary reasons. Firstly, design of e-forms facilitates rigorous process of reflection and understanding assessment criteria that in turn benefit students when preparing for the assessment. Hence, legible and detailed feedback is produced anytime anywhere with synchronous updates within the marking team. Secondly, students benefit from immediate comprehensive feedback allowing them to reflect on and improve their understanding of subject matters, as well as to engage in discussing specific details of the work that are captured through the form. An unexpected outcome was the enhanced reputation and respect to the tutors amongst students, the triggering of student curiosity and enthusiasm in applying similar approach to their own work. The diffusion for the practice amongst other units and identifying other purposes for which the mobile app could be used are also seen as achievements exceeding the expectations of the project team