Supporting graduate teaching assistants in two STEM areas

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Developing e-assessment using the quiz activity within Moodle: empowering student learning

Using formative assessment within Moodle has been shown to encourage self-directed learning (Bromham & Oprandi, 2006). Our experience of using formative assessment quizzes as stand alone entities, as well as within Moodle lessons, has been used to introduce Moodle assessment quizzes over the past year in Level 1 and Level 2 Life Sciences courses. This experience has been distilled to inform the content of this workshop. Some advantages of incorporating assessments in the form of Moodle quizzes are that they allow for quick, reproducible and flexible assessment with a relatively small initial set-up cost, and substantial long-term staff and administration savings. One significant advantage is that staff and room pressures can be reduced as students can attempt the assessment at a time and location of their choice within a specified time period. This flexibility can help to reduce student stress associated with completion of a continuous assessment for their course. It is also a relatively simple process to account for students entitled to extra time during assessments. Providing clear instructions beforehand and at the start of the quiz ensures that students understand their responsibilities for completion of this assessment and ultimately the course. There are some disadvantages and limitations to the system as it currently exists, for example there is the perceived ability for students to “cheat” by completing the assessment as a group, accessing books and the internet. Strategies to account for these can be put in place and will be discussed in detail during the workshop. This workshop aims to take the participants through the initial set up of a quiz, highlighting the various question types and how these can be used to create a challenging assessment that can be quickly graded and prove informative for staff and course development. Reference Bromham L. & Oprandi P. (2006) Evolution online: developing active and blended learning by using a virtual learning environment in an introductory biology course. Journal of Biological Education 41 (1): 21-25

Responsive socio-cultural contexts: Supporting five year olds to become literate in a second language.

Learning one's own indigenous language and culture as a second language learner within formal mainstream education settings can pose many challenges, especially for students who have been raised in the dominant first language and who are just beginning school. This paper discusses a Māori language resource used by a Māori immersion teacher to respond to these challenges. This resource utilises community support to develop students' phonological awareness while simultaneously increasing their oral language. This study shows that within a relatively short period of time, students' phonological knowledge improved along with their confidence and ability to speak in Māori. With these skills they were then able to progress more successfully to becoming literate in Māori, their second language

Artificial Intelligence And Big Data Technologies To Close The Achievement Gap.

We observe achievement gaps even in rich western countries, such as the UK, which in principle have the resources as well as the social and technical infrastructure to provide a better deal for all learners. The reasons for such gaps are complex and include the social and material poverty of some learners with their resulting other deficits, as well as failure by government to allocate sufficient resources to remedy the situation. On the supply side of the equation, a single teacher or university lecturer, even helped by a classroom assistant or tutorial assistant, cannot give each learner the kind of one-to-one attention that would really help to boost both their motivation and their attainment in ways that might mitigate the achievement gap. In this chapter Benedict du Boulay, Alexandra Poulovassilis, Wayne Holmes, and Manolis Mavrikis argue that we now have the technologies to assist both educators and learners, most commonly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects (STEM), at least some of the time. We present case studies from the fields of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) and Big Data. We look at how they can be used to provide personalised support for students and demonstrate that they are not designed to replace the teacher. In addition, we also describe tools for teachers to increase their awareness and, ultimately, free up time for them to provide nuanced, individualised support even in large cohorts

Los sitcoms como herramienta para el aprendizaje cultural en el aula de inglés

Con la llegada de la globalización y la consolidación definitiva del inglés como lengua internacional, el lugar de la cultura en el proceso de aprendizaje de esta lengua también ha cambiado. De este modo, focalizar la enseñanza en hechos culturales de países anglófonos resulta insuficiente en el mundo en el que vivimos, donde la amplia mayoría de las interacciones en inglés se producen entre hablantes no nativos. Desde un punto de vista culturalmente descentralizado (Holliday, 2009), el desarrollo de la competencia intercultural y la conciencia crítica deben constituir una parte esencial del aprendizaje de idiomas (Byram, 2014). Sin embargo, la mayoría de los libros de texto utilizados no promueven este aprendizaje (inter)cultural. En este trabajo, proponemos que la televisión sea un recurso pedagógico complementario para lograr este objetivo. Nos hemos centrado en “sitcoms” (comedias de situación) para elaborar una lista de episodios que pueden ser utilizados en el entorno de la Educación Superior para desarrollar esta competencia cultural.With the emergence of globalization and English becoming a lingua franca for international communication, the place for culture in the language learning process has shifted as well. Thus, concentrating on cultural facts about English-speaking countries is insufficient for today’s world, where the vast majority of interactions happen among non-native speakers. From a culturally decentered standpoint (Holliday, 2009), intercultural competence and critical awareness constitute an essential part of language learning (Byram, 2014). However, most ELT textbooks do not promote complete (inter) cultural learning. In this article, we argue that TV can be an additional pedagogical tool to help achieve this goal. We focus on sitcoms compiling a list of episodes that can be used at tertiary level to develop cultural competence

Understanding Social and Behaviour Change Communication

terms that should be understood first, as different words and second as an entity. SBCC is primarily a brand of communication that has long existed in the social and behavioural disciplines; in the social sciences and humanities. It is also a field of study that is strongly anchored on theories of human behaviour and the philosophies of human existence with the aim of bringing about a transformation of the negative human behaviour through the ecological system. Behaviour change specifically has attracted the concerns of economists and advertisers. Economists are concerned about human needs and wants as determined by human behavio

ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH SENTENCE STRUCTURES IN THE SPEECH OF STUDENTS MAJORING IN ENGLISH FOR INTERNATIONALCOMMUNICATION AT RAJAMANGALA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY TAWAN-OK

This research aims to investigate the utilization of English sentence structures in spoken language, the occurrence of errors in employing English sentence structures in spoken language, and the level of satisfaction with teaching through the B-SLIM Model. The study involved a sample of 35 first-year students enrolled in the English for International Communication program at Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan-ok. The participants were chosen through a specific sampling procedure. Data collection encompassed the utilization of 7 B-SLIM Model lesson plans. The research design included a pre-test and post-test on English speaking abilities. Additionally, a satisfaction questionnaire gauging students' contentment with B-SLIM Model learning activities was administered, along with a focus group session that delved into the reasons behind speaking errors. The collected data underwent analysis to determine the mean, standard deviation, and percentage. The findings revealed that students employed singular sentences in the form of declarative statements with using the active voice. Following the integration of B-SLIM Model lesson plans into the curriculum, students demonstrated an enhanced ability to construct compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences. Regarding the occurrence of errors in employing English sentence structures within spoken language, the errors were categorized based on word type and word order

INTELLIGENT VOICE-BASED E-EDUCATION SYSTEM: A FRAMEWORK AND EVALUATION

Voice-based web e-Education is a technology-supported learning paradigm that allows phone-access of learners to e-Learning web-based applications. These applications are designed mainly for the visually impaired. They are however lacking in attributes of adaptive and reusable learning objects, which are emerging requirements for applications in these domain. This paper presents a framework for developing intelligent voice-based applications in the context of e-Education. The framework presented supports intelligent components such as adaptation and recommendation services. A prototype Intelligent Voice-based E-Education System (iVEES) was developed and subjected to test by visually impaired users. A usability study was carried out using the International Standard Organization’s (ISO) 9241-11 specification to determine the level of effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. Report of our findings shows that the application is of immense benefit, based on the system’s inherent capacity for taking autonomous decision that are capable of adapting to users’ requests

Applying Graph Theory to Examine the Dynamics of Student Discussions in Small-Group Learning.

Group work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses is an effective means of improving student outcomes, and many different factors can influence the dynamics of student discussions and, ultimately, the success of collaboration. The substance and dynamics of group discussions are commonly examined using qualitative methods such as discourse analysis. To complement existing work in the literature, we developed a quantitative methodology that uses graph theory to map the progression of talk-turns of discussions within a group. We observed groups of students working with peer facilitators to solve problems in biological sciences, with three iterations of data collection and two major refinements of graph theory calculations. Results include general behaviors based on the turns in which different individuals talk and graph theory parameters to quantify group characteristics. To demonstrate the potential utility of the methodology, we present case studies with distinct patterns: a centralized group in which the peer facilitator behaves like an authority figure, a decentralized group in which most students talk their fair share of turns, and a larger group with subgroups that have implications for equity, diversity, and inclusion. Together, these results demonstrate that our adaptation of graph theory is a viable quantitative methodology to examine group discussions