Student Wiki Pages: Online collaboration in a networked environment

This chapter is concerned with student collaboration and ‘peer-support’ pedagogy as facilitated by online learning environments. Specifically the chapter discusses the use of wiki tools as part of the e-learning strategy in a first year BA (Hons) Communication and Media unit at Bournemouth University. The pedagogical aim here is to assess students’ ability to work effectively in a computer-mediated environment by applying interpersonal communication skills taught in the unit, whilst fostering a professional engagement with the unit’s theoretical foundation and facilitating student-centred learning. The Student Wiki Pages is an educational strategy that encourages students to develop active learning, media literacy and scholarship at the start of their degree programmes, providing a solid underpinning for their future studies. Collaboratively producing a wiki means students have to be self-reflexive and critically evaluate their own notes from lectures and set readings on a weekly basis. Drawing on evidence from 2010/2011, the chapter will demonstrate how the Student Wiki Pages helped inspire students’ commitment to learning by analysing five core areas where student performance improved. Practical complexities of assessing collaborative learning will be evaluated, together with a discussion on how to manage student expectations in relation to grading and feedback

Communication interventions in adult and pediatric oncology: A scoping review and analysis of behavioral targets

BackgroundImproving communication requires that clinicians and patients change their behaviors. Interventions might be more successful if they incorporate principles from behavioral change theories. We aimed to determine which behavioral domains are targeted by communication interventions in oncology.MethodsSystematic search of literature indexed in Ovid Medline, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Clinicaltrials.gov (2000-October 2018) for intervention studies targeting communication behaviors of clinicians and/or patients in oncology. Two authors extracted the following information: population, number of participants, country, number of sites, intervention target, type and context, study design. All included studies were coded based on which behavioral domains were targeted, as defined by Theoretical Domains Framework.FindingsEighty-eight studies met inclusion criteria. Interventions varied widely in which behavioral domains were engaged. Knowledge and skills were engaged most frequently (85%, 75/88 and 73%, 64/88, respectively). Fewer than 5% of studies engaged social influences (3%, 3/88) or environmental context/resources (5%, 4/88). No studies engaged reinforcement. Overall, 7/12 behavioral domains were engaged by fewer than 30% of included studies. We identified methodological concerns in many studies. These 88 studies reported 188 different outcome measures, of which 156 measures were reported by individual studies.ConclusionsMost communication interventions target few behavioral domains. Increased engagement of behavioral domains in future studies could support communication needs in feasible, specific, and sustainable ways. This study is limited by only including interventions that directly facilitated communication interactions, which excluded stand-alone educational interventions and decision-aids. Also, we applied stringent coding criteria to allow for reproducible, consistent coding, potentially leading to underrepresentation of behavioral domains

Profiling the educational value of computer games

There are currently a number of suggestions for educators to include computer games in formal teaching and learning contexts. Educational value is based on claims that games promote the development of complex learning. Very little research, however, has explored what features should be present in a computer game to make it valuable or conducive to learning. We present a list of required features for an educational game to be of value, informed by two studies, which integrated theories of Learning Environments and Learning Styles. A user survey showed that some requirements were typical of games in a particular genre, while other features were present across all genres. The paper concludes with a proposed framework of games and features within and across genres to assist in the design and selection of games for a given educational scenari

Helping design educators foster collaborative learning amongst design students

This paper discusses the development of online teaching resources that enable design educators to foster collaborative learning amongst students in the design disciplines. These online teaching resources will be made available through the Design Collaboration website. This website was recently set up by Northumbria University, a UK based institution, to provide an online resource for design educators wishing to develop collaborative pedagogies in design education. It currently contains case studies of collaborative student projects but lacks practical teaching resources. As a result, a research project was set up to compliment the current case studies by creating a suite of design-specific tools and resources that will help foster team management and development. Although various institutions have addressed the subject of group work and collaborative learning, there has been no online resource dedicated to the development of practical teaching tools to help design students work and learn together. This paper focuses on showcasing the range of teaching tools and resources developed through classroom-based trials. These resources have been developed specifically in consultation with Northumbria University's design educators and trialled with undergraduate and postgraduate students from different design disciplines. In addition, issues surrounding the translation of these tools into a practical, easy to use and accessible in an online format is discussed. The Icograda World Design Congress 2009 Education Conference is the ideal international platform to share these tools with the wider design education community. More importantly, we hope to grow the website by encouraging other design educators to submit case studies to the website, using it not only as a means of sharing good practice but also as a tool for reflection. The research value is two-fold (a) translating implicit knowledge of collaborative learning into a practical teaching resource and, (b) helping tutors improve their teaching practice, by linking the teaching resource to real experiences through case studies and interviews

Emerging good practice in managing research data and research information within UK Universities

Sound data intensive science depends upon effective research data and information management. Efficient and interoperable research information systems will be crucial for enabling and exploiting data intensive research however it is equally important that a research ecosystem is cultivated within research-intensive institutions that foster sustainable communication, cooperation and support of a diverse range of research-related staff. Researchers, librarians, administrators, ethics advisors, and IT professionals all have a vital contribution to make in ensuring that research data and related information is available, visible, understandable and usable over the mid to long term. This paper will provide a summary of several ongoing initiatives that the Jisc-funded Digital Curation Centre (DCC) are currently involved with in the UK and internationally to help staff within higher education institutions prepare to meet funding body mandates relating to research data management and sharing and to engage fully in the digital agenda

Effects of individual prior knowledge on collaborative knowledge construction and individual learning outcome in videoconferencing

This paper deals with collaborative knowledge construction in videoconferencing. The main issue is about how to predict individual learning outcome, in particular how far individual prior knowledge and the collaborative knowledge construction can influence individual learning outcomes. In this context, the influence of prior knowledge and two measures of instructional support, a collaboration script and a content scheme were analyzed concerning the collaborative knowledge construction. An empirical study was conducted with 159 university students as sample. Students learned collaboratively in groups of three in a case based learning environment in videoconferencing and were supported by the instructional support measures. Results show that collaborative knowledge construction had more impact on individual learning outcome than individual prior knowledge.Diese Studie beschäftigt sich mit der gemeinsamen Wissenskonstruktion in Videokonferenzen. Die Hauptfragestellung befasst sich mit Prädiktoren für den individuellen Lernerfolg, insbesondere inwieweit dieser vom individuellen Vorwissen der Lernenden und der gemeinsamen Wissenskonstruktion beeinflusst wird. In diesem Kontext wird analysiert, inwiefern das individuelle Vorwissen und zwei Unterstützungsmaßnahmen - Wissensschema und Kooperationsskript - Einfluss auf die gemeinsame Wissenskonstruktion nehmen. An der empirischen Studie nahmen 159 Universitätsstudierende teil. Diese lernten kooperativ in Dreiergruppen in einer fallbasierten Lernumgebung in Videokonferenzen und erhielten dabei instruktionale Unterstützung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die gemeinsame Wissenskonstruktion einen größeren Einfluss auf die individuellen Lernerfolge hatte, als individuelles Vorwissen

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

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