Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

Preparing the foundations for video-based, practice-placement support: establishing the role from a students’ perspective

Currently, many placement-based health programme students within the UK are supported through face-to-face visits from university staff. Whilst cited in literature as being of value, the face-to-face nature of this contact is not supported. Alternatives including video-based communications methods offer the potential for cost effective, environmentally responsible support. However, in order to establish the fitness for purpose of alternative approaches, the content and purpose of current support needs to be understood. This project aimed to investigate student perceptions of the ideal content and purpose of clinical support visits, and alternatives to the current face-to-face approach. Fifty-six Physiotherapy undergraduate students responded to questionnaires with a further nine participating in a follow-up focus group. Participants emphasised the value of the visit in guiding learning, ensuring progression and resolving arising issues, and highlighted concerns over alternative approaches. Focus group participants discussed the importance of personal and professional confidence in directing requirements for support, and went on to propose a menu of options for methods of communication.Whilst limited in some applications, video technologies may be one of the options. Overall, however, this project supports the need for consideration of individualised learning journeys within curriculum planning

Student Learning in Higher Education: a Commentary

This commentary begins by summarizing the five contributions to this special issue and briefly recapping the background to the topic of student learning in higher education. Narrative and systematic reviews are compared, and the relative value of different bibliographic databases in the context of systematic reviews is assessed. The importance of measures of effect size is stressed. The relationship of the five contributions to early research on levels of processing and approaches to learning is discussed, along with the presage–process–product model of student learning and historical discussions that are relevant to the current theoretical discussions. This field has benefited from the development of more robust instrumentation, but researchers must continue to develop new kinds of measure, including online measures of students’ strategy use. Researchers need to consider ways of enhancing the quality of student learning through the use of problem-based curricula and other student-centered approaches. Finally, it is suggested that researchers into student learning need to evaluate whether their concepts, methods, theories, and findings are valid in online environments and to investigate how curricula in higher education can build upon those in secondary education

Higher Education Research in Scotland: Report of a Survey Undertaken by Universities Scotland Educational Development Sub-Committee

The aim of this study was to gain an insight into a range of higher educational research taking place across Scotland with a particular focus on the nature, expertise, support and dissemination of this research. For the purposes of this study, we used the term ‘research into higher education’ to refer to a range of higher educational research activity that included: research into higher education policies and practice, pedagogical research, research into learning and teaching taking place in higher education and research about transition from further education or school into higher education. The findings point to the underground nature of pedagogic research taking place in Scotland. Many researchers are based within disciplines and their pedagogic research is disseminated in a variety of settings that do not always make it easily accessible within generic higher education research discourse. Pedagogic research is also apparently undervalued, with many academic staff experiencing pressure to prioritise publishing within their main discipline over and above pedagogic research. In addition there appears to be a lack of capacity within Scottish institutions to maximise the profile of higher educational research in the forthcoming UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise

Rhetorical relationships with students: A higher education case study of perceptions of online assessment in mathematics

Some students perceive that online assessment does not provide for a true reflection of their work effort. This article reports on a collaborative international project between two higher education institutions with the aim of researching issues relating to engineering student perceptions with respect to online assessment of mathematics. It provides a comparison between students of similar educational standing in Finland and Ireland. The students undertook to complete questionnaires and a sample of students was selected to participate in several group discussion interviews. Evidence from the data suggests that many of the students demonstrate low levels of confidence, do not display knowledge of continuous assessment processes and perceive many barriers when confronted with online assessment in their first semester. Alternative perspectives were sought from lecturers by means of individual interviews. The research indicates that perceptions of effort and reward as seen by students are at variance with those held by lecturers. The study offers a brief insight into the thinking of students in the first year of their engineering mathematics course. It may be suggested that alternative approaches to curriculum and pedagogical design are necessary to alleviate student concerns

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