A formalism for coupled design learning activities

This paper presents a formalism to represent the inextricable link that exists between design and learning. It provides an approach to study and analyse the complex relationships that may exist between design and learning. It suggests that design and learning are linked at the knowledge level (epistemic link), in a temporal manner and in a purposeful manner through the design and learning goal

A learning design toolkit to create pedagogically effective learning activities

Despite the plethora of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools and resources available, practitioners are still not making effective use of e-learning to enrich the student experience. This article describes a learning design toolkit which guides practitioners through the process of creating pedagogically informed learning activities which make effective use of appropriate tools and resources. This work is part of a digital libraries project in which teaching staff at two universities in the UK and two in the USA are collaborating to share e-learning resources in the subject domains of Physical, Environmental and Human Geography. Finding, or creating, suitable e-learning resources and embedding them in well designed learning activities can be both challenging and time consuming. Sharing and adapting effective designs and solutions is both a stimulant and a time saver. This article describes the background to the specification of a learning activities design toolkit to support teachers as they create or adapt e-learning activities. This uses a model of pedagogical approaches as a basis for developing effective learning design plans and illustrates its use. The authors share their definition of a learning activity and taxonomies for the constituent elements. Real examples are discussed to illustrate their approach

Identification of critical time‐consuming student support activities in e‐learning

Higher education staff involved in e‐learning often struggle with organising their student support activities. To a large extent this is due to the high workload involved with such activities. We distinguish support related to learning content, learning processes and student products. At two different educational institutions, surveys were conducted to identify the most critical support activities, using the Nominal Group Method. The results are discussed and brought to bear on the distinction between content‐related, process‐related and product‐related support activities

ANALISIS PENGGUNAAN MEDIA BIG BOOK DALAM PEMBELAJARAN LITERASI MEMBACA TERBIMBING SISWA KELAS IV SDN TEGALGONDO KECAMATAN KARANGPLOSO KABUPATEN MALANG

The lack of reading fluency is the cause of using big book media for guided reading literacy learning. Teachers must be creative in using and delivering learning material so that students will not get bored. This thesis discusses the use of big book media in guided reading literacy learning. SDN Tegalgondo, Karangploso sub-district, Malang Regency is an elementary school that has implemented guided reading literacy-based learning during lessons. The purpose of this research is to find out how to find out students' activities in using big book media in guided reading literacy learning and to find out teacher activities in using big book media in guided reading literacy learning. This research uses a qualitative research approach at SDN Tegalgondo, Karangploso District, Malang Regency. Data collection techniques were through observation, interviews and documentation, with research subjects being class teachers and IV class with the total students are 16 children. The results of this research show that: (1) The use of big book media in guided reading literacy learning. (2) student activities in guided reading literacy learning using big book media (3) teacher activities in guided reading literacy learning using big book media

ENGLISH TEACHING & LEARNING ACTIVITIES AT SDN TEGALREJO SURAKARTA

This final project is written based on the job training that the writer has done as a temporary English teacher in SDN Tegalrejo Surakarta. This final project is a report of the writer’s English teaching and learning activities there. All of the activities in the class are done based on the lesson plans that are made before. They are: warming up to get the attention of the students, presentation to give the materials to the students and evaluation to evaluate the result of the activity. Besides, the writer includes some activities, such as playing games and singing songs. It is useful for students in order that they can practice and more familiar to English. During the English teaching and learning activities, there are some problems faced by the students and the teacher. The students’ problems are: their opinion, lazy students, uncooperative students. Meanwhile the teacher’s problems are: the limited time and teaching materials. The solutions for the students’ problems are: motivating the students to learn English more diligently, giving some exercises and homework, giving special attention to uncooperative students. The solutions for the teacher’s problems are: hold an extra English class and lends the handbooks to the students. From the discussion in this project report, we can know the importance of teaching English language to the primary level especially elementary students, because English is a basic asset for them to prepare to the next stages of education

Support of the collaborative inquiry learning process: influence of support on task and team regulation

Regulation of the learning process is an important condition for efficient and effective learning. In collaborative learning, students have to regulate their collaborative activities (team regulation) next to the regulation of their own learning process focused on the task at hand (task regulation). In this study, we investigate how support of collaborative inquiry learning can influence the use of regulative activities of students. Furthermore, we explore the possible relations between task regulation, team regulation and learning results. This study involves tenth-grade students who worked in pairs in a collaborative inquiry learning environment that was based on a computer simulation, Collisions, developed in the program SimQuest. Students of the same team worked on two different computers and communicated through chat. Chat logs of students from three different conditions are compared. Students in the first condition did not receive any support at all (Control condition). In the second condition, students received an instruction in effective communication, the RIDE rules (RIDE condition). In the third condition, students were, in addition to receiving the RIDE rules instruction, supported by the Collaborative Hypothesis Tool (CHT), which helped the students with formulating hypotheses together (CHT condition). The results show that students overall used more team regulation than task regulation. In the RIDE condition and the CHT condition, students regulated their team activities most often. Moreover, in the CHT condition the regulation of team activities was positively related to the learning results. We can conclude that different measures of support can enhance the use of team regulative activities, which in turn can lead to better learning results

Informal learning evidence in online communities of mobile device enthusiasts

This chapter describes a study that investigated the informal learning practices of enthusiastic mobile device owners. Informal learning is far more widespread than is often realized. Livingston (2000) pointed out that Canadian adults spend an average of fifteen hours per week on informal learning activities, more than they spend on formal learning activities. The motivation for these learning efforts generally comes from the individual, not from some outside force such as a school, university, or workplace. Therefore, in the absence of an externally imposed learning framework, informal learners will use whatever techniques,resources, and tools best suit their learning needs and personal preferences. As ownership of mobile technologies becomes increasingly widespread in the western world, it is likely that learners who have access to this technology will use it to support their informal learning efforts. This chapter presents the findings of a study into the various and innovative ways in which PDA and Smartphone users exploit mobile device functionality in their informal learning activities. The findings suggested that mobile device users deploy the mobile, connective, and collaborative capabilities of their devices in a variety of informal learning contexts, and in quite innovative ways. Trends emerged, such as the increasing importance of podcasting and audio and the use of built-in GPS, which may have implications for future studies. Informal learners identified learning activities that could be enhanced by the involvement of mobile technology, and developed methods and techniques that helped them achieve their learning goals

Inquiry activities in a classroom: extra-logical processes of illumination vs logical process of deductive and inductive reasoning. A case study

The paper presents results of the research, which was focused on studying students’ inquiry work from a psychological point of view. Inquiry activities of students in a classroom were analysed through the evaluation of the character of these activities within learning process with respect to mathematician’s research practice. A process of learning mathematical discovery was considered in detail as a part of inquiry activities of students in a classroom

A Wolf in Sheep���s Clothing? An analysis of student engagement with virtual learning environments.

The article is freely available on-line via The Higher Education Academy website.The growth in the use of virtual learning environments to support learning and teaching should be accompanied by research to examine their effectiveness. The aim of this study was twofold: a) To explore the views, opinions and experiences of student engagement or non-engagement in online learning activities; b) To use this knowledge to develop learning and teaching strategies that enhance student engagement with online learning activities. Focus groups were conducted with students studying leisure and tourism degree programmes to explore reasons for usage and non-usage of the online activities in the Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework (WOLF). Results identified issues related to student awareness, motivation, behaviour and learning approaches, assessment and technical factors. Findings from the study have implications for practice, including how to enhance the relevance of information, technical factors, enhancing awareness and links with assessment

Analysing web search logs to determine session boundaries for user-oriented learning

Incremental learning approaches based on user search activities provide a means of building adaptive information retrieval systems. To develop more effective user-oriented learning techniques for the Web, we need to be able to identify a meaningful session unit from which we can learn. Without this, we run a high risk of grouping together activities that are unrelated or perhaps not from the same user. We are interested in detecting boundaries of sequences between related activities (sessions) that would group the activities for a learning purpose. Session boundaries, in Reuters transaction logs, were detected automatically. The generated boundaries were compared with human judgements. The comparison confirmed that a meaningful session threshold for establishing these session boundaries was confined to a 11-15 minute range