Closing the Loop: How an information literacy assessment plan contributes to first-year student success at UT Austin

Before attending the assessment track of Immersion I struggled with writing an assessment plan for my unit, which works collaboratively with faculty members to support information literacy in first-year seminar courses. Through Immersion, I had a breakthrough in my thinking about how to feasibly assess the mixture of teaching techniques and learning outcomes used throughout my unit to support the diversity of courses we work with. I brought the insights gained through work with my Immersion instructors and cohort members home, and my colleagues and I finished and enacted a comprehensive assessment plan. My poster will cover highlights of our plan, focusing on changes that we have made based on what we learned about student learning through assessment. I plan to feature: 1) How we are using individual classroom and course-level assessment methods as part of our program level assessment. 2) How we worked with faculty members to assess course-integrated information literacy in both large classes and small seminars. 3) How we have used the evidence we gathered to improve our program. 4) How the process of working together to create an assessment plan has increased both confidence in using student learning assessment methods and communication about assessment within my unit. I plan to interact with viewers by sharing what we have accomplished through assessment since my Immersion experience, and inviting them to discuss their experiences with assessment and successful methods they have used. This exchange of ideas will contribute to the ever-growing culture of assessment within our profession.UT Librarie

THE PROBLEMS FACED BY PRACTICE TEACHERS OF ENGLISHDEPARTMENT IN WRITING LESSON PLAN

Lesson plan is guidance and teaching outline of the teacher, used to teach in teaching learning process. It is the reminder for the teachers about what they have to prepare, what they will bring, and what they will do in the classroom. The present study is intended to know the problems faced by practice teachers of English Department in writing lesson plan, describe the reasons underlined practice teacher having problems, and the suggestions that can be given by supervisor teachers. In this study, the researcher used descriptive qualitative research design. The research subjects were six practice teachers of English Department of University of Muhamadiyah Malang who have finished conducting practice teaching at SMPN 3 Malang. The instruments used to collect the data were interview and document. The interview was used for both practice teachers and supervisor teachers to obtain the data on the problems faced by practice teachers of English Department in writing lesson plan and to find the suggestions that can be given by supervisor teachers to cope practice teachers’ problems. And document were used is practice teachers’ lesson plan. The data of the study were analyzed qualitatively. The result of the study shows that practice teachers faced problems in writing lesson plan. The problems concerned with objective, indicator, material, method, teaching activities, and media/source. It caused by less of knowledge in develop lesson plan and how to create the variation of teaching preparation. The other problems that often faced were in connecting the objectives and the teaching learning activities because it was hard to arrange various teaching learning activities to reach the objectives. To cope the problems, supervisor teachers gave the suggestions they were; consult the lesson plan to the supervisor regularly; share the problems with the teams of practice teachers or ask to the supervisor directly. It is concluded that practice teachers having problems caused by less of knowledge in how to develop lesson plan and how to create the variation of teaching preparation though they have guided by experienced supervisor teachers and understand the standard objective of the school. They also solve the problems by themselves not by consult it to the supervisor teachers directly

CompendiumLD – a tool for effective, efficient and creative learning design

Developers and teachers go through a complex decision making process when designing new learning activities – working towards an effective pedagogical mix, combining resources, tools, student and tutor support. This paper describes CompendiumLD, a prototype tool we have built to support practitioners through the process of designing learning activities. We describe how the tool fits into our vision of a dynamic, interactive set of resources and system tools to support effective, efficient and creative learning design. It describes CompendiumLD's features and explains the rationale behind their development. It shows how the tool is intended to aid designers make choices, and plan developments, facilitating creativity and efficiency in the design process. In our conclusions we consider how such a system can support the design of effective learning activities

From cognitive capability to social reform? Shifting perceptions of learning in immersive virtual worlds

Learning in immersive virtual worlds (simulations and virtual worlds such as Second Life) could become a central learning approach in many curricula, but the socio‐political impact of virtual world learning on higher education remains under‐researched. Much of the recent research into learning in immersive virtual worlds centres around games and gaming and is largely underpinned by cognitive learning theories that focus on linearity, problem‐solving and the importance of attaining the ‘right answer’ or game plan. Most research to date has been undertaken into students’ experiences of virtual learning environments, discussion forums and perspectives about what and how online learning has been implemented. This article reviews the literature relating to learning in immersive virtual worlds, and suggests that there needs to be a reconsideration of what ‘learning’ means in such spaces

The Playful Learning Approach for Learning How to Program: A Structured Lesson Plan

IT-based learning has proven to be a useful approach to educate people regardless of their age or other characteristics. However, the developments in IT and its socio-economic implications have a high influence on education with new approaches and methods, such as the playful learning approach (PLA). This approach has been widely researched and can be applied to teach programming as one of the core digital skills. However, scientifically developed and validated structures for PLA units in programming are rare. In this paper, we offer a lesson structure for a PLA to programming by addressing the five core success factors of playful learning. Our structure includes six units and follows an iterative and agile procedure by combining game features with the educational content. Educators and teachers can use the presented results to design the lesson structure in their classes. Furthermore it offers a basis for further research in the area of PLA and can be used as a starting point for the development of educational games and concepts in teaching how to program

ICT in Higher Education: a case-study of mediated blended-learning

Teaching in on-line and collaborative situations requires a variety of responses including changes in pedagogy as instructors taking the role of facilitators of information while guiding students toward solutions. In order for online learning to be successful, therefore, teachers as well as learners will need to explore new roles in the teaching-learning relationship. In this paper, the authors propose to examine how educators can mediate instruction by first designing their course goals and objectives and then consider how the on-line environment can best serve the instructional objectives and plan appropriate activities and assessment. We seek to explore the use of online environments as the bridge between real world and reflective knowledge

Six Lesson Plan Formats

Good lessons and effective learning experiences do not magically appear. They must be planned. This chapter describes how to design and plan six different types of lessons: basic lesson plan, concept lesson plan, skills lesson plan, writing lesson plan, reading lesson plan, and discovery learning lesson plan

Supporting decision-making in retirement planning: do diagrams on pension benefit statements help? ESRI Research Bulletin 2019/09

This study used a controlled experiment to test whether explanatory diagrams can improve comprehension of pensions and increase willingness to contribute to a pension. The study was undertaken by the ESRI’s Behavioural Research Unit in collaboration with the Pensions Authority. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show that just 36% of 25-34 year-olds in employment have a pension plan. Even workers who do have a plan face replacement rates (income after retirement as a proportion of income before retirement) well below the recommended 70%. International research suggests that failure to understand how pensions work contributes to this picture. Meanwhile, evidence from educational psychology shows that, across multiple areas of learning, comprehension can be improved by diagrams. We therefore tested whether the inclusion of explanatory diagrams on a pension benefit statement (PBS) could, first, improve understanding of how pensions work and, second, increase willingness to contribute to a pension