Twelve tips for online synchronous small group learning in medical education

Undergraduate medical education relies on a variety of small group learning formats to deliver the curriculum, support collaborative learning, encourage critical thinking, as well as the development of a number of professional, clinical and generic attributes. However, the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020 reminded us that unanticipated circumstances may necessitate a rapid and abrupt switch to delivering medical education through alternative means, while still upholding teaching standards and meeting learning and graduate outcomes. For many medical schools, the pandemic resulted in small group teaching being moved to an online format. The experience of students and facilitators moving small group learning tutorials to online synchronous delivery forms the basis for a set of recommendations when considering the delivery of small group teaching remotely

It’s Happy Hour Somewhere: Videoconferencing Guidelines for Traversing Time and Space

Time seems to be moving at lightning speed with busyness unsustainably being “celebrated” and not allowing for sufficiently deep interaction with learning content, others, and the experience of which we are part, including our interactions in videoconferencing sessions. One benefit of videoconferencing is that it can address time and distance boundaries. With this advantage also comes a challenge - the pressures of time and time not being used purposefully often negatively impact the online learning experience and the digital wellness of its participants. Considering that, the reported study inquired: what are the videoconferencing guidelines in relation to temporal space to support digital wellness in online learning in higher education? Drawing on a systematic review of the relevant literature of the last decade, temporal guidelines have been distilled to promote the design of videoconferencing-based learning that is conducive to successful learning while maintaining digital well-being. The article organizes the literature review findings according to the categories identified through the secondary data analysis of its three preceding studies. Based upon 42 articles that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the first phase of the research design, we negotiated and determined thirteen temporal guideline themes described as time management, essentialism, purposefulness, agility, social presence, attention, inclusion, cooperation, respect, technology preparedness, creativity, evaluation, and safety. Further research is recommended to explore the various aspects of design in more depth and tackle the less frequently addressed themes of creativity, evaluation, and safety, focusing on pedagogy and human-centred approaches

Enhancing the Teaching of Lawyering Skills and Perspectives Through Virtual World Engagement

Educators from around the globe are rapidly utilizing and transforming virtual worlds, such as Second Life, with innovative teaching strategies. Mediation and dispute resolution, and associated communication and problem-solving skills, are particularly well suited for developing in virtual worlds, as are other lawyering skills such as, interviewing, counseling, and trial advocacy. The opportunities for students and faculty to engage in cross-cultural exchange and networking are another selling feature of virtual world engagement. Virtual worlds offer particular promise for those seeking innovative and cost-effective ways to integrate more professional training and skills development into the law school curriculum. Moreover, as more and more people enter virtual worlds and other forms of online social engagement, there is increasing need to offer innovative online opportunities for student learning. This article uses a project on teaching dispute resolution skills to law students conducted in the virtual world as a medium within the law school curriculum

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with

Watching Storytelling: Visual Information in Oral Narratives

Oral narratives, though prolific, are increasingly being shared via some form of electronic mediation, and yet they are often glossed over in regard to the study of narrative. This study was designed to address the unique nature of oral narratives focusing on the information channels utilized by participants in their co-creation of stories. A comparative case study was undertaken of three groups who employed a variety of synchronous and asynchronous electronic mediation in their storytelling. Viewed through the lenses of Narratology and Social Presence Theory a combination of participant observation and qualitative semi-structured exploratory narrative interviews were undertaken with participants from 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling, The Moth, and The Storyteller’s Guild of Second Life. Over three years several hundred stories (via 112 tellers) were observed at 38 storytelling sessions (14 live and in-person; 14 live and virtual; and five each of fixed video and or audio) at numerous venues. During these sessions the telling and listening behaviours of 227 participants were noted, 15 of which were subsequently interviewed. Multiple sources of visual information were observed and identified, three of which were selected for in-depth consideration, namely kinesics, reciprocity, and space. Conclusions derived from this study include that: Visual information shared during storytelling is prolific; Listening is not a passive experience, with reciprocities varying with the mediations utilized; The spaces in which we share stories influence our experiences of said stories; Co-create stories are unique for each participant; and Technological mediation between participants does affect the stories being co-created

Preparing Teachers For Tomorrow: A Case Study of TEACH-NOW Graduate School of Education

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-SmithCurrent institutional and technological innovations are challenging face-to-face, college- and university-based teacher preparation programs as never before. Among those innovations are two emerging phenomena: New graduate schools of education (nGSEs) and fully online teacher preparation programs. nGSEs are new independent graduate schools that are not university-based but are state-authorized and approved as institutions of higher education to prepare teachers, endorse them for initial teacher certification, and grant master’s degrees (Cochran-Smith et al., 2019). Fully online teacher preparation programs are programs that relocate teacher preparation from the physical environments of the brick-and-mortar university to the digital environments of the internet and provide prospective teachers with flexible alternatives to face-to-face pathways. While both fully online teacher preparation programs and nGSEs have garnered enthusiastic media attention and critique, there is a very limited amount of in-depth knowledge about fully online teacher preparation programs and virtually no independent research on nGSEs. This dissertation helps to address those gaps in research. The central purpose of this dissertation was to examine the intersection of fully online teacher preparation and the phenomenon of teacher preparation at nGSEs by investigating teacher preparation at TEACH-NOW Graduate School of Education, a fully online, for-profit, nGSE headquartered in Washington, D.C. and rapidly expanding as a provider of initial teacher education. Intended to be descriptive and interpretive, this qualitative case study sought to understand the phenomenon of teacher preparation at TEACH-NOW from the perspectives of its participants. Based on qualitative analysis of multiple sources of evidence, the main argument of this dissertation is that TEACH-NOW operated at the nexus of a complex tension between the push to be innovative and the pull to be legitimate. Findings suggest that TEACH-NOW skillfully navigated that tension by establishing tight coherence around three key indicators of innovation (business model, technology, program structure) and by achieving major accepted markers of credibility within the larger teacher education organizational field. This dissertation also argues that TEACH-NOW’s approach to teacher preparation necessitated that teacher candidates self-manage their program experiences in accordance with their individual needs, circumstances, and preferences. The dissertation concludes with discussion of important themes and specific research, practice, and policy implications.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction

Examining changes in learning and engagement of higher education students in a fully online flipped learning distance education classroom

The challenge of implementing effective online distance education courses for academics and institutions is a centuries-old task. We can look across early developments in the 18th century with the creation and delivery of correspondence courses; into the 20th century with teaching and learning across analog methods such as audio and video; and now in the current era of digitized mechanisms that enable the online classroom. This includes advances in internet technologies and computing abilities that are the empowering the backbone processes, bridging connectivity between the student and the instructor. As society has trended toward massive increases in online modes of instructional delivery, major gaps are still apparent when attempting to adapt traditional and modern teaching and learning methods to online learning landscapes. These pertain to the students’ abilities to retain knowledge as well as in having an engaging classroom experience. These gaps can include the misalignment of the motivations of the teacher and the learner, the ability to gain and retain the attention of the student when not physically face-to-face, and the propensity of retaining knowledge based on the effects of an experience in the online classroom. This study analyzes the flipped classroom model of instruction in a fully online course. The purpose of this study is to examine potential change in student learning and engagement and determine the impact of a flipped classroom model of instruction on the learning outcomes and engagement experiences of the student. These interests are the gauges in which to examine whether this model of instruction can contribute to more informed instructional design decisions in the future of online education

Mediating identity, 'mobile-ising' culture : the social impact of MXIt in the relational lives of teens

The primary aim of the study was to examine the mediating role that MXit plays in the identity formation of 16-18 year old adolescents. Little is known about the social impact of MXit on adolescents’ identities when this usage is so deeply embedded in the relational exchanges of teens’ everyday experiences. Nine focus groups, four group interviews and two one on one interviews were employed across six schools located in four socioeconomically divergent Cape Town suburbs demarcated using middle to upper-income (Milnerton and Newlands) and lower-income (Khayelitsha and Cloetesville) operational definitions