Do secondary pre-service teachers have what it takes to educate learners with special educational needs?

This case study shares secondary pre-service teachers’ concerns about teaching students with special educational needs within mainstream classrooms. Many pre-service teachers are fearful that they do not have what it takes to provide the best learning and teaching experiences for students with special educational needs. In this study, an online community comprised of pre-service teachers, practicing teachers, and teacher educators explored contemporary teaching and learning practices for students who have special educational needs. An analysis of the online posts exposed that the pre-service teachers: 1) had limited realization of the diversity of learners in secondary classrooms; 2) demonstrated a positive attitude towards inclusivity; 3) used literature to support claims; 4) presented an appreciation of learning with and from each other within an online community; and 5) made explicit references to their personal learning during their participation in the online community

Young people in iNaturalist: a blended learning framework for biodiversity monitoring

Participation in authentic research in the field and online through Community and Citizen Science (CCS) has shown to bring learning benefits to volunteers. In online CCS, available platforms present distinct features, ranging from scaffolding the process of data collection, to supporting data analysis and enabling volunteers to initiate their own studies. What is yet not well understood is how best to design CCS programmes that are educational, inclusive, and accessible by diverse volunteers, including young people and those with limited prior science experiences who are rather few in CCS. In this study, we interviewed 31 young people, aged 7–20 years old, who used iNaturalist, an online biodiversity monitoring platform, and identified how different forms of participation online and in the field facilitated (or inhibited) certain forms of learning, as defined by the Environmental Science Agency framework. Findings revealed that iNaturalist enabled participation of young people including those with limited science experiences and facilitated science learning such as the development of science competence and understanding. A blended learning framework for biodiversity monitoring in CCS is presented as a means to support the development of hybrid, educational, and inclusive CCS programmes for young people

iSpot: a citizen science platform for inclusive learning and teaching

www.iSpotnature.org (iSpot) is an Open University (OU) citizen science platform launched in 2009, which uses the challenge of identifying nature to engage people as citizen scientists. It encourages learning about wildlife while building species identification skills. iSpot has an active online community and provides a multifaceted experience, incorporating participatory science research with e-learning opportunities. Learning was always part of the design, with innovative educational technology based tools and features incorporated along with activities which encourage public participation and engagement that help to facilitate teaching; creating a unique learning journey. This poster shares best practice of an initiative that demonstrates how citizen science can act as a platform for scientific literacy. It demonstrates how iSpot supports informal to formal learning through a five-step model: explore, identify, contribute, personalise and recognition. It shares how the integration of authentic inquiry, through a citizen science platform environment, facilitates learning; and highlights this through the development a new course Global biodiversity and citizen science

Beyond the ivory tower: a model for nurturing informal learning and development communities through open educational practices

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) are making an evergrowing impact on the field of adult learning, offering free high-quality education to increasing numbers of people. However, the top-down distribution of weighty university courses that typifies current provision is not necessarily suitable for contexts such as Continued Professional Development (CPD). This article proposes that a change of focus from a supplier-driven to a needs-led approach, grounded in theories of informal learning, could increase the positive impact of OER and OEP beyond the ivory towers of higher education. To explore this approach, we focused on the requirements of a specific community outside higher education – trainers in the UK’s voluntary sector – in order to design a more broadly applicable model for a sustainable online learning community focused around OER and OEP. The model was informed by a recent survey of voluntary sector trainers establishing their need for high-quality free resources and their desire to develop more productive relationships with their peers, and by evaluation of successful online communities within and outside the voluntary sector. Our proposed model gives equal attention to learning resources and group sociality. In it, academics and practitioners work together to adapt and create learning materials and to share each other’s knowledge and experiences through discussion forums and other collaborative activities. The model features an explicit up-skilling dimension based on Communities of Practice (CoP) theory and a system of reputation management to incentivise participation. The model is unique in building a pan-organisation community that is entirely open in terms of membership and resources. While the model offered in this article is focused on the voluntary sector, it could also be applied more widely, allowing practitioner communities the benefits of tailored resources and academic input, and collaborating universities the benefit of having their OER used and reused more widely for CPD through informal learning

You Tube if you want to – a Web 2.0 approach to staff development in web conferencing

How can we identify and make best use of potential resources in a staff development programme promoting web conferencing? What are the resources we should use? This paper regards web conferencing as a potentially powerful tool at the disposal of an institution intent on exploring new models of blended and online learning appropriate to the changing needs of 21st-century learners. It presents web conferencing in the user-centric context of Web 2.0 – the social web technologies whose educational impact is to empower online communication, collaboration, participation and sharing of resources. Based on findings from an 18-month period of evaluation and initial implementation at Leeds Met, it outlines practical staff development approaches in the related areas of user-created content and community involvement that could promote a more efficient and focused dissemination of the insights and experiences of a local, national and world-wide user group

Advancing Global Health: An Introduction to International Service Learning for Nurses

Raising awareness of global health issues as well as providing culturally appropriate healthcare through service-learning programs are important components of nursing education. Online education provides increased flexibility, access, and cost-effectiveness in nursing education because attending classes on campus is often difficult for nurses due to their work schedules and family and other responsibilities. Faculty utilize teaching strategies such as online courses to engage students and increase interest levels in service-learning projects. If faculty use these strategies well, graduate nursing students are more likely to participate in global health initiates. The aim of this project was to investigate the interest levels of graduate nursing students in university-community engagement and participation in international service-learning. In order to accurately assess graduate nursing students’ interest in international service-learning, an online introductory course related to international service-learning was developed and offered for free enrolment in the course. There are many benefits from graduate nursing student’s participation in international service-learning programs as a part of their educational experience, such as serving global community needs, helping those in need, and gaining cultural awareness. This DNP project will effectively allow for the evaluation of the impact of participation in an introduction to international service-learning course on students’ interest in global health initiatives. Upon completion of the June 2019 term, a post-course interest survey will be administered to examine the beliefs and interest of graduate nursing students in global health and global health initiatives.https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2022/1045/thumbnail.jp

Community across a continent: cultivating relationships in online education Distance Education versus Traditional Education: Management Methods and Systems

Online education has undoubtedly revolutionized the ways, means, and criteria for learning. With more systems for cyber communication and collaboration than ever before, online education is often touted as the second coming of Horace Mann's notion of “the great equalizer” in education. However, one critical piece of face-to-face education, the ability to build and cultivate interpersonal relationships and communities, is severely strained, and often nonexistent, in the realm of online learning. As more and more research suggests the importance of community to students' academic success at all levels of the educational system, what are the implications for our online students if this factor is missing? In this paper, the author draws upon her experience as a traditional public school educator and as an online instructor through the Johns Hopkins University Masters of Science in Education program to discuss the importance of nurturing personal connections with online students in ways that support students' intrinsic needs for community and increase participation, interaction, and academic outcomes

Knowledge Production and Social Roles in an Online Community of Emerging Occupation: A Study of User Experience Practitioners on Reddit

New occupations are emerging that have high job demand in the market, but lack a coherent body of disciplinary knowledge. For example, user experience (UX) design is an emerging occupation that has not been adequately supported by the traditional educational system. For learners beginning their undergraduate education, there is no concrete path to follow to become a UX professional, due to few UX-focused undergraduate academic programs. Online communities of practices have been recognized as important learning venues, even while institutions of formal education often lag behind in structuring knowledge production and distribution. However, little is known about how knowledge is generated and diffused in online communities in the context of emerging occupations with volatile knowledge boundaries. In this paper, we analyze knowledge production in relation to social roles in an online UX community. We show that knowledge production is highly distributed, involving the participation of community members of varied levels of experience. We discuss how online communities support the development of the UX occupation

Parents Caring, Sharing, and Learning Together Online: An Exploratory Look at Informal Learning via a Health-Related Support Group in Facebook

abstract: Using an adapted Straussian Grounded Theory approach, and as a participant observer, data from members of a Facebook group made up of parents and caretakers of infants or children with Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) were collected and analyzed. During the first exploratory phase, 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 theoretically sampled members of the group. During the second phase, 604 postings (original and comments) created by members of the online social media group, for one week, were analyzed. The study explored various dimensions of informal learning in this space. These included what learning strategies members used, what types of knowledge were encouraged and shared, how community within the group was characterized and its role in the learning space, what factors led members to join and share knowledge, and what patterns of participation existed in the group. The findings revealed a core concept of a disconnect between group members and their medical community that drove participation in the online health-related social media group, as well as a substantive theory of learning to survive. A new framework for understanding online informal learning spaces in social media was developed and proposed. It was adapted from Wenger’s Community of Practice and Gee’s Affinity Spaces. Its key components include a disconnect; inherent learning processes; community and space characteristics; and types of knowledge that are encouraged and available. Findings also contributed to a better understanding of online information-seeking behaviors by introducing a new model of information-seeking within online social media groups. This model includes the stages of initiating, lurking, and browsing; requesting information; being guided by a highly knowledgeable member; reconciling; applying; and appraising. The model is a continuous cycle with entry and exit permitted at each stage based on the learner’s needs. In addition, this study’s findings demonstrate that social media spaces are a viable avenue for the transferring of experience-based knowledge.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Educational Technology 201