Supporting peer interaction in online learning environments

This paper reports two studies into the efficacy of sentence openers to foster online peer-to-peer interaction. Sentence openers are pre-defined ways to start an utterance that are implemented in communication facilities as menu’s or buttons. In the first study, typical opening phrases were derived from naturally occurring online dialogues. The resulting set of sentence openers was implemented in a semi-structured chat tool that allowed students to compose messages in a freetext area or via sentence openers. In the second study, this tool was used to explore the students’ appreciation and unprompted use of sentence openers. Results indicate that students hardly used sentence openers and were skeptical of their usefulness. Because both measures were negatively correlated with students’ prior chat experience, optional use of sentence openers may not be the best way to support students’ online interaction. Based on these findings, alternative ways of using sentence openers are discussed and topics for further research are advanced

Strategic Approaches to the Development and Management of Personal Tutorial Systems in UK Higher Education

This chapter explores our experience, over nine years, of taking a strategic approach to personal tutoring within University of the Arts London. University of the Arts London comprises (at time of writing) five colleges and is specialist within the disciplines of art, design and communication. It is the biggest art and design educational institution in Europe and possibly the world. The chapter outlines the positive development we have been able to achieve in some colleges of the university and the tensions and difficulties encountered

A guide for Teachers

The role of the teacher in Higher Education is changing rapidly, and much of this change is as the result of the introduction of e-Learning. Teachers are now expected to share their role as course designers with many other professionals working in their institution while taking on a bigger role in the technical and resource discovery aspects of course design. This guide tackles these issues as well as examining emerging pedagogical issues that arise from the use of technologies in teaching. You will find information, advice and guidance that will help you make appropriate and effective use of e-Learning to support your students

Harmony and Technology Enhanced Learning

New technologies offer rich opportunities to support education in harmony. In this chapter we consider theoretical perspectives and underlying principles behind technologies for learning and teaching harmony. Such perspectives help in matching existing and future technologies to educational purposes, and to inspire the creative re-appropriation of technologies

Disclosure Concerns: The Stigma of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Writing Centers

Despite widespread research regarding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in general education, little research exists connecting this medical phenomenon to writing center pedagogy. A 2008 report by the United States Government Accountability Office found that “the most commonly reported type of disability among US college students was mental, emotional, or psychiatric illness or depression (24%). The second most common was Attention Deficit Disorder (19%), with mobility impairment coming in third (15%)” (qtd. in Babcock 39). Thus, writing centers can expect to encounter writers with ADHD, but the diagnosis remains unexplored when it comes to tutoring situations and how we might best support writers with ADHD. We address this absence in the research by applying disability studies scholarship to an exploration of disclosure concerns and stigma.University Writing Cente

Artificial Intelligence in Music Education: A Critical Review

This paper reviews the principal approaches to using Artificial Intelligence in Music Education. Music is a challenging domain for Artificial Intelligence in Education (AI-ED) because music is, in general, an open-ended domain demanding creativity and problem-seeking on the part of learners and teachers. In addition, Artificial Intelligence theories of music are far from complete, and music education typically emphasises factors other than the communication of ‘knowledge’ to students. This paper reviews critically some of the principal problems and possibilities in a variety of AI-ED approaches to music education. Approaches considered include: Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Music; Music Logo Systems; Cognitive Support Frameworks that employ models of creativity; highly interactive interfaces that employ AI theories; AI-based music tools; and systems to support negotiation and reflection. A wide variety of existing music AI-ED systems are used to illustrate the key issues, techniques and methods associated with these approaches to AI-ED in Music

Knowledge mentoring as a framework for designing computer-based agents for supporting musical composition learning

An approach to the design of teaching agents in problem-seeking domains - that is based on a systematic relationship between theoretical framework, analysis of empirical data, computational model and computational implementation - has been developed. The theoretical framework, called the Knowledge Mentoring framework (KMf), was developed to investigate how studies of dialogue and interaction can be exploited in a practical way by designers of computer-based teaching agents. A particular focus was the following musical education problem: when interacting with a computer-based music system, many students do not spontaneously reflect on their activity, they often need to be encouraged to do this. The KMf provides a taxonomy and definitions of the pedagogical goals involved in a 'mentoring' style of teaching. Mentoring is an approach to teaching that aims to support learners' creative, metacognitive and critical thinking, these being essential to musical composition and other open-ended, problem-seeking domains. This theoretical framework was used to guide the analysis and modelling of data produced by an empirical study of human teacher-learner interactions. Information on the temporal ordering of teacher-learner interactions was revealed (modelled as. state transition networks and a mentoring script). Findings from the analysis also included a pause taxonomy (that provided evidence of a link between pause length and learner ability) and the occurrence of reciprocal modelling (where participants in learning interactions built up models of the other participants' expectations). The theoretical framework and the analysis findings were then used to develop a computational model for teaching agents in problem-seeking domains. Aspects of our theory, analysis findings and computational model were incorporated into a computational implementation: a pre-prototype teaching agent called MetaMuse. A Cooperative Evaluation of MetaMuse with teacher-composers showed that it had the potential to promote creative reflection in learners

Designing a toolkit to support dialogue in learning

Whilst the use of dialogue has many pedagogic advantages to offer Higher Education, implementing it effectively in teaching practice is a complex and problematic process that requires a wide range of expertise. This paper describes one strategy for addressing this issue: the development of a toolkit that supports the process of planning and reflection that practitioners must engage in when attempting to use dialogue in their teaching. After identifying and illustrating some of the issues relating to the use of dialogue, the notion of toolkits will be defined and a methodology for their development outlined. This is then exemplified with the specific case of the design of a toolkit for using dialogue in learning. A study is then described in which this prototype toolkit was evaluated, demonstrating its impact both in terms of changing practice and of developing a critical awareness of the issues relating dialogue and learning, before conclusions are drawn about the wider relevance of the work

Body + Power + Justice: Movement-Based Workshops for Critical Tutor Education

In this participatory article (with suggested activities, check-ins with the body, and freewriting), we use collaborative narrative inquiry to unpack considerations that underlie the planning, facilitation, and processing of a series of movement-based workshops. Critiquing liberal multiculturalist approaches in writing centers, we argue against the all-too-common flattening of differences and think through how embodiment helps us work the hyphens (Fine, 1998) or find third ways (Soja, 1996) that break open new possibilities for working and learning together toward equity and racial justice. In contrast to role-playing scenarios that characterize many tutor education practices, we suggest that centering the body through movement allows for an alternative and more generative way to interrogate and restructure racial power. In total, we argue for attention to the body and embodied practice to engage tutors (and all writing center staff, directors included) in developing critical praxis for racial justice. For us, praxis comes in the form we call critical tutor education, which is essential for writing centers committed to more equitable relations and practices, as we continue to strive for the ought to be (Horton as cited in Branch, 2007)