Team formation instruments to enhance learner interactions in open learning environments

Open learning environments, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), often lack adequate learner collaboration possibilities; they are also plagued by high levels of drop-out. Introducing project-based learning (PBL) can enhance learner collaboration and motivation, but PBL does not easily scale up into MOOCS. To support definition and staffing of projects, team formation principles and algorithms are introduced to form productive, creative, or learning teams. These use data on the project and on learner knowledge, personality and preferences. A study was carried out to validate the principles and the algorithms. The data were provided by students (n=168) and educational practitioners (n=56). The principles for learning teams and productive teams were accepted, while the principle for creative teams was not. The algorithms were validated using team classifying tasks and team ranking tasks. The practitioners classify and rank small productive, creative and learning teams in accordance with the algorithms, thereby validating the algorithms outcomes. When team size grows, for practitioners, forming teams quickly becomes complex, as demonstrated by the increased divergence in ranking and classifying accuracy. Discussion of the results, conclusions, and directions for future research are provided

Effective team formation in networked learning settings

Professional development can be achieved by interacting with the abundance of learning materials provided by Internet-based services and by collaborating with other learners. However, knowledge sources are scattered across the Internet, while suitable co-learners are hard to find. Learning professionals require strong self-direction powers to fully benefit from these resources. However, these are not readily available in all learners. Based on social-constructivist/connectivist collaborative learning theory and team formation theory, a model is presented for the effective formation of teams engaging in structured collaborative learning. The model describes the creation knowledge domain representations by centralising learning materials from various sources. It allows learners to define structured learning tasks and provides an answer to the question whether a particular learning task can be addressed sufficiently well in the knowledge domain. Based on team formation theory, it provides the means to form teams of mutual learners and peer-teachers based on bridgeable knowledge differences (an interpretation of Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development") and personality aspects. The model also allows recommending suitable learning materials to the teams. A selection of tools is presented to afford an implementation of the model. These consist of an implementation of the method of Latent Semantic Analysis, a validated learning team formation algorithm and the Big Five personality test. The model is subsequently tested. The results of this test indicate that representations of knowledge domains can be successfully created and that the fit of learning tasks to the learning materials in the domain can be assessed. An experiment with learners (n=64) shows that the implementation can successfully assess prior knowledge and that collaborations based on prior knowledge differences do lead to knowledge gains. Furthermore, learners highly appreciate the learning materials suggested. However, the evidence for a level of knowledge difference between learners at which learning becomes most effective is currently limited. The results are discussed, and conclusions and directions for future research are included

TOWARDS IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGIES IN CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING IN CHILE. A CASE STUDY

The demands of society are changing rapidly, which in turn enhances the need to prepare qualified professionals with up-dated skills and competencies. Due to this fact, universities must be able to develop new teaching strategies which should be focused, not only in the curricula, but on teaching methodology. This paper shows an experience, developed for the subject matter of electrical installations within the Construction Engineering degree of the Autonomous University of Chile. The aim is to show a Project-Based Learning model using cooperative as well as collaborative strategies, while taking into ac-count both the particular situation of higher education in Chile and the socio-cultural factors of students. The methodology and tools used for its implementation are described and related to obtained results within the Chilean context. It concludes that this teaching method contributes with learning enhancement in terms of strengthening of technical and transversal competencies, while also resulting in a significant improvement of grades, as well as a marked reduction in the absenteeism rate

TOWARDS IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGIES IN CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING IN CHILE. A CASE STUDY

The demands of society are changing rapidly, which in turn enhances the need to prepare qualified professionals with up-dated skills and competencies. Due to this fact, universities must be able to develop new teaching strategies which should be focused, not only in the curricula, but on teaching methodology. This paper shows an experience, developed for the subject matter of electrical installations within the Construction Engineering degree of the Autonomous University of Chile. The aim is to show a Project-Based Learning model using cooperative as well as collaborative strategies, while taking into ac-count both the particular situation of higher education in Chile and the socio-cultural factors of students. The methodology and tools used for its implementation are described and related to obtained results within the Chilean context. It concludes that this teaching method contributes with learning enhancement in terms of strengthening of technical and transversal competencies, while also resulting in a significant improvement of grades, as well as a marked reduction in the absenteeism rate

Team formation instruments to enhance learner interactions in open learning environments

Open learning environments, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), often lack adequate learner collaboration possibilities; they are also plagued by high levels of drop-out. Introducing project-based learning (PBL) can enhance learner collaboration and motivation, but PBL does not easily scale up into MOOCS. To support definition and staffing of projects, team formation principles and algorithms are introduced to form productive, creative, or learning teams. These use data on the project and on learner knowledge, personality and preferences. A study was carried out to validate the principles and the algorithms. The data were provided by students (n=168) and educational practitioners (n=56). The principles for learning teams and productive teams were accepted, while the principle for creative teams was not. The algorithms were validated using team classifying tasks and team ranking tasks. The practitioners classify and rank small productive, creative and learning teams in accordance with the algorithms, thereby validating the algorithms outcomes. When team size grows, for practitioners, forming teams quickly becomes complex, as demonstrated by the increased divergence in ranking and classifying accuracy. Discussion of the results, conclusions, and directions for future research are provided

Exploring the experiences of instructors teaching massive open online courses in tourism and hospitality: a mixed methods approach

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have existed as a disruptive educational phenomenon for nine years. Grounded in the roots of distance education, open education, Open Educational Resources, and OpenCourseWare, MOOCs have now survived various critics and have continued growing globally. Reports about MOOCs in both the press and scholarly publications began to grow significantly in 2013 (Sánchez-Vera, Leon Urrutia, & Davis, 2015; Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017) and, since then, more and more researchers have joined the discussions, developing them to explore various new topics. To contribute to the literature of MOOC studies, this doctoral thesis begins with an in-depth analysis of the background, history, growth, and vision, and proposes a tentative definition of MOOCs. Meanwhile, by conducting bibliometric research to review MOOC studies conducted between 2015 and 2017, this thesis fills in the gap that has existed due to a lack of systematic reviews of MOOC literature since 2015. The results of the bibliometric research summarised the relevant MOOC research into nine categories, including learner focused, commentary and concepts, case reports or evaluations, pedagogy, curriculum and design, course object focused, provider focused, technology, systematic review of literature, and learning analytics and big data. They also suggested a limited amount of provider focused research, which became the research interest and focus of this thesis. In the centre of the Europe, Swiss universities have marched forward in the MOOC movement, together with other over 550 universities (Shah, 2016) around the world. Università della Svizzera italiana (USI; Lugano, Switzerland), a Swiss public university, became a MOOC provider in 2015 and offered the first MOOC in the topic of eTourism: eTourism: Communication Perspectives. This doctoral thesis is closely related to this university-level initiative, which was dedicated to producing the first pilot MOOC at USI. Therefore, the cases chosen by this thesis are positioned in the discipline of tourism and hospitality. The first MOOC with a large audience taught artificial intelligence in 2011 (Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017). Nowadays, MOOCs have broken the barrier of space and time to educate the masses in a wide range of subjects. However, the provision of MOOCs in the subject of tourism and hospitality did not appear until 2013, when two MOOCs from two American universities became available. In the past four years since these MOOCs were launched, the number of tourism and hospitality MOOCs available in the market has remained limited (Tracey, Murphy, & Horton-Tognazzini, 2016). This scarcity contradicts the fact that tourism and hospitality is the field that contributes the most to the employment of the global workforce. Pressing problems, such as high turnover, seasonality, and new global challenges have urged for solutions to quickly training people working in this area to become available (Cantoni, Kalbaska, & Inversini, 2009). A call for more studies about tourism and hospitality MOOCs has emerged. The combined reality of the lack of studies regarding MOOC providers, opportunities for first-hand experience of producing a tourism MOOC in a university, and the deficiency in both the research and practises of tourism and hospitality MOOCs has inspired the direction of this thesis in regard to exploring MOOC instructors’ experiences, using cases in the field of tourism and hospitality. It cumulates six studies, using a mixed methods approach, to tackle the two main research objectives: to investigate at large the tourism and hospitality MOOC provisions between 2008 and 2015 and to report the experiences of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) when producing the eTourism MOOC. In order, the first two studies in Chapter 3 of this thesis focus on tourism and hospitality MOOCs in general and produce a big picture context for the other four studies in Chapter 4. The first study proposes a conceptual framework through which to describe and analyse the course design of a MOOC and applies it to 18 tourism and hospitality MOOCs produced between 2008 and 2015. The second study then continues to interview six tourism and hospitality MOOC instructors, to describe their experiences and perspectives of teaching MOOCs. After exploring a holistic view of the overall development of MOOCs in tourism and hospitality and gaining a deep understanding of the instructors behind these offerings, this thesis introduces the experiences of one single MOOC provider: Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Chapter 4. It first introduces its overall implementation process (Study 3), and further elaborates three phases of this process: how it selected a suitable MOOC platform at the beginning (Study 4); how it assessed learner engagement in the MOOC (Study 5); and, eventually, how it evaluated the performance of the MOOC (Study 6). This thesis was written mainly from the perspective of eLearning, with the intention of benefiting its community of scholars and practitioners. It has contributed to the literature by developing a framework with which to review MOOCs (in Study 1), the implementation process of producing MOOCs (in Study 2), practical review schema of MOOC platforms (in Study 4), the MOOC Learner Engagement Online Survey (in Study 5), and how to use the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate MOOCs (in Study 6). These conceptual frameworks and experiential tools can benefit future researchers and practitioners. Meanwhile, due to its intimate connection with the field of tourism and hospitality, by directly using its cases, the research outputs of the six studies can also benefit the tourism and hospitality education and training sector as a reference for further action

PA1710-5-macet : Make-modelo adaptativo para la conformación de equipos de trabajo

El modelo adaptativo para la conformación de equipos de trabajo (MAKE), está basado en problemáticas relacionadas con la cohesión, composición, comunicación y el tiempo de conformación. Las competencias, conocimientos, personalidad y roles son las características definidas en MAKE. Se establecieron tres (3) sistemas: conformación, evaluación e incorporación. Se construyó un prototipo funcional como soporte a los sistemas planteados implementando dos (2) algoritmos: distancias y grafos. Se validó el modelo en el ámbito educativo y el sector productivo. El resultado de los procesos de conformación de equipos fue evaluado respecto a los requerimientos de cada organización. Finalmente, se presentan conclusiones y trabajo futuro.The adaptive model for the formation of work teams (MAKE), is based on problems related to cohesión, composition, communication and time of conformation. The competences, knowledge, personaiity and roles are the characteristics defined ¡n MAKE. Three (3) systems were established:conformation, evaluation and incorporation. A functional prototype was constructcd as support for the proposed systems implementing two (2) algorithms: distances and graphs. The model was validated in the educational field and the productive sector. The result of the processes of conformity of equipment was evaluated with respect to the requirements of each organizaron. Finally, conclusions and future work are presented. The adaptive model for the formation of work teams (MAKE), is based on problems related to cohesión, composition, communication and time of conformation. The competences, knowledge, personaiity and roles are the characteristics defined ¡n MAKE. Three (3) systems were established:conformation, evaluation and incorporation. A functional prototype was constructcd as support for the proposed systems implementing two (2) algorithms: distances and graphs. The model was validated in the educational field and the productive sector. The result of the processes of conformity of equipment was evaluated with respect to the requirements of each organizaron. Finally, conclusions and future work are presented.Magíster en Ingeniería de Sistemas y ComputaciónMaestrí

Marco conceptual para la gestión de grupos colaborativos en cursos de escala masiva y variable

Los MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses, Cursos Abiertos Masivos en Línea), etiquetados como nuevo paradigma disruptivo en el entorno educativo, son ampliamente criticados debido a sus altas tasas de abandono y a su baja calidad instruccional. La inclusión de pedagogías colaborativas en este tipo de cursos podría mejorar su calidad instruccional, además de aumentar la motivación e implicación de los alumnos. La escala masiva y variable dificulta la introducción de dichas pedagogías y en especial la formación y mantenimiento de grupos de trabajo de alumnos. El apoyo a los profesores en las tareas de gestión de los grupos, podría facilitar la adopción de diseños pedagógicos colaborativos. Para abordar esta meta y poder llevar a cabo el desarrollo de herramientas de apoyo a los profesores, es conveniente un conocimiento profundo del contexto y del problema a acometer, así como una visión holística del mismo. Por este motivo, este TFM pretende realizar una primera iteración exploratoria sobre el problema y desarrollar un marco conceptual que describa el contexto e identifique y clasifique los factores a considerar en el diseño de herramientas que apoyen a los profesores en la gestión de agrupaciones en cursos de escala masiva y variable. Para ello se realiza una revisión de literatura y se obtiene la opinión de expertos mediante entrevistas semiestructuras. La información obtenida por estos métodos se analiza, se sintetiza y se comunica en forma de artefactos gráficos que se usan posteriormente en tres escenarios ilustrativos que tratan de facilitar la comprensión de los artefactos en un contexto ficticio pero realista.Máster en Investigación en Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicacione