Learning design approaches for personalised and non-personalised e-learling systems

Recognizing the powerful role that technology plays in the lives of people, researchers are increasingly focusing on the most effective uses of technology to support learning and teaching. Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the potential to support and transform students’ learning and allows them to choose when, where and how to learn. This paper describes two different approaches for the design of personalised and non-personalised online learning environments, which have been developed to investigate whether personalised e-learning is more efficient than non-personalised e-learning, and discuss some of the student’s experiences and assessment test results based on experiments conducted so far

Diversity, Disadvantage and Differential Outcomes: An analysis of Samoan students narratives of schooling

Social justice discourses, particularly those attentive to the politics of difference, suggest that the perspectives of least-advantaged groups need to be taken into account when endeavouring to realise social justice in education for these groups. In this paper, we analyse narratives on schooling produced by one cohort of least-advantaged students, namely Samoan students attending state-designated disadvantaged secondary schools in Queensland, Australia. Specifically, the narratives of educational disadvantage provided by Samoan students are analysed. The focus is on 'the what' (the knowledge to be transmitted) and 'the how' (the teacher-student relations) of pedagogy in state-designated disadvantaged schools. Attention is paid to the contradictory and ambivalent discourses inherent in these narratives, particularly in terms of realising socially just pedagogic practices

Working memory in children with developmental disorders

The aim of the present study was to directly compare working memory skills across students with different developmental disorders to investigate whether the uniqueness of their diagnosis would impact memory skills. The authors report findings confirming differential memory profiles on the basis of the following developmental disorders: Specific Language Impairment, Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Asperger syndrome(AS). Specifically, language impairments were associated with selective deficits in verbal short-term and working memory, whereas motor impairments (DCD) were associated with selective deficits in visuospatial short-term and working memory. Children with attention problems were impaired in working memory in both verbal and visuospatial domains, whereas the children with AS had deficits in verbal short-term memory but not in any other memory component. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of support for learning

Reframing e-assessment: building professional nursing and academic attributes in a first year nursing course

This paper documents the relationships between pedagogy and e-assessment in two nursing courses offered at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. The courses are designed to build the academic, numeracy and technological attributes student nurses need if they are to succeed at university and in the nursing profession. The paper first outlines the management systems supporting the two courses and how they intersect with the e-learning and e-assessment components of course design. These pedagogical choices are then reviewed. While there are lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, preliminary results suggest students and staff are extremely supportive of the courses. The e-assessment is very positively received with students reporting increased confidence and competency in numeracy, as well as IT, academic, research and communication skills

Writing in the STEM classroom: Faculty conceptions of writing and its role in the undergraduate classroom

Writing is widely recognized as fundamental to the construction and communication of scientific knowledge. Building on this relationship between writing and knowledge construction, writing‐to‐learn (WTL) activities have shown to be effective in many science classrooms, but have not been widely implemented at the postsecondary level. To address the lack of implementation, we investigated potential adopters of this pedagogy. Potential adopters, postsecondary faculty, are unique given the key role writing plays in their professional practice as researchers. Because of this unique feature and the fact that an instructor’s theoretical orientation toward a construct impacts their instruction of that construct, an investigation of postsecondary faculty’s conceptions of writing instruction is necessary to understand the way writing is being used in the postsecondary classroom. To this end, 33 STEM faculty across multiple disciplines and positions were interviewed about writing and its role in their classes. A phenomenographic analysis resulted in four faculty “types” consisting of unique combinations of concept and practice, organized according to compatibility with WTL. Profiles were built that describe unique conceptions, desired outcomes, and challenges for each type. These profiles provide an understanding of the relationship between faculty’s conceptions and instructional practices regarding writing and lay the groundwork for understanding how writing is used in the postsecondary classroom.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146379/1/sce21454_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146379/2/sce21454.pd

Rhetorical relationships with students: A higher education case study of perceptions of online assessment in mathematics

Some students perceive that online assessment does not provide for a true reflection of their work effort. This article reports on a collaborative international project between two higher education institutions with the aim of researching issues relating to engineering student perceptions with respect to online assessment of mathematics. It provides a comparison between students of similar educational standing in Finland and Ireland. The students undertook to complete questionnaires and a sample of students was selected to participate in several group discussion interviews. Evidence from the data suggests that many of the students demonstrate low levels of confidence, do not display knowledge of continuous assessment processes and perceive many barriers when confronted with online assessment in their first semester. Alternative perspectives were sought from lecturers by means of individual interviews. The research indicates that perceptions of effort and reward as seen by students are at variance with those held by lecturers. The study offers a brief insight into the thinking of students in the first year of their engineering mathematics course. It may be suggested that alternative approaches to curriculum and pedagogical design are necessary to alleviate student concerns

Literacy and numeracy skills and labour market outcomes in Australia

Australian adults are above the OECD average in literacy but only average in numeracy, according to a staff paper released by the Productivity Commission. The paper analyses the profile of adult literacy and numeracy skills in Australia, and how important those skills are for labour market outcomes. Key points: Adult literacy and numeracy skills contribute to wellbeing in many ways. At an individual level, they are central to social and economic participation. Literacy and numeracy skills are a core part of a person\u27s human capital. They also support the development of other forms of human capital, including knowledge, other skills and health. Some Australians have low (level 1 or below) literacy and numeracy skills. In 2011–12: 14 per cent of Australians could, at best, read only relatively short texts from which they were able to locate only a single piece of information. 22 per cent could only carry out one-step or simple processes such as counting where the mathematical content is explicit with little or no text or distractors. At the other end of the skill distribution, 16 per cent of Australians had high (level 4/5) literacy skills and 12 per cent had high numeracy skills in 2011–12. People with high literacy skills can make complex inferences and evaluate subtle truth claims or arguments in lengthy or multiple texts. People with high numeracy skills can understand a broad range of mathematical information that may be complex, abstract or embedded in unfamiliar contexts. Most Australians have skills somewhere between these levels. Groups with relatively low literacy and numeracy skills include: people with low levels of education; older persons; people not working; and immigrants with a non-English speaking background. Compared with other countries in the OECD, Australia performs above average on literacy but average in numeracy. Higher literacy and numeracy skills are associated with better labour market outcomes (employment and wages). Econometric modelling shows that: an increase in literacy and numeracy by one skill level is associated with an increased likelihood of employment of 2.4 and 4.3 percentage points for men and women, respectively an increase in literacy and numeracy skills is associated with a similar increase in the probability of employment, whether a person had a degree, diploma/certificate or Year 12 education an increase in literacy and numeracy by one skill level is associated with about a 10 per cent increase in wages for both men and women. This positive association is equivalent to that of increasing educational attainment from Year 11 to Year 12 or to a diploma/certificate up to 40 per cent of the association between education and employment is attributable to literacy and numeracy skills. These results are consistent with education providing many other attributes of human capital that are valued in the workplace more than half of the \u27penalty\u27 that affects the wages of people with a non-English speaking background is explained by their lower literacy and numeracy skills. • Staff working papers are not formal publications of the Commission. They have been prepared and are authored by individual staff to advance understanding of issues on the Commission’s supporting research program