Feedback is a gift: Do Video-enhanced rubrics result in providing better peer feedback than textual rubrics?

High-quality elaborative peer feedback is a blessing for both learners and teachers. However, learners can experience difficulties in giving high-quality feedback on complex skills using textual analytic rubrics. High-quality elaborative feedback can be strengthened by adding video-modeling examples with embedded self-explanation prompts, turning textual analytic rubrics (TR) into so-called \u27video-enhanced analytic rubrics\u27 (VER). This study contrasts two experimental conditions (TR, n = 54; VERs, n = 49) with their version of the anonymized online tool (used to collect the given feedback in \u27Tips for improvement and Tops identifying strengths\u27). Peer feedback quality (concreteness and consistency) was evaluated using Natural Language Processing. As expected, the video-enhanced rubrics condition resulted in a higher quantity of words used and a lower amount of naive wording compared to the textual rubric condition. Contrary to our assumptions, it did not lower the amount of non-constructive wording nor improved the amount of behavioral and process-related feedback. Possibly, the transition from providing more feedback to delivering more accurate behavioral and process-related feedback has not yet been made in the time set for the study

Enhancing Students’ Motivation in the EFL Classroom Through Life is Strange: A Digital Game-Based Learning Scenario Proposal

Màster Universitari de Formació del Professorat de Secundària Obligatòria i Batxillerat, Facultat d'Educació, Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2022-2023. Tutora: Gemma López[eng] This research study introduces a learning scenario integrating the video game Life is Strange (DontNod, 2015) into the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. It explores the viability and practicality of incorporating digital game-based instruction into English language learning and investigates its impact on student motivation and engagement. The development and partial implementation of the learning scenario in the 4th of ESO classroom are guided by design principles that align with language learning objectives and follow the task-based supported language teaching (TSLT) methodology. Results indicate that the integration of the video game in the instruction generates a substantial learning experience. Students exhibit increased motivation and engagement, actively participating in the tasks. In conclusion, incorporating the video game Life is Strange into instruction effectively fosters student motivation in English language learning. Further research is needed to explore long-term effects, but video games in education promise to enhance student motivation and create engaging learning experiences.[cat] Aquest estudi de recerca presenta una situació d’aprenentatge que integra el videojoc Life is Strange (DontNod, 2015) a l'aula d'anglès com a llengua estrangera. L'objectiu és explorar la viabilitat per incorporar l'ensenyament basat en jocs digitals en l'aprenentatge de la llengua anglesa i investigar el seu impacte en la motivació dels estudiants. El desenvolupament i la implementació parcial de l'escenari d'aprenentatge a l'aula de 4t d'ESO es guien per uns principis de disseny que s'alineen amb els objectius d'aprenentatge, tot i seguint la metodologia TSLT (task-based language teaching). Els resultats indiquen que la integració del videojoc a la classe genera una experiència d'aprenentatge substancial. Els estudiants mostren una major motivació i compromís, participant activament en les activitats d'aprenentatge. En conclusió, la incorporació del videojoc Life is Strange a l’aula fomenta de manera efectiva la motivació dels estudiants en l'aprenentatge de la llengua anglesa. Es necessiten més investigacions per explorar els efectes a llarg termini, però l'ús de videojocs a l'educació és prometedor per millorar la motivació dels estudiants i crear experiències d'aprenentatge atractives

Investigating One Science Teacher’s Inquiry Unit Through an Integrated Analysis: The Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-Map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS)

Since the 1950s, inquiry has been considered an effective strategy to promote students’ science learning. However, the use of inquiry in contemporary science classrooms is minimal, despite its long history and wide recognition elsewhere. Besides, inquiry is commonly confused with discovery learning, which needs minimal level of teacher supervision. The lack of thorough description of how inquiry works in diverse classroom settings is known to be a critical problem. To analyze the complex and dynamic nature of inquiry practices, a comprehensive tool is needed to capture its essence. In this dissertation, I studied inquiry lessons conducted by one high school science teacher of 9th grade students. The inquiry sequence lasted for 10 weeks. Using the Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS), elements of inquiry were analyzed from multiple perspectives. The SPA-map analysis, developed as a part of this dissertation, revealed the types of scientific practices in which students were involved. The results from the M-SCOPS provide thorough descriptions of complex inquiry lessons in terms of their content, flow, instructional scaffolding and representational scaffolding. In addition to the detailed descriptions of daily inquiry practices occurring in a dynamic classroom environment, the flow of the lessons in a sequence was analyzed with particular focus on students’ participation in scientific practices. The findings revealed the overall increase of student-directed instructional scaffolding within the inquiry sequence, while no particular pattern was found in representational scaffolding. Depending on the level of cognitive complexity imposed on students, the lessons showed different association patterns between the level of scaffolding and scientific practices. The findings imply that teachers need to provide scaffolding in alignment with learning goals to achieve students’ scientific proficiency

Demystifying Preservice Teacher Reflective Thinking: A Systematic Literature Review

This systematic literature review responds to the need for research on clarity of what reflective thinking practice is and in determining the value of that practice for preservice teachers. While much has been written about preservice teacher reflective thinking, few studies have explored empirical research on the processes that inform and shape preservice teachers’ reflective practice. This study examines the existing literature to discern common themes in the diverse definitions of reflective thinking. This study also examines diverse frameworks that help teacher educators guide, analyze, assess, and measure the quality of preservice teacher reflective thinking. This study helps inform education preparation programs on program-level shifts to consider improving the quality of reflection for all preservice teachers and to realize critical reflection into taking action to provide outstanding educational opportunities and outcomes for each student. Findings from within the literature suggest preservice teachers’ thinking can be developed through instruction, pedagogical processes, and artifacts. This finding holds for preservice teachers in a wide range of grade levels and content areas

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

Interrogating the Divide: A Case Study of Student Technology Use in a One-to-One Laptop School

Persistent gaps in technology literacy skills between students of differing socioeconomic backgrounds over the past two decades (even despite cases of parity in technology resources (Subramony, 2007) amongst poor and affluent students) have necessitated that researchers now look beyond monetary funding as the primary reason for the existence of the Digital Divide. Rather than looking to quantitative measures of students’ technology skills to identify potential areas for skill remediation or special services, some scholars have adopted a sociocultural approach to the problem to examine how the circumstances of technology-related classroom activities influence teachers’ technology integration strategies, and the ways in which students use technology for learning. This case study will follow four non-dominant high school students in a laptop school to examine how the conditions of activity – institutional structures, the teacher’s skills, attitudes, and beliefs about technology, the tools students use to accomplish tasks, etc. – influence the development of agency and one’s ability to use technology for academic and personal growth. Field notes, interviews, and video recordings were analyzed using a constant comparative method, drawing on the tenets of Activity Theory (Engeström, 2001) to identify tensions that hinder students’ use of technology

An interpretative journey into constructivism and primary science curriculum

The principle focus of this study has been a reflection on my planning methodology since 1988. Teachers planning from 19882002 was predominantly individual and was aided by the gradual introduction of State and Commonwealth produced documents. These documents assisted in topic choices and assessment outcomes.Important influences transformed my planning. The first occurred in 1996 and the second in 2002. In 1996 I was involved in the production of a resource kit for teachers titled, Its Working Career and Work Education, Kindergarten to Year 8. During the compilation of this resource kit my planning incorporated the 1995, Teaching and Learning in Science Planning Guide, which resembled constructivism by building knowledge and understanding. In 2002 the curriculum in Tasmanian State Schools was transformed with the introduction of the Essential Learnings Framework 1 and 2. This curriculum innovation had implications on teachers planning methodology with a strong emphasis on collaborative planning.Studies and critiques of environmental units were undertaken in 2000, 2003 and 2004 to ascertain the effectiveness of my planning methodology. The underlying principles of constructivism provided a lens to improve perceived deficiencies in my classroom practice. The inclusion of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) assisted in making constructivism visible. A strong purpose therefore evolved from the study; a more effective planning methodology

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

THINK4JOBS TOOLKIT Ten work-based learning scenarios

The current report is the first Intellectual Output (Output 1) of the THINK4JOBS initiative, which aims at improving students’ CT skills and dispositions by promoting collaboration between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Labour Market Organizations (LMOs). This is the case since according to relevant research findings, LMOs seem to expect employees to acquire CT skills in order for them to successfully address the needs of their work positions. Under this rationale, partners of the two aforementioned fields have decided to redesign and ameliorate HEI curricula by blending both HEIs and LMOs’ experience, knowledge and recommendations, while instilling this evidence into students’ apprenticeships. Apprenticeships offering practice in professional skills can actively lead to students’ understanding of their working environment and simultaneously scaffold CT development with the employment of mentoring. For this reason, the THINK4JOBS initiative exploits apprenticeships as a means of CT exploration and learning through which bridging the gap between HEIs and LMOs can be attained. Therefore, it is considered that in this fashion, students will be acquainted with the concept of CT and also be in the position of transferring it into their work settings, when entering the workplace. It should be noted that partners of the THINK4JOBS project are representatives from five disciplines (teacher training, English as a foreign language – EFL, business economics, business informatics and veterinary medicine), who formed teams between HEI and LMOs for each of these disciplines in order for ideas to be pluralized and CT to be explored across a variety of domains. The current report has a twofold aim: · to trace and map the methods and/or techniques that CT is currently employed in HEIs and LMOs’ apprenticeships and apprenticeships focusing on any possible convergent or divergent points; · to thoroughly describe and suggest work-based, learning scenarios that could bridge the gap between HEIs and LMOs’ curricula and simultaneously attempt to safeguard the requirements for graduates’ CT development and improvement. Mapping the Gap Regarding the first aim of the report, three research methods (observation, focus groups and documentary analysis) were employed in combination with three instruments (observational matrix, focus group rubric and documentary analysis rubric). Each research instrument includes a set of variables, which are majorly organized in three categories: I. Pedagogical aspects of CT development (including class objectives, teaching strategies/methods, tools/materials and evaluation regarding CT) II. CT aspects (including the ways CT is nurtured, triggered and explicitly taught during instruction) III. Implementation of CT (including elements of CT presence in these disciplines) For each variable, a set of indicators, drawing on CT and pedagogical theory was also developed in order for the aforementioned research instruments to be constructed. Stakeholders (HEI students and instructors as well as LMO tutors, employers and employees) participated in the mapping process. Data were collected during the winter semester 2020-2021 and a total of 134 participants from all partner countries participated in the focus groups discussions. Regarding the other two research methods, observation was carried out in at least three apprenticeships or courses, with at least four observation sessions for each of them. As far as it concerns the documentary analysis, documents supporting the courses/apprenticeships, which were observed, were analyzed according to the relevant rubric. Findings from each research instrument were triangulated according to each discipline and are thoroughly described in the current report in separate sections. However, some general conclusions seem to derive from a holistic approach to data analysis. Initially, it was suggested that even though a definitive “gap” between HEIs and LMOs does not seem to exist, there is a different context in CT approach since universities usually employ different learning activities focusing more on career preparation with long-term goals while LMOs follow compact and short-term, learning and teaching strategies. Additionally, findings suggested that CT is a newly-added requirement for the workplace and that HEIs and LMOs do not opt for the same terminology when referring to the concept –meaning that HEIs usually select scientific terms. Another element, which is evident is that CT in HEIs is commonly expressed through a declarative manner, while in LMOs application to specific cases follows the procedural manner. Learning Scenarios Regarding the second aim of this report, each team of HEI and LMO constructed two learning scenarios according to the findings, the sets of recommendations and the already identified educational needs. From the ten work-based scenarios developed, one from every discipline was organized in a syllabus form so that it can be further utilized for the CT blended apprenticeship curricula. This information highlights the importance of the scenarios, since they will set the stage for introducing CT at programme and course levels by utilizing Intellectual Output 3 activities to design work-based curricula for each country and dynamically enhance collaboration between HEIs and LMOs. Under this rationale, this scenario includes descriptive information about the themes, concepts, aims and learning outcomes, the duration, the teaching approach, the learning environment and the evaluation regarding both domain specific and CT related elements. First Intellectual Output Impact The current report is of major importance for the continuation of the THINK4JOBS project since it sets the stage for a sequence of activities carried out during the Second and Third Intellectual Outputs aiming at the successful application of the blended apprenticeships curricula. Besides the report’s importance for the project continuation, it may also stand as a useful Toolkit for teachers, students and employers regarding the development of CT in the workplace. In general, according to research findings, HEIs and LMOs are differently goal-oriented regarding CT and the reason for this divergence lies in the very nature and general context of the two organizations. In other words, HEIs intend to prepare students for all jobs related to a domain, while LMOs aim at preparing an employee for a specific job in a specific organization. This conclusion seems to indicate a paradox: the two organizations work in parallel but they do not share common understanding. This is the reason why the First Intellectual Output may be an invaluable means in the exploration of CT through different perspectives; actively supporting HEI and LMO collaboration in the quest for common ground