Using Blogs to Foster Inquiry, Collaboration, and Feedback in Pre-Service Teacher Education

This chapter presents a critical case study on the use of information technology in a pre-service teacher education program. The authors integrated Weblogs (blogs) into two constructivist-oriented teacher preparation courses with the goal of helping students learn to think like a teacher through enhanced inquiry, collaboration, and feedback. The authors found that, through the use of blogs, pre-service teaching candidates grew in their abilities to reflect on their own teaching and to provide constructive comments to peers. The authors’ experience also indicated that while instructor and peer feedback via blogs was valuable, it functioned best when paired with face-to-face meetings between the instructors and students. They discussed design principles for combining online and face-to-face environments and offer possibilities for the expanded use of blogs in pre-service teacher education

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

Gaining from Training?: Designing an Online Training Module for University of Hawai‘i-West O‘ahu Peer-Tutors

The No‘eau Center, a learning center at the University of Hawai‘i-West O‘ahu (UHWO), provides supplemental support services to UHWO students through peer tutoring. In order to offer this service, the No‘eau Center hires UHWO undergraduate students and prepares them for tutoring through a rigorous training program. Following the guidelines of the International Tutor Training Program Certification (ITTPC) provided by the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA), the center is qualified to provide Level 1 tutor training, which focuses on foundational tutoring elements for peer tutors. Having completed the requirements of Level 1 training, returning peer tutors have expressed a desire to broaden their tutoring abilities. In order to obtain Level-2 ITTPC certification from the CRLA, the No‘eau Center is required to provide training on ways to enhance the learning environment of a tutoring session. The purpose of this project was to create and evaluate an online tutor-training module to educate peer tutors on ways to structure and modify the learning environment of a tutoring session. The module was created using Google Sites, a free web development platform, as well as a combination of tools including: Google Docs, Google Forms, and YouTube. A constructivist design approached blended with anchored instruction were integrated into the design. This study involved a total of 11 participants ranging in ages from 18 to 26. All data collected from the project was analyzed and reported through the use of statistical and descriptive analysis. The results of the data suggest that after completing the online tutor training module, participants’ knowledge on tutoring strategies increased

Designing Asynchronous Online Discussion Environments: Recent Progress and Possible Future Directions

Asynchronous online discussion environments are important platforms to support learning. Research suggests, however, threaded forums, one of the most popular asynchronous discussion environments, do not often foster productive online discussions naturally. This paper explores how certain properties of threaded forums have affected or constrained the quality of discussions, and argues that developing alternative discussion environments is highly needed to offer better support for asynchronous online communication. Using the Productive Discussion Model developed by Gao, Wang & Sun (2009), we analyzed current work on four types of asynchronous discussion environments that have been developed and researched: constrained environments, visualized environments, anchored environments and combined environments. The paper has implications for developing future asynchronous discussion environments. More specifically, future work should aim at (a) exploring new environments that support varied goals of learning; (b) integrating emerging technologies to address the constraints of current environments; (c) designing multi-functional environments to facilitate complex learning, and (d) developing appropriate instructional activities and strategies for these environments

A Tool to Support Students-to-Teacher Feedback in Asynchronous Online Contexts

In recent years, the world of education has become increasingly Hybrid (online / on location) and Flexible (synchronous / asynchronous). One of the risks of these mixed environments is the distance between teacher and students that can make interaction, a crucial component of the teaching / learning process, more difficult. This paper introduces Evoli, a tool to support the “HyFlex model”; more specifically, the component dealing with online / asynchronous mode. Evoli enables teachers to receive precise, time-stamped feedback by their students on educational materials (typically videos). Students go through the materials and express their level of understanding as well as their questions and comments. Dashboards with the students' data allow the teacher to know, topic by topic, what is clear and what is not and thus how to organize the synchronous sessions. The tool was evaluated in a real-life setting, involving 63 graduate students in a course on Plasma Physics. The students filled in a System Usability Scale questionnaire and some questions regarding the perceived usefulness of the tool; the teacher's opinion was gathered via a semi-structured interview. Results show that students found the tool both usable and useful; the teacher's opinion was that the tool allowed prompting more reactions than a normal setting and an optimization of teaching organization

Creativity in Asynchronous Online Discussions

It is vital for online educators to know whether the strategies they use help students gain 21st-century skills. One skill that has been identified as important in the 21st century is creativity; however, a gap existed in the literature concerning whether online courses could help students to develop creativity. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether participation in online courses can help students develop creativity using asynchronous online discussions, textbooks, and teacher developed materials. Amabile\u27s componential model of creativity formed the study\u27s conceptual framework. A case-study approach was used to examine the question of whether asynchronous online discussions and other materials used in online courses could help students develop creativity. One professor, recognized by her peers for her expertise in online education, and three of her online graduate students who volunteered for the study, were interviewed using Zoom. Twenty-nine transcripts of asynchronous online discussions were analyzed using a sequential process of building an explanation, checking the explanation against the data, and repeating the process. Key results from the study indicated that project-based prompts, problem-based prompts, and heuristics used in asynchronous online discussions can help promote creativity. Recommendations for future research include conducting a similar case study with a more diverse group of participants and with a course in a different specialty. These findings may promote social change by helping online instructors use appropriate prompts for asynchronous online discussions that will help students refine their creative skills to ultimately use them in the 21st-century workplace

Semi-Automated & Collaborative Online Training Module For Improving Communication Skills

This paper presents a description and evaluation of the ROC Speak system, a platform that allows ubiquitous access to communication skills training. ROC Speak (available at rocspeak.com) enables anyone to go to a website, record a video, and receive feedback on smile intensity, body movement, volume modulation, filler word usage, unique word usage, word cloud of the spoken words, in addition to overall assessment and subjective comments by peers. Peer comments are automatically ranked and sorted for usefulness and sentiment (i.e., positive vs. negative). We evaluated the system with a diverse group of 56 online participants for a 10-day period. Participants submitted responses to career oriented prompts every other day. The participants were randomly split into two groups: 1) treatment - full feedback from the ROC Speak system; 2) control - written feedback from online peers. When judged by peers (p<.001) and independent raters (p<.05), participants from the treatment group demonstrated statistically significant improvement in overall speaking skills rating while the control group did not. Furthermore, in terms of speaking attributes, treatment group showed an improvement in friendliness (p<.001), vocal variety (p<.05) and articulation (p<.01)

Mediating epistemological access through asynchronous online discussion forums during the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for re-imagining online collaborative self-directed peer engagement and learning

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the burgeoning of online learning and asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education due to restrictions on face-to-face teaching and learning interactions. Previous research on asynchronous online discussion forums focused on the processes that enhance or limit discussion threads and how discussion posts develop students’ reflection and critical thinking skills. Although asynchronous online discussion forums are regarded as spaces for interactive learning, very little is known about how they facilitate epistemological access and enable collaborative peer learning interactions during periods of disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study explores voluntary asynchronous online discussion forum participation in a non-credit bearing course from a unique angle of mediating epistemological access to online learning. This study draws on connectivist theory as a theoretical framework in a digital age where the student is in control of engagement interaction and information exchange. The central research question posed is how does an asynchronous online discussion forum mediate epistemological access to online learning and facilitate collaborative self-directed peer learning during the COVID-19 pandemic? The present study is underpinned by an inductive qualitative exploratory case study approach. A total of 2&nbsp;146 discussion posts from 1&nbsp;348 students across five faculties were downloaded from the learning management system and analysed using thematic analysis. This study indicates that epistemological access using a technology-mediated tool, is best facilitated through agency at the institutional, the instructor and the student level. The findings show that despite academic and technological challenges an online discussion forum enables epistemological access, interactive exchange of information and the formation of collaborative peer learning communities. In an age of digital inequalities, this study provides a starting point to uncover ontological barriers to epistemological access to online learning and signals the importance of integrating epistemological access, pedagogy and technology. This article concludes with implications for re-imagining the design of online multi-modal pedagogy to mediate online collaborative self-directed peer engagement and learning

Semi-Automated & Collaborative Online Training Module For Improving Communication Skills

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ACM via the DOI in this recordThis paper presents a description and evaluation of the ROC Speak system, a platform that allows ubiquitous access to communication skills training. ROC Speak (available at rocspeak.com) enables anyone to go to a website, record a video, and receive feedback on smile intensity, body movement, volume modulation, filler word usage, unique word usage, word cloud of the spoken words, in addition to overall assessment and subjective comments by peers. Peer comments are automatically ranked and sorted for usefulness and sentiment (i.e., positive vs. negative). We evaluated the system with a diverse group of 56 online participants for a 10-day period. Participants submitted responses to career oriented prompts every other day. The participants were randomly split into two groups: 1) treatment - full feedback from the ROC Speak system; 2) control - written feedback from online peers. When judged by peers (p<.001) and independent raters (p<.05), participants from the treatment group demonstrated statistically significant improvement in overall speaking skills rating while the control group did not. Furthermore, in terms of speaking attributes, treatment group showed an improvement in friendliness (p<.001), vocal variety (p<.05) and articulation (p<.01)