New design approaches to repurposing open educational resources for collaborative learning using mediating artefacts

In spite of high expectations and the support given by prestigious funding and educational institutions, Open Educational Resources (OER) have not been adopted widely by teachers and learners in practice. From a cultural historical activity theory perspective, we argue that Mediating Artefacts (MA) such as OER learning design visual representations and rich narrative pedagogical patterns may enable a more effective OER cycle of creation, design, use and evaluation. More specifically, two main arguments are analysed in this paper: first, that making the inherent design of OER more explicit will make them more understandable and hence reusable; second, that offering a small set of simple patterns will encourage new ways to interpret OER and inspire re-purposing in new challenging contexts. A series of successful workshops was carried out and qualitative data gathered which provide initial evidence that a set of CSCL pedagogical patterns were found very suitable in order to repurpose resources intended for individual use and adjust the focus to make them suit new collaborative learning contexts. Interpretation of the data will form the basis for further workshops that aim to extend the idea of using targeted mediating artefacts to guide the design and repurposing of OER

Collaborative peer feedback and learning analytics: theory-oriented design for supporting class-wide interventions

Although dialogue can augment the impact of feedback on student learning, dialogic feedback is unaffordable by instructors teaching large classes. In this regard, peer feedback can offer a scalable and effective solution. However, the existing practices optimistically rely on students' discussion about feedback and lack a systematic design approach. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework of collaborative peer feedback which structures feedback dialogue into three distinct phases and outlines the learning processes involved in each of them. Then, we present a web-based platform, called Synergy, which is designed to facilitate collaborative peer feedback as conceptualised in the theoretical framework. To enable instructor support and facilitation during the feedback practice, we propose a learning analytics support integrated into Synergy. The consolidated model of learning analytics, which concerns three critical pieces for creating impactful learning analytics practices, theory, design and data science, was employed to build the analytics support. The learning analytics support aims to guide instructors' class-wide actions toward improving students' learning experiences during the three phases of peer feedback. The actionable insights that the learning analytics support offers are discussed with examples

Hierarchy and Competition in CSCW applications: Model and case study

CSCW applications need to adapt themselves to the functional and organizational structures of people that use them. However they do not usually support division in groups with a certain hierarchical structure among them. In this paper, we propose and study a theoretical model of groupware appliations that reflects those hierarchical interactions. The proposed model is also intended to evaluate the effects in performance derived from competitive and collaborative relationships among the components of a hierarchy of groups. In order to demonstrate the above ideas, a groupware game, called Alymod, was designed and implemented using a modified version of a well-known CSCW Toolkit, namely Groupkit. Groupkit was modified in order to support group interactions in the same CSCW application. In Alymod, participants compete or collaborate within a hierarchical structure to achieve a common goal (completing gaps in a text, finishing numerical series, resolving University course examinations, etc.).Publicad

The added value of implementing the Planet Game scenario with Collage and Gridcole

This paper discusses the suitability and the added value of Collage and Gridcole when contrasted with other solutions participating in the ICALT 2006 workshop titled “Comparing educational modelling languages on a case study.” In this workshop each proposed solution was challenged to implement a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning situation (CSCL) posed by the workshop’s organizers. Collage is a pattern-based authoring tool for the creation of CSCL scripts compliant with IMS Learning Design (IMS LD). These IMS LD scripts can be enacted by the Gridcole tailorable CSCL system. The analysis presented in the paper is organized as a case study which considers the data recorded in the workshop discussion as well the information reported in the workshop contributions. The results of this analysis show how Collage and Gridcole succeed in implementing the scenario and also point out some significant advantages in terms of design reusability and generality, user-friendliness, and enactment flexibility

Classroom orchestration: synthesis

a b s t r a c t Orchestration is an approach to Technology Enhanced Learning that emphasizes attention to the challenges of classroom use of technology, with a particular focus on supporting teachers' roles. The present collection of papers on orchestration highlights broad agreement that classrooms are variable and complex and that teachers have an important role in adapting materials for use in their own classrooms. The synthesis also shows a difference of opinions in how useful "orchestration" is as a metaphor, the proper scope of issues to include when studying orchestration, and how to approach design. Despite the lack of consensus, orchestration is a timely and important shift of focus and all of the approaches merit further exploration. The field shows healthy self-criticism and debate, which is the hallmark of fields with the potential for great progress

Applying Recommendations to Align Competences, Methodology, and Assessment in Telematics, Computing, and Electronic Engineering Courses

The alignment between competences, teachinglearning methodologies, and assessment is a key element of European higher education. This paper presents the efforts carried out by six telematics, computer science and electronic engineering education teachers toward achieving this alignment in their subjects. In a joint work with pedagogues, a set of recommended actions are identified. A selection of these actions are applied and evaluated in the six subjects. The cross analysis of the results indicates that the actions allow students to better understand the methodologies and assessments planned for the subjects, facilitate (self-) regulation, and increase students’ involvement in the subjects

Progress-Oriented Workshops for Doctoral Well-being: Evidence From a Two-Country Design-Based Research

This paper explores an intervention approach (in the form of workshops) focusing on doctoral progress, to address the problems of low emotional well-being experienced by many doctoral candidates. Doctoral education suffers from two severe overlapping problems: high dropout rates and widespread low emotional well-being (e.g., depression or anxiety symptoms). Yet, there are few interventional approaches specifically designed to address them in the doctoral student population. Among structural, psychosocial, and demographic factors influencing these problems, the self-perception of progress has emerged recently as a crucial motivational factor in doctoral persistence. This paper reports on an iterative design-based research study of workshop interventions to foster such perception of progress in doctoral students? everyday practice. We gathered mixed data over four iterations, with a total of 82 doctoral students from multiple disciplines in Spain and Estonia. An approach to preventive interventions that combines research-backed education about mental health and productivity, peer sharing and discussion of experiences, and indicators of progress, as well as self-tracking, analysis, and reflection upon everyday evidence of their own progress. The paper provides initial evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed interventions, across two institutions in two different countries. Further, our data confirms emergent research on the relationships among progress, emotional well-being, and dropout ideation in two new contexts. Finally, the paper also distills design knowledge about doctoral interventions that focus on progress, relevant for doctoral trainers, institutions, and researchers.This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innova-tion programme under grant agreement No. 669074 (CEITER). It has also received funding from the European Union’s Erasmus Plus programme, grant agreement 2019-1-NO01-KA203-060280 (DE-TEL). The Universidad de Valladolid co-authors acknowledge funding of the European Regional Development Fund and the National Research Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innova-tion, and Universities, under project grant TIN2017-85179-C3-2-R (SmartLET), and PID2020-112584RB-C32, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Regional Government of Cas-tile and Leon, under project grant VA257P18

Creating collaborative groups in a MOOC: a homogeneous engagement grouping approach

Collaborative learning can improve the pedagogical effectiveness of MOOCs. Group formation, an essential step in the design of collaborative learning activities, can be challenging in MOOCs given the scale and the wide variety in such contexts. We discuss the need for considering the behaviours of the students in the course to form groups in MOOC contexts, and propose a grouping approach that employs homogeneity in terms of students? engagement in the course. Two grouping strategies with different degrees of homogeneity are derived from this approach, and their impact to form successful groups is examined in a real MOOC context. The grouping criteria were established using student activity logs (e.g. page-views). The role of the timing of grouping was also examined by carrying out the intervention once in the first and once in the second half of the course. The results indicate that in both interventions, the groups formed with a greater degree of homogeneity had higher rates of task-completion and peer interactions, Additionally, students from these groups reported higher levels of satisfaction with their group experiences. On the other hand, a consistent improvement of all indicators was observed in the second intervention, since student engagement becomes more stable later in the course

Generating actionable predictions regarding MOOC learners' engagement in peer reviews

Peer review is one approach to facilitate formative feedback exchange in MOOCs; however, it is often undermined by low participation. To support effective implementation of peer reviews in MOOCs, this research work proposes several predictive models to accurately classify learners according to their expected engagement levels in an upcoming peer-review activity, which offers various pedagogical utilities (e.g. improving peer reviews and collaborative learning activities). Two approaches were used for training the models: in situ learning (in which an engagement indicator available at the time of the predictions is used as a proxy label to train a model within the same course) and transfer across courses (in which a model is trained using labels obtained from past course data). These techniques allowed producing predictions that are actionable by the instructor while the course still continues, which is not possible with post-hoc approaches requiring the use of true labels. According to the results, both transfer across courses and in situ learning approaches have produced predictions that were actionable yet as accurate as those obtained with cross validation, suggesting that they deserve further attention to create impact in MOOCs with real-world interventions. Potential pedagogical uses of the predictions were illustrated with several examples