Technology-enhanced Personalised Learning: Untangling the Evidence

Technology-enhanced personalised learning is not yet common in Germany, which is why we have tasked scientists with summarising the current status of international research on the matter. This study demonstrates the great potential of technology in implementing effective personalised learning. Nevertheless, it has not been assessed yet whether the practical implementation actually works: Even in countries such as the U.S., which lead the way in using techology in classroom settings, hardly any evaluation studies have been done to prove the effectiveness of technology-enhanced personalised learning. In the light of the above, the authors make recommendations for actions to be taken in Germany to make best use of the potential of technology in providing individual support and guidance to students

From design to narrative: the development of inquiry-based learning models

The University of Nottingham and the Open University are partners in a ca. £1.2m project to help school students learn the skills of modern science. The three-year project, Personal Inquiry (PI) (funded by the UK ESRC and EPSRC research councils), is developing a new approach of 'scripted inquiry learning', where children investigate a science topic with classmates by carrying out explorations between their classroom, homes and discovery centres, guided by a personal computer. This paper describes our progress to date on the development of four models for inquiry-based learning, as part of the PI project. These are being used as the basis for the development of educational scenarios and associated scripts to explore the use of mobile technologies in supporting an inquiry-based approach to teaching Scientific thinking across formal and informal learning

Personal Inquiry: lessons learned

The paper describes a school trial carried out to support inquiry learning between formal and informal settings supported by personal mobile technology. The aim of the school trial was to explore how a first version of the PI Toolkit facilitates secondary school students in performing a personally relevant scientific inquiry both in a science classroom as well as at home. An analysis of classroom video and interviews has resulted in a set of incidents from which we have derived design guidelines and challenges for implementing technology-supported inquiry learning where personal technology is used and within which personally relevant investigations are conducted by students

Learning 21st century science in context with mobile technologies

The paper describes a project to support personal inquiry learning with handheld and desktop technology between formal and informal settings. It presents a trial of the technology and learning across a school classroom, sports hall, and library. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract initial recommendations for the design of mobile technology to link inquiry learning across different contexts. A critical incident analysis was carried out to identify learning breakdowns and breakthroughs that led to design implications. The main findings are the opportunities that a combination of mobile and fixed technology bring to: manage the formation of groups, display live visualisations of student and teacher data on a shared screen to facilitate motivation and personal relevance, incorporate broader technical support, provide context-specific guidance on the sequence, reasons and aims of learning activities, offer opportunities to micro-sites for reflection and learning in the field, to explicitly support appropriation of data within inquiry and show the relation between specific activities and the general inquiry process

Stakeholder Perspectives on the Ethics of AI in Distance-Based Higher Education

Increasingly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having an impact on distance-based higher education, where it is revealing multiple ethical issues. However, to date, there has been limited research addressing the perspectives of key stakeholders about these developments. The study presented in this paper sought to address this gap by investigating the perspectives of three key groups of stakeholders in distance-based higher education: students, teachers, and institutions. Empirical data collected in two workshops and a survey helped identify what concerns these stakeholders had about the ethics of AI in distance-based higher education. A theoretical framework for the ethics of AI in education was used to analyse that data and helped identify what was missing. In this exploratory study, there was no attempt to prioritise issues as more, or less, important. Instead, the value of the study reported in this paper derives from (a) the breadth and detail of the issues that have been identified, and (b) their categorisation in a unifying framework. Together these provide a foundation for future research and may also usefully inform future institutional implementation and practice

nQuire: technological support for personal inquiry learning

This paper describes the development of nQuire, a software application to guide personal inquiry learning. nQuire provides teacher support for authoring, orchestrating and monitoring inquiries as well as student support for carrying out, configuring and reviewing inquiries. nQuire allows inquiries to be scripted and configured in various ways, so that personally relevant, rather than off-the-shelf inquiries, can be created and used by teachers and students. nQuire incorporates an approach to specifying learning flow that provides flexible access to current inquiry activities without precluding access to other activities for review and orientation. Dependencies between activities are automatically handled, ensuring decisions made by the student or teacher are propagated through the inquiry. nQuire can be used to support inquiry activities across individual, group and class levels at different parts of the inquiry and offers a flexible, web-based approach that can incorporate different devices (smart phone, netbook, PC) and does not rely on constant connectivity

Learning design Rashomon I – supporting the design of one lesson through different approaches

This paper presents and compares a variety of approaches that have been developed to guide the decision-making process in learning design. Together with the companion Learning Design Rashomon II (Prieto et al., 2013), devoted to existing tools to support the same process, it aims to provide a view on relevant research 20 results in this field. The common thread followed in these two contributions is inspired by Kurosawa’s Rashomon film, which takes multiple perspectives on the same action. Similarly, in this paper, Rashomon I, a lesson on ‘‘Healthy Eating’’ is analysed according to five different approaches, while the Rashomon II paper is used to exemplify the affordances of different tools. For this reason, this paper does not follow the conventional structure of research papers (research question, method, results and discussion), but rather it moves from an introduction providing the rationale for the paper, to a description of the five different approaches to learning design (the 4SPPIces Model, the 4Ts, the e-Design Template, the Design Principles Database and the Design Narrative) and then to a discussion of their 30 similarities and differences to inform the choice of potential users

Investigating multimodal interactions for the design of learning environments: a case study in science learning

This thesis focuses on multimodal interactions for the design of a learning environment. The process of designing such systems involves studying the benefits of multimodal interactions in learning. Therefore, it analyses the structure of the interactive space between the learner and the content to be learnt, and introduces and tests a framework to structure it. It proposes that multimodal interactions can encourage rhythmic cycles of engagement and reflection that enhance learners’ meaning construction in science concepts, such as ‘forces and motion’. The framework was the outcome of an iterative process of analysis and synthesis between existing theories and three studies with learners of different ages. Through these theory-informed studies, the significance of physical manipulation of objects and symbols through the employment of multiple modalities was emphasised as a way to facilitate learners’ meaning construction, engagement and reflection

Designing orchestration for inquiry learning

About the book: There is currently a rapidly growing interest in inquiry learning and an emerging consensus among researchers that, particularly when supported by technology, it can be a significant vehicle for developing higher order thinking skills. Inquiry learning methods also offer learners meaningful and productive approaches to the development of their knowledge of the world, yet such methods can present significant challenges for teachers and students. Orchestrating Inquiry Learning addresses the key challenge of how to resource and support processes of inquiry learning within and beyond the classroom. It argues that technological support, when coupled with appropriate design of activities and management of the learning environment, can enable inquiry learning experiences that are engaging, authentic and personally relevant. This edited collection of carefully integrated chapters brings together, for the first time; work on inquiry learning and orchestration of learning. Drawing upon a broad range of theoretical perspectives, this book examines: • Orchestration of inquiry learning and instruction • Trajectories of inquiry learning • Designing for inquiry learning • Scripting personal inquiry • Collaborative and collective inquiry learning • Assessment of inquiry learning • Inquiry learning in formal and semi-formal educational contexts Orchestrating Inquiry Learning is essential reading for all those concerned with understanding and promoting effective inquiry learning. The book is aimed at an international audience of researchers, post-graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in education, educational technology and psychology. It will also be of interest to educational practitioners and policy makers, including teachers, educational advisors, teacher-students and their trainers

Transformative approaches in distance online education: aligning evidence to influence the design of teaching at scale

In this paper we consider the role of sharing evidence online in work in progress to develop a new teaching framework for distance and part-time students of The Open University. The work reported here looks at the motivation for applying evidence and how it can act to support the development of the framework, rather than the framework itself. The approach described is adapted from previous research projects, and focuses on how evidence from internal and external scholarship is gathered and refined through an Evidence Hub that is shared online and open to all in the University. An aspect of the framework (offering greater continuity of study) is selected to show how the methodology applies in practice. In conclusion we highlight the value in adopting evidence-based approaches to support change processes and how sharing collective knowledge can influence decision-making